June 18th, 2018 § permalink
D41. Hazardous. “Mexicans are scattered thruout, as well as other foreign elements.”
It’s Tri-Taylor.
B67. Still Desirable. “Jewish infiltration has started along the edges and may be expected to continue because of favorable reputation and location.”
It’s Ravenswood Manor.
D74. Hazardous. “[The then-upcoming Ida B. Wells federal housing project] has the realtors guessing as to what the ultimate result will be when so many of this race are drawn into this section from the already negro-blighted district… Already Washington Park at the south, a very fine park, has been almost completely monopolized by the colored race… Washington Park is doomed.”
I’m reading about the history of America. I’m reading about redlining. » Read the rest of this entry «
March 31st, 2017 § permalink
If you watch the robot instead of the movie he gestured you to, it shifts in its chair.
Once or twice, it blinks, maybe cocks its head. They’re jarringly human gestures. They’re the little twitches and nods a man would make trying to get comfortable while you watched a movie about his life.
But the man has been dead for 30 years. At his desk, a robot sits, gesturing and blinking and being eerily almost natural as it narrates the life of Mayor Harold Washington to visitors to the DuSable Museum of African American History. » Read the rest of this entry «
July 15th, 2015 § permalink
The front door still appears to be boarded at the mansion-turned-apartment-building that once housed King Tut’s Tomb, “Said to be the hottest spot in town,” where “Al Bentley’s King Tut Syncopating Mummies, featuring Lee Collins, the jazz cornetist from New Orleans, provide music that would make a mummy come to life.”
The Golden Lily is still a long-shuttered Harold’s Chicken Shack. » Read the rest of this entry «
February 2nd, 2015 § permalink
1931, The Ritz Club
Bill Bottoms’ popular black-and-tan, where the atmosphere is torrid during the wee small hours. Plenty of action from the colored saxophone player and the drummer, and the entertainment goes on at a merry clip. Floor shows, dancing between, exotic atmosphere, food, and the beaming personality of Bill himself. Chicken and chops are a specialty on the menu.
It’s a weed-choked field in Washington Park. » Read the rest of this entry «
