In keeping with the celebration of Pekin’s 200-year birthday, we bring you a little-known story of one Pekinite’s endeavors, whose main street activities are not well known.

Beginning as a coal miner, one man operated businesses that mapped the progression of society and the use of the automobile. Orfeo (Shorty) Gianessi didn’t want to keep going into the coal mines and with his mother’s help started a grocery store where The Crawfish Buffet Bar was later located at Capital and Margaret Street downtown. There was a dance hall on the second floor and when it was in full swing, the bunches of bananas hanging from the grocery ceiling nearly hit the floor with the bouncing. Later Shorty teamed up with J. Norman Shade, the former mayor, and housed a grocery store in the same building as Shade’s Real Estate office in Normandale. This was called The 3 G’s ( Gianessi’s Gas & Groceries ) and was located where Brownie’s Market stood for many years and was later a florist on Rt. 29. It had a Spanish motif as Shorty enjoyed vacationing in Mexico. Back then you could drive 90 miles an hour and get there and back again pretty quickly. The building that later became the Sadlers Beauty Salon on N. 8th St. was built by Shorty for another of his grocery stores. 

The Windsor Hotel at 4th and Margaret downtown was acquired and later sold by Shorty and was later owned by the same nephew who used to shine shoes there as a boy. That was Bruno Gianessi who in later years retired from the role of executive director of the Pekin Housing Authority. In that same 300 block of Margaret Street Shorty also built and owned a small strip of buildings next to what was previously the Isolina restaurant and later became The Central House. He housed a new office for real estate called The D and L Real Estate office in that strip  downtown. 

Further from downtown was Shorty’s Radio City Tap on Rt. 29 where McDonalds sits in North Pekin today. This was purchased by Shorty’s niece and she and her husband were the first to bring pizza to Central Illinois.

In town was Shorty’s final construction project, The N. 8th Street Plaza. This property still stands today and is a “jewel in the rough.”  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. While the widening of N. 8th Street has taken a toll on the front door parking of the plaza, the owner, Shorty’s grandson, has plans for resurrecting this property to adhere to the City of Pekin’s objective of “beautifying N. 8th Street.” Planned are a larger parking lot, walking promenade, sitting benches, low-profile raised beds of fragrant flowers, roadside dining, and piped music. 

Many Pekin businesses began in this plaza and expanded to relocate in Pekin. The newest tenant is Prudential Advisors. It is located in the same unit as was built by Shorty, with the help of his then new son-in-law, an architect previously for the State of Illinois’ Parks Department and later for Caterpillar, for Prudential Insurance back in 1962. That office has framed blueprints of the architect’s work including his designs for CAT buildings in the 4 corners of the globe. There are a couple of historic architectural elements in the Prudential Advisors office. Some of the bookcases were in the original Pekin Carnegie Library built in 1902 as was a library table previously painted black and since stripped and restored to the lovely wood grains by Shorty’s daughter. 

Watch for progress at the N. 8th Street Plaza and if you are interested in becoming a part of the N. 8th Street Plaza family, look for our ad in this issue.