Lithuanian Plaza, Summer 2012

This street runs between California Avenue and Western and is 69th Street on the west side of Marquette Park and east of Western. It is now an area of blight. Lithuanian Plaza starts with the park on one side and the back end of Holy Cross Hospital on the east side. All of these photos were taken between Talman and Mozart, with a few near Washtenaw.

As far as I can tell, the Plaza is still open, but several other taverns are closed, as is the deli. This area is not a good neighborhood to be in after dark. Richard Chwedyk once told me that one reason older white men and women haven't moved from their three-flats is because, after enduring the horrors of World War II, random shots fired in the middle of the night is something they might find easy to ignore. The logic is so simple, I had never considered it.

The photos are not in consecutive order, but I hope to show the amount of closed businesses and boarded up two- and three-flats along a three block stretch of Lithuanian Plaza. As it was in August of 2012.

Pago Pago, Soon Gone

I'll be posting those fog photos, there's been a mix-up in my getting the CD disk. Pretty dumb story, but I will have them. For now, let me spend a few days posting photos of the Pago Pago Building, which is already coming down, just a day after I took a roll of photos. I was telling Rich Chwedyk that it seems impossible that Google Images doesn't have but one photo of Jimmy Wong's Cantonese joint, and I about freaked on Wednesday when, as the train left the Loop, I saw the familiar metal bars that always make me think of Tinker-Toys, and I knew what was going to happen. And so I headed back downtown yesterday. Wong's was across the street, torn down to be a parking lot next to Gina's Cuisine, whatever that is.

The Polynesian restaurant is long closed, but I always found it an intriguing building because of its length and thinness, it was like how Carmine Infantino illustrated Central City in a purple background in the Flash comics of the 60s. I have more photos to post tomorrow night, but these shots give you an idea of the exterior.

Block 37, Story Time

I found a few more shots of the Trailways depot, and tomorrow I'll tell you all a very odd story involving a knife and a bathroom. For now, let me discuss this ghost street. It is also known as the Spaniel Block, for reasons unknown to me. If you look at the black and white photo, you can see the taller building in the center of the block on the left (south). This is Ground Zero for my love of Block 37. The building was closed, it had been some sort of bank, or at least there was a smashed metal sign dangling near the roof. Remember metal signs? I guess if too many of them dangled and so that was that. But I used that vacant building as the Rainey Marclinn Home For the Handicapped, a kind of SRO for people in wheelchairs and crutches. This was in The Holy Terror. I'm so anal-retentive that I had to use actual vacant buildings for my fake settings.

I shall now discuss real life, back when I could actually bum around downtown at all hours because the buses pretty much ran all hours. The 62 Archer bus ran up State to Cullerton, then cut diagonal to Pulaski at 54th, and I could catch my last bus around 1 AM. Nowadays, that last bus is at about 11 PM. (And where I live now, that last bus is at 8:10 PM.) But there were two theaters, Woods and United Artists. I recall seeing this film, Frankenstein Island, that would have been cooler if it wasn't for the rats falling from the ceiling in front of the screen. Still a crazy film, though. Of course, Frankenstein wasn't in the film. Maybe I should make a film and call it, I don't know, Eva Mendes Island.

That sign that says BOOKS? I lived there. Really. They had pinball machines in back, and a billion porno novels in front of the joint. All categorized. Lonely housewives. Secretaries. Gay military. Non-gay military. Military housewives. And some straight up crazy novels. I have mentally beaten myself up over the years because I never purchased MY DACHSHUND, MY LOVER. It was one of those books with just a white cover and black artwork. On the plus side, if it can be called that, I still own NAZI CAMP FOR VIRGINS. Nothing bad there, aside from the title. It could have been in OUI or RASCAL, SIR! (Yes, that last one existed.) But mostly I played Captain Fantastic & The Browndirt Cowboy and the ones made by Williams where everyone in the artwork had arms and legs at 90 degree angles. There was a Burger King next door and often I couldn't eat because I blew my quarters on the games, and when I was older, my 25 cents times 5 or 10 bought me that one book and several black light posters. (I never bought LOVE CAMP ON WHEELS, but I did find it at a truck stop in Pennsylvania years later.) And you could always smell pot in that place. I smell it, just thinking about it. There are many stories about this ghostly block. Ask Rich Chwedyk. He could see the possibilities of turning Ray Milland's camper from PANIC IN YEAR ZERO in that love camp.

The Dream Where The Guys Has His Forearms Eaten Off

I don't have photo that relates to this post, about the dream last night. So I'll just put up this shot I took at the bus stop awhile back. I just found the color of the bike and how it lay against the metal bar looked unique. So there you go. Now, on to the dream.

Several things figured into my waking from yet another of the always the same dystopian dream around 4:45 this morning. There seems to be an abundance of unmarked helicopters flying overhead, up from two a day to, well, last night I took photos of them every 20 minutes, one shot directly overhead. They come from Midway Airport, go to some area south of here, but close enough that a return trip is within those 20 minutes. Suddenly, there are copters flying outside my window even when I'm typing at midnight. OK, so there's that. I knew I was having lunch with Greg today, so that set a certain location. Rich Chwedyk has mentioned to me his own recurring Chicago, one with looming skyscrapers both east and west. I wonder if such simple things change the locations for him, as well. But the real instigator was this, I caught an ad for SURROGATES, a new Bruce Willis paranoia flick. Which made me think of 12 MONKEYS, which made me think that I would dream badly,yet its a film I will watch every single time I catch it on cable, even if I turn it off after a certain amount of time. So, yea, it was that. Mostly. I'm sure the helicopters ate at my thalamus, too.

Again I am in the Loop. Burnt out buildings, some reduced to rubble, closer to dawn than to midnight. As I've described here before, the streets are rain slicked, there's a whole resistance vibe going on, and further north, its lit up at ground level and there's orders being given in garbles of static. This time it was different, there were even faces I knew in the dream. I'm with Sean & Jessica from Omaha, my friend Greg, and the rest are the same unknowns yet familiar because they are in EVERY dream, and we are in a huge room that is completely gray. Obviously, its an office building, but in every other dream I have been on the street, always between State and Wabash, don't ask me why. The el runs above Wabash. In the dream, the tracks dangle, they've been doing that since maybe 2005, prior to that the tracks were there, simply rusted and broken.

We are all armed and wearing bulletproof vests. I leave the building through a stairwell that leads to an alley, but most of the wall is gone, you can see the alley through strands of rebar. I'm on Monroe Street, not State, which fits with that being the street I meet Greg at. In the dream I know the signs on the abandoned buildings even if I wasn't hanging out with Greg. FourEyes, Subway. Instead of the Jamba Juice, it was the old W. Bell Co., a place where you'd ask for something (usually wedding or anniversary gift worthy), they'd write the order up and stick in a pneumatic tube, then your boxed order would arrive on a conveyor belt. Each storefront empty. But in front of W. Bell, there is a black man, young and seemingly healthy, lying on a cart that was the blendy color of quartz. His eyes were open, he was staring right at me. And his arms were chewed off at the forearms, the rest of the limbs dangling from the plastic cart. He says to me "Who would have thought rubbing an arthritic elbow was some kind of gang sign to these--" I stop hearing him then, and I'm guessing this is to keep me from knowing the real villains in this recurring mess, but it's also because I look up in time to see a dart hiss into my cheek, high up, near the sinus wall. Then I'm awake in the real world, the clock reading 4:45. The clock almost always reads 4:45. Doesn't matter if I go to bed at midnight or at 3 AM. The only good thing is that I seem to be getting more clues to just what the hell is going on, I might wait a few weeks and kind of will myself to a different intersection, see what happens. I can still see the sweat on the face of the guy missing his hands and forearms.

Dammit. I decided to go to Google and find a capture of Bruce Willis in 12 MONKEYS and check out the logo. Only one way to go from there, so see all the images above.

Still at Archer & Sacramento

Well, I got tied up posting this a few days, because, well, I couldn't find the damn photos I was taunting Rich Chwedyk--yes, THAT Rich Chwedyk!--with. But one day I do need to get decent photos from around Goose Island, particularly water shots. The previous day I didn't see a lot of comments, and I'm thinking no one watched the video because it only has political asshats on the banner. It was the only one that would load, and I'm not telling anyone to go back and watch it, but, christ, when you see the cop beating the tiny bartender, you have to wonder, well, wonder something. The bartender is healthy, thankfully, and the best quote from the trial was her saying she didn't want to look at the video they showed the jury because she had seen it too many times already. It is amazing how many times that has been played in Chicago, not just in YouTubeland.

Back to Archer. You might recall my saying how I was surprised how everything was bunched up at this intersection. Well, there it is, Rich (he thought I'd be mentioning the Brighton Theater, the vacant lot next to Watra)! I've seen Golden Heart at retro sites and neon sites and diner sites--and for some reason kept thinking it was called Around The Clock--and I'm pointing my camera down after photographing Watra, I turn, and, I was like, what the hell? Then I took an approaching bus a bit closer to Pulaski, the point where the Archer bus meets the Orange Line for the second time. In between Kedzie and St. Louis, Balzekas Chrysler Plymouth. It is officially shutting down. I knew that area of Archer when I worked with the Elvis band. The drummer lived near Ye Olde Place on 46th & St. Louis and the trumpet player's dad worked at Balazekas. We always ate pizza from a place on the south side of the street, near Balzekas, but I can't recall the name of it, even though the building--with a new name--is still there. And Rich might question my not taking a photo of Polonia Grove, but, well, it'd be a pretty dull photo. Even their sign was kinda 70s dull. Whatever that means.

49th & Pulaski, Eat & Dance The Polka!

Capcom, I have no idea why Julie London is there, and as everyone seems to agree, Dan Duryea needs $53 for that call girl. Me, I'm thinking he needs the cabbage to go to a doc to be treated for an STD. Rich Nebula-winner Chwedyk emailed me and said that the green guy is indeed Doctor Solar, Man of The Atom, but face it, it looks like one of those phones from the future we always hear about. But "we" I mean me and my various aliases, Jonny Algiers, the Scarlet Corgi of 1966, Marlboro Spartacus Mitchum, those guys. Oh, and Thelonius Mel. He's new.

OK. Just before the Orange Line hits Pulaski Station at 51st Street, there's a cool patch of businesses going northward. This area is Archer Heights, the biggest Polish area left in Chicago, with many of the younger Polish folks moving to Burbank. So, if you can dig it, this building with the EAT sign has been closed for years. Yet, the sign remains. Further down is the Romantic Club, owned by people who have no intention whatsoever of having anyone repaint their sign. Again, been there forever. Polka music all the time, doors open in the summer. The kind of place writers like to write about. That's all for now, gang. I'm heading west into the black.

This Is The End, My Friend

More of Steely Dan's shots, and there's a shot of the Archer bridge before the Orange Line was built, then the fantastic sight of the multiple bridges (Archer Bridge, Orange Line, and Interstate 55), and the nice shot of how the soupy water just slops against the wall. And, again, I cannot explain why there are new homes being built anywhere within the vicinity of the creek, though Rich suggests they might be transplants from Innsmouth, which does make sense...

My Dachsund, My Lover

Rich Chwedyk knows all too well about my vision quest for the book with that title, the one I saw in the dinky joint that sold porn novels with b&w covers and minimal art, black posters, and had a pinball arcade in back on Randolph Street back in the day. I did happen to find this odd book cover that perhaps was inspiration for Mr. Porno Writer. I also found a couple of George Orwell books with cover themes I had never been aware of, and just to prove that I wasn't Googling bestiality pulp fiction, there's that science-fiction book which, well, looks like naked ladies ashamed of doing it with the Gieko lizard family. Its almost funny--not funny ha ha, rather funny psychotic--because I am not taking my bipolar meds for three days now. I'm involved with Mike Fountain in a writing project which involves a character who is bipolar. This is a comic now in page/panel format, so I need to get it right, falling house of cards and all. So that damn cover with the dog heads look real to me, too damn real. Fuck them, though. Wait, that's how the damn subject heading came about, though I doubt weiner doggies slobber much. Ah, the meds, right. Getting back to those, it explains why I've been away visiting Earth-14 and not blogging away about hashish and blood. In the recent future, expect me to discuss determinism, hanging upside down from a fence and then falling face first onto a George Pelecanos novel that was sent to me from Steve Malley in New Zealand, the massive rainstorm I was walking in for about 90 minutes (and getting tossed around more than if I was an innocent bystander in a fight between The Flash and The Rainbow Raider), the lovely blonde pharmacist Erica who was worried that I had not picked up my Lamictal yet, and mysterious Numbers Stations and the more mysterious Conet Project...looks like I have a lot to catch you guys up on...Wayne

Prince Castle When Its 94 Degrees

See those veins in my temple? That's from the sun, which I relish more than I do the cold, the only down side being that I get wavering vision and can feel my heartbeat in my eyes and without my reading glasses I feel like the guy on the receiving end of that scalpel in the illustration. Today would have been a great day for Prince Castle, which Richard recalls, I'll wager. Went there as a kid, even when I lived in Humboldt Park and we traveled southward to see my auntie and uncle. The fortress stood at about 97th and Southwest Highway, and had multi-colored cubes of ice cream and sherbet. Maybe the cubes went with the castle motif, I don't know. Another place that is RIP, I think there is a Ford dealership there now...Wayne

Riverview Park, RIP 1967

In my previous post, Charles commented that there's a tale to be told about this old park. Perhaps a Twice-Told Tale, as Nathanial Hawthorne was so fond of. The top photos are off of Google--the entrance always reminded me of the Taj Mahal in some small way--the bottom two photos, well, scans, are from my secret stash. Richard Chwedyk, who, like me, tends to reply in email rather than on the blog, further described the Aladdin's Castle from the previous post as having rolling wooden floors and the turban dude's eyes moved back and forth. Its been in the 90s quite a bit this month, ideal amusement park weather, and I still can't believe we had this joint right in the middle of the city. A couple of generations ago...Wayne