Chicago murals: Italian American athletes grace sports Hall of Fame painting in Dunning

The wall of a North Harlem Avenue building in Dunning inspired Ron Onesti as he searched for a new home for the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame — and for a large canvas to promote American athletes of Italian descent.

“One of the reasons I bought that building was because of that wall,” says Onesti, president of the Hall of Fame. “That open space was very exciting to have.”

The Hall of Fame, which had been in Little Italy, won't open in its new home until fall 2025, Onesti says. But the faces of former Cub Anthony Rizzo, former Blackhawk Tony Esposito and 11 others already gaze out from the north-facing wall at 3417 N. Harlem Ave.

The mural was painted by Chicago artist Laurynas Buzinskas, who took Onesti’s vision and translated it into a mural that can evolve as more Italian American athletes are added. The others on the mural include boxers Rocky Marciano and Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, baseball's Joe DiMaggio and Tommy Lasorda, gymnast Mary Lou Retton, race car driver Mario Andretti, Paralympics athlete Linda Mastandrea, football's Franco Harris, Vince Lombardi and Dan Marino and hockey's Mike Eruzione.

Onesti says he expects images of women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark and Olympic swimmer Matt Biondi to be added someday. The main qualifications are that the person be a retired professional athlete or in the sports business — and of Italian American descent. But there's room for discretion. Rizzo isn't retired yet.

“The idea was for it to be a living, breathing building,” Onesti says. “By putting those legends and icons on the building, the idea was to wrap it in an embrace of greatness.”

The National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame started in the Little Italy neighborhood in 1977 as the Italian American Boxing Hall of Fame and a way to raise money for a Catholic kids program, according to the museum website. The founder, George Randazzo, collected photos and memorabilia and hosted a fundraising dinner featuring 23 former Italian-American boxing world champions.

The effort was such a success that local Italian-Americans encouraged Randazzo to expand his Hall of Fame to include all Italian American athletes. The National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame was born a year later.

But in recent years the Little Italy neighborhood on the Near West Side has become more gentrified and diverse, and is not the predominantly Italian American neighborhood that it was generations ago, Onesti says. Many of the businesses have relocated to and around Harlem Avenue in Dunning, on the Northwest Side. Onesti and other Italian-American business owners are working with city officials to rebrand a two-mile stretch of Harlem Avenue as a new Little Italy.

Those forces led to the Hall of Fame’s move from West Taylor Street to North Harlem Avenue, which has been in the works since 2019, Onesti says.

Working with the Hall of Fame over 40 years, he has met many of the inductees, he says.

“The exhibits are not going to be as much about stats as about lessons,” he says. “It’s really about greatness and bringing pride to our heritage.”