CBA Record July-August 2024

John with his younger brother Carmen— always playing baseball!

John on Bar Admission Day in 1987 with his grandmother Angie, family friend Dee, grandfather Carmie, and mother Rosemarie.

J ohn C. Sciaccotta gets the “big picture.” His plans are designed to build the organization not just in his year but also in the years to come. He wants to leave a mark on the profession as well as on the City of Chicago and beyond, as evi denced in his plan to create The Chicago Bar Association National Legal History Museum & Educational Center, the first of its kind in Illinois and the first undertaken by a local bar association. “I’ve always had an interest in history and have served on several museum boards, including the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago,” Sciaccotta said. “There’s an ice cream museum and a pizza museum. But a national legal his tory museum would educate people on what’s important in the profession of law, particularly now, with the near-constant attacks on the rule of law.” Family Background Sciaccotta was the first in his family to attend college and then the first to go to law school. His relatives, particularly his grandfa ther, Carmen F. Amodeo (“Papi”), thought he would carry on the family restaurant business in Chicago — Papa Milano’s, a Gold Coast staple for many decades among many Chicagoans. Who hasn’t tasted that secret Italian recipe for pizza brought straight from Sciaccotta’s roots in Naples and Sicily? Sciaccotta’s family was the very first Chicago restaurant to offer pizza on the menu in 1924 and is celebrating its 100-year anniversary this year. Granata’s Pizzeria Napoletana, then located at 907 W. Taylor Street, opened 100 years ago, and was operated by his maternal great-uncle, Tom Granato. For decades, people from all walks of life walked through those doors at State and Oak and State and Division Streets — from U.S. Presidents to Bob Hope, Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno, and

many star athletes – did John tell you he’s met Michael Jordan, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Ron Santo? “It was great fun and a wonderful experience to be around the restaurant. My Papi, Grandma, and mother Rosemarie would introduce me to famous people, and it was there I gained the confidence to talk to every one. I realized much later in life that my Papi, Grandma and Mom were trying to teach me that. It has had an impact on me to this day,” Sciaccotta recalls. After four generations, Sciaccotta’s mother retired; the family closed the business in 2007, and the familiar and iconic neon red and white sign was torn down to make way for another high rise in that valuable location. Sciaccotta had other plans in mind besides operating a restau rant, much to his much-loved grandfather’s disappointment, but it was Papi who fortuitously introduced his grandson to the law. Papi went to Traffic Court at 321 N. LaSalle St. for a friend and took his five-year-old grandson John in tow. When Sciaccotta saw the high ceilings, the wood-paneled walls, the lawyers presenting their cases, the judge making his rulings, and the majesty of the courtroom, he announced at that young age to Papi, “I’m going to be a lawyer when I grow up.” And he never deviated from that plan. “My Papi attended my law school graduation, and he told me, ‘You said at five years old that you were going to do it, and you did it.’ My family had always stressed education, and they wanted me to be educated and to do whatever I wanted to do. This was in part because they were not formally educated and knew the difficulties and challenges that they experienced. They wanted a better life for their grandchildren,” Sciaccotta said. He takes great pride in his Roman Catholic roots, having attended a parochial school (St. Giles Grammar School) and

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