Showplace of Chicago

Kitty Stertz's rooming house was a made-over mansion on the edge of Chica go's ritzy Gold Coast; from the sidewalk it had a deceptive air of faded elegance.

Inside, the elegance had long ago faded out of sight. It was badly furnished and amazingly overcrowded. Landlady Stertz was a greedy, bulky, granite-faced woman who, on hot Chicago nights, would snooze sweatily naked on the parlor couch.

When 20-year-old Betty Ackerman, a waitress from Menominee, Mich, arrived there Last June, she paid Mrs. Stertz $7.50 a week for a small room which she snared with two girls. Later, she was moved to a room with two other girls, had her rent hiked to $8.50. Betty kept mum until Mrs. Stertz moved her to a third room.

The "room" turned out to be a 6-by-9-ft. corner of the basement, which Mrs.

Stertz had partitioned off with sleazy grey curtains. The tentlike affair had no win dow, no closet and no furniture but a cot, a straight chair and a rickety table. It cost $6 a week. Betty shared a dirty bathroom with the janitor and six other girls.

The grey curtains could not be pulled together; anyone passing could peer through. Betty's bed linen was changed every five weeks -- on request. The janitor slept on a mattress, 25 feet away, and had a habit of washing rugs in the bathtub.

Betty had complained to the OP A but somehow the OPA never got around to doing anything. Last week, boiling with rage at her landlady and the OPA both, she called the Chicago Tribune, told her story. A cameraman turned up to photo graph the basement.

The resulting story set Mrs. Stertz --and Chicago -- on its ear. Hurriedly, Land lady Stertz dragged Betty's bed out of the tent, punched a Her aid-American photographer in the nose, set her brother to giving other newsmen the bum's rush. Fire Department and Health Department officials arrived. So, belatedly, did the embarrassed OPA. Cried Mrs. Stertz: "My base ment is the showplace of Chicago." Betty became a newspaper heroine. The Allied Florists Association sent her flowers, and 25 people offered her better places to stay. But Betty, who had her bed back, decided to stick it out until the OPA brought Mrs. Stertz into line.

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