Memories flow as George Wendt gets a street named in his honor

George Wendt was a child of Beverly, that tightly-knit, leafy neighborhood on the South Side where he was celebrated Sunday. He was also a product of Old Town, that equally lovely but more frenetic neighborhood where he lived for a time and enlivened the stage of the Second City, where he was celebrated Monday.

Wendt died May 20 in Los Angeles, where he had lived since 1980 with his wife, Bernadette Birkett, whom he had met at the Second City. He was 76 years old. Cardiac arrest was the cause. Newspapers and TV headlines blared the sad news.

And so, in from a wicked rain they came, hundreds of people packing the pews for an 11 a.m. Sunday mass at Christ the King Catholic Church, long the Wendt family parish. Many entered to the song “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” which was the them