Former Ald. Mary Ann Smith’s fingerprints are all over the 48th Ward.
From overseeing the creation of the city’s first traffic circles, speed humps and bike lanes to planting dozens of new trees along Broadway Street in Edgewater and ushering in new bike lanes, she was all-in on environmentally-friendly beautification and making her ward more livable.
She served on the Chicago City Council from 1989 to 2011. The 48th Ward includes parts of the Edgewater, Andersonville and Uptown.
“She was always sending me New York Times stories about great ideas other cities from around the country and world were doing,” said her friend Thom Greene, an architect and friend.
“We had an experimental ward,” said Bob Remer, former president of the Edgewater Historical Society. “And the former mayor (Richard M. Daley), who was known for his beautification efforts, embraced it and he sent her to urban planning conferences to represent the city.”
Mrs. Smith always had two or three dogs and two or three cats, and promoted dog walking as a vital part of community safety.
“Dog walkers are a neighborhood’s eyes and ears,” said Mike Volini, a longtime friend whose mother, Marion Volini, also served as 48th Ward alderperson. “She had dogs in her aldermanic office all day.”
Mrs. Smith died July 31 from complications from Parkinson’s disease. She was 77.
One of Mrs. Smith’s favorite stories to tell was how she got arrested in 1993, along with her son and two other friends, for painting over a number of advertising benches that were placed in her ward against the will of the community. The case was later dismissed.
In the early 1980s, dismayed at the city’s infrequent testing for high bacteria levels that could pose a threat to swimmers at city beaches, Mrs. Smith teamed with Kathy Osterman (who later became alderperson before Smith took her City Council seat) and Tom Murphy, a DePaul University chemistry professor who lived in the neighborhood, to test the water themselves.
They recruited local boaters and fishermen in their effort to collect water samples and report illegal dumping.
“They eventually got the city to test water more regularly; it was quite an amazing citizen’s initiative,” Remer said.
Mrs. Smith’s son Matt, a couples therapist, pointed to his mother’s hand in the creation of a park featuring an Abraham Lincoln statue that’s next to Senn High School as an example of how she viewed the importance of public gathering spaces.
“That had been a troubled area, and when you beautify a space like that, you don’t just make it pretty, you draw people into safe spaces where there’s stuff to do and you can lose track of time and live life. And people who are creeps, they kind of stay away from it and there’s less crime because it’s a well-lit, populated space,” he said. “It was about a lot more than just upping property values.”
In 1991, during heightened fears and paranoia surrounding the country’s AIDS epidemic, Mrs. Smith hired Greg Harris, who was openly gay and HIV-positive, as her chief of staff.
“She thought it was important that the gay community, which was a significant community in her ward, had representation on her staff,” said Harris. “It was a big statement at the time, and that’s how she led. She didn’t make flashy appearances, she led by example and she leaned into science and shared real information about the disease.”
Mrs. Smith, who helped create affordable housing for people with HIV/AIDS, was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1997.
“She created that housing, as well as affordable housing for immigrants and refugees, in the spirit of inclusion and diversity over NIMBYism. She felt, ‘We can’t turn our back on our neighbors,’ ” Harris said.
Mrs. Smith also helped create three federally recognized historic districts in her ward to help preserve the character of its neighborhoods.
Mrs. Smith served as Osterman’s chief of staff in the 48th Ward aldermanic office before Mayor Daley appointed Mrs. Smith to fill the seat when Osterman left to head up the city’s special events department. Mrs. Smith was subsequently elected to office five times.
Mrs. Smith was the third consecutive woman to hold the aldermanic seat. Prior to Osterman, Marion Volini held it from 1978 to 1987.
“Her and my mom were dear friends,” said Osterman’s son, Harry Osterman, who himself served as alderperson for the 48th Ward after Mrs. Smith left office.
Mrs. Smith, a longtime member of the St. Ita parish, was “not someone who strove to be a politician, she was basically a steward and public official, but she led a renaissance in the ward, in everything from schools to parks,” he said.
“I remember being very jealous of one of her parks in her ward and the expansion of it and thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is what I need for Lakeview and the lakefront,’ ” recalled former 44th Ward Ald. Tom Tunney.
Mrs. Smith was born Nov. 2, 1946, in Chicago to Virginia and Harold Scherer. She was a homemaker and he was a tool and die machinist.
She grew up mostly on the Northwest Side and attended Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. She attended the College of Saint Teresa from 1964 to 1967 and graduated from Mundelein College in 1985.
Her late husband, Ron Smith, was a longtime professor at John Marshall Law School. The couple met when he unsuccessfully ran for state senate in 1971 and she worked as a volunteer on his campaign.
In addition to her son, Matt, she is survived by another son, Michael.
A funeral service will be held at St. Ita church Aug. 23 at noon.