I rode to Oak Park the other day for an event in a mansion.
I took the Green Line to get there, rumbling and bumbling a path out of the Loop, west west to the West Loop artist lofts and condos springing up on the old Skid Row, west west to the highways, train tracks, the vestiges of when we had industry and jobs humming a community alive with bustle and hustle.
The stores came then, the glimmering glintering shinies advertising checks cashed, predatory practices to keep the poor poorer. Then homes, stately once, keeping the fight alive just to stay standing. Homes got sparser on city blocks, homemade gates of corrugated steel protected a few backyards, a smatter of burnt and boarded husks memento moried the community’s vital bits.
Then, snap. It was lovely. » Read the rest of this entry «
