A boat travels along the Chicago River on Avondale's eastern border. View Full Caption Avondale and Chicago’s Polish Village

AVONDALE — A new book illustrating Avondale’s history and roots was released this week and will be followed by a release party this weekend.

“Avondale and Chicago’s Polish Village” was published Monday by Arcadia Publishing, but authors of the book will celebrate with the community Sunday at Avondale’s Podlasie Club, 2918 N. Central Park Ave.

The book was written by four community leaders and historians — Jacob Kaplan, Daniel Pogorzelski, Rob Reid and Elisa Addlesperger — and Dominic Pacyga, who wrote the foreword, Pogorzelski said. The project took about a year and a half.

"Avondale is often cast as the neighborhood that built Chicago — the Polish heart of Chicago. We wanted to weave all those interesting tangents, all of the interesting figures who were tied to this neighborhood, and highlight its history,” he said.

From its beginnings as a sleepy subdivision started by a Michigan senator, Avondale became a cultural mecca for Chicago’s Polish community, playing a crucial role in Poland’s struggles for independence, according to the book.

The book details a long history of diverse populations in the traditionally working-class neighborhood, including Scottish proprietors, African-American freedmen, Irish activists, Swedish shopkeepers, German tradesmen, Jewish merchants, Filipino laborers and Italian entrepreneurs.

“We all collaborated on many different aspects of the book,” Pogorzelski said. “We worked like a well-oiled machine toward our goal.”

That work will culminate is a release party Sunday where “unsung heroes” of the neighborhood will be honored, including Leopold Tyrmand, a popular Polish-Jewish novelist, writer and editor whose son will be in attendance as a tribute to the family legacy.

Learn about the neighborhood, not only through notable immigrants and proletarians, organizers said, but also figures such as street photographer Vivian Maier, President George H.W. Bush, Lech Kaczyński, Hillary Clinton, and Pope John Paul II, as well as Wayne Campbell & Garth Algar from the film "Wayne's World."

The release party will feature brews on tap, music and books for sale.

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