LINCOLN PARK — Throughout his years as a community organizer in Lincoln Park, small, everyday moments often revealed Allan Mellis’ instinct to get involved and make things better.
One of those moments started when he discovered the local library didn’t have any books about spiders.
“Our son had to do a report on arachnids, so we went to the library and they had nothing about spiders,” said Linda Mellis, Allan’s wife. “So Allan said, ‘We’ve got to do something about this.’”
As he often did — Allan Mellis did something about it.
What began as a trip to help his son with his homework turned into a yearslong campaign to overhaul the neighborhood’s library, from organizing residents and raising money to helping secure funding and shape plans for a new, modern facility.
“Anybody who uses that library should thank Allan Mellis for the fact that it’s there,” said Peter Coffey, associate vice president of community and government relations at DePaul University. “I think the city should name that branch after him.”
Mellis died Sunday at Illinois Masonic Medical Center from complications of a stroke suffered five years ago. He was 81. He is survived by his wife, Linda Mellis, as well as their two sons and three grandchildren.
The Lincoln Park library save is just one example of the passion projects Mellis took up in Lincoln Park.
Allan Mellis (right) speaks with CTA board members the Rev. Johnny Miller and Kevin Irvine before a 2017 budget hearing, where he advocated for improved service on the No. 11 Lincoln bus. Credit: Ted Cox/DNA Info
Mellis — affectionately nicknamed the “mayor of Lincoln Park” — spent more than 50 years shaping the neighborhood, pushing for development that balanced growth with community needs, pressing institutions like DePaul to work more closely with residents and helping build one of the area’s most influential neighborhood organizations.
Mellis’ death marks the end of an era for Lincoln Park, where his influence can still be seen in everything from the library to the way major developments are negotiated.
From New York To Lincoln Park
Mellis was born in 1944 in New York City and moved to Chicago some 30 years later to work for IBM. He grew up in Queens and studied mathematics at the State University of New York at Buffalo before earning a master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University.
Mellis spent 25 years at IBM, where colleagues credited him with helping launch the company’s desktop publishing division.
Mellis bought a home in Lincoln Park at a time when living west of Halsted Street was “a little bit riskier,” Linda Mellis said. The two met at a party in Chicago in 1975 and were married three years later.
At the time, Lincoln Park looked different. Homes were far more affordable, and the neighborhood — while still tight-knit — was rougher around the edges, with gangs in the area and fewer of the single-family homes and new developments that now define it.
As the area changed, so did Mellis’ involvement in it. He started showing up at community meetings, paid attention to local issues that affected him and his neighbors and started attending City Hall hearings, speaking out on developments and getting involved with neighborhood groups as questions about growth, density and development became more pressing.
“He wasn’t so political — he was more community-oriented,” Linda Mellis said. “He’s always been a change-maker. He liked the fact that it was a neighborhood and wanted to make sure you heard voices from everyone.”
By the late 1980s, Mellis had become a regular presence in local organizing efforts, helping shape conversations about what Lincoln Park could — and should — become as more people and investment flowed into the area.
“Allan was doing this work for decades,” said Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd). “It became clear to me just from the history he has in the ward, his direct impact on certain things has been for longer, more consistent years than any alderperson today.”
Lincoln Park and Lakeview as seen from the 95th floor of 360 Chicago, 875 N. Michigan Ave., as crews work to replace the windows on April 8, 2026. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
A Seat At The Table For Neighbors
Allan Mellis’ official duties as a neighborhood organizer started in 1976 when he became the president of the Wrightwood Neighborhood Conservation Association.
Mellis helped launch the Taste of Lincoln Avenue street festival, which grew from a small neighborhood gathering into one of the city’s most recognizable summer events.
Around the same time, Mellis joined the Lincoln Park Conservation Association and the Lincoln Park Conservation Community Council where he worked closely with DePaul University and Children’s Memorial Hospital.
From there, Mellis became a constant presence in nearly every major conversation about Lincoln Park’s future.
“Allan’s relationship with DePaul goes back at least to the 1980s when we were in our growth phase,” Coffey said. “His influence on DePaul’s planning is unmistakable. It can be a pain sometimes: his level of detail, his knowledge, his insistence, his repetition. But ultimately, it made DePaul’s plans better.”
Mellis helped negotiate development plans with DePaul University and Children’s Memorial Hospital, pushing both institutions to consider not just their own growth, but how that growth would affect the community.
Mellis played a key role in establishing the neighborhood advisory structures that still guide those conversations today, ensuring residents had a formal seat at the table.
“Just having to work through that and change our thinking from something that might be good for the university to something that also has to be good for the neighborhood,” Coffey said. “Left to our own devices, we probably don’t get there. But for Allan’s persistence, we do.”
DePaul University on Sept. 26, 2023. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Mellis was, as many people have said, someone who holds power’s feet to the fire. He didn’t let anything go, nor did he forget much. He was big on precedent, Coffey said.
Mellis’ persistence and unrelenting attitude toward neighborhood advocacy helped save the library with no books about spiders in it.
At the time, the Lincoln Park library branch was at 959 W. Fullerton Ave. under the “L” tracks at Sheffield. The building was finished in 1962 and was a small, outdated branch that was increasingly at risk as DePaul expanded its footprint in Lincoln Park.
Mellis led the campaign to save the library, Coffey said.
In 1989, Mellis helped found the Friends of the New Lincoln Park Library, a group that pushed to replace the aging branch with a modern facility that could serve a growing neighborhood. They lobbied for public funding, raised private donations and pursued grants wherever they could find them, from local sources to national organizations.
After retiring from IBM in the ’90s, Mellis continued his public service as director of planning and development for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, where he oversaw major projects and capital improvements before retiring in 2010.
When the Chicago Public Library faced budget cuts in the early’90s that threatened staffing, hours and closures, Mellis and his allies kept pushing, working to secure funding through a combination of city support, state legislation and private backing.
“There was no way Allan was going to let the library go away,” Coffey said.
The campaign stretched across years of negotiations, including with DePaul, which had acquired property near the original site.
In the end, Mellis and his allies won. The new Lincoln Park branch opened its current location on Racine Avenue in 1995. Today, it’s one of the busiest library branches in the city.
“Allan was a master negotiator,” Knudsen said. “I always feel like the best projects, whether government or corporate, come from quality negotiation. He understood how the community can negotiate, and the work he did to bring the Lincoln Park Library branch back is just one example of something that changed the community.”
Clark Street looking southeast from Wrightwood Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on March 3, 2021. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Mellis also pushed DePaul to incorporate community-serving spaces into its campus, advocated for retail storefronts and helped save the post office at 2405 N. Sheffield Ave. from being relocated.
Another proof point to Mellis’ powers is how the people in the community trust him to stand up for them.
“I think him being so straightforward is what made him so effective,” Knudsen said. “Things can get so divisive. If two sides are competing and not communicating, it becomes a zero-sum game. Allan really understood the beauty of compromise and the history behind it.”
That history now lives inside the library he helped save.
“Linda and I saved everything,” Allan Mellis said in an interview weeks before his death.
The Allan Mellis Papers, a collection of thousands of documents filling 93 boxes that span five decades of community service, is now housed inside the Lincoln Park branch.
The archive includes meeting minutes, correspondence, development plans, grant applications and handwritten notes, offering a detailed record of Mellis’ work over the years.
Together, the materials are Mellis’ paper trail of everything he fought against and for.
“His love for the community shows,” Knudsen said. “That’s why people refer to him as the mayor of Lincoln Park.”
The ‘Mayor’ Leaves A Lasting Mark
Looking back on his career in public service, Mellis said he was inspired by making a difference in the neighborhood he called home.
“It’s very rewarding,” he said. “The more you learn about what’s going on, the more you can influence what’s going on.”
Allan Mellis (right), a longtime Lincoln Park community advocate, talks with Ald. Scott Waguespack ahead of a 2016 City Council meeting. Credit: Ted Cox/DNA Info
Outside of his community work, Mellis was known for another lifelong passion: collecting ice cream memorabilia. Over decades, he amassed more than 30,000 items, from postcards to advertising signs, and parts of his collection were displayed for years at the Museum of Science and Industry.
In his final years, Mellis slowed down but never fully stepped away.
Mellis had a stroke in 2021, but he remained active in neighborhood meetings and advisory groups, continuing to weigh in on development proposals and community issues.
At the end of 2025, he officially stepped down from the Wrightwood Neighbors Association board after more than four decades.
For those who worked alongside him, the moment marked the end of an era.
Ken Feldbein, a longtime board member, called Mellis “one of the last of the old guard.”
In a tribute to his departure, former board President Dan Varanauski wrote that Mellis “brought a rare balance of gentleness and grit” to the role and “was a guardian of our organization’s ethical compass.”
“A sweet guy who could hold his own, even when the room got heated,” Varanauski wrote. “And it was often Allan who heated it.”
Even in retirement, Mellis couldn’t help himself from staying involved.
He kept tabs on neighborhood developments, occasionally sending notes and feedback — including a recent email to Knudsen about a proposal moving through the ward.
During the final weeks of his life, Mellis’ life had grown smaller, but not quieter.
“Days are up and down, but his mind is still active,” Linda Mellis said. “He still goes on the computer, and he still has his ice cream collection. So he keeps busy.”
For decades, Mellis helped shape Lincoln Park not just through big wins, but through the quieter, often invisible work of paying attention.
“The guy’s smart,” Coffey said. “He knows city ordinances inside and out. He knows the history of the neighborhood. He’s been there watching Lincoln Park change, and in his way, influencing it.”
For decades, Mellis made a habit of noticing what was missing and doing something about it.
In Lincoln Park, the results are everywhere.
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