shakespeare, he's in the alley

this is an alley off western avenue in the logan square - bucktown/wicker park section of chicago. i discovered the alley while i was looking for a place to park, naturally.

even in may, chicago was already hot, sticky and humid when this photo was taken in 2006.

this particular trip to chicago was to go to the final horizontal action blackout. i'd been to chicago twice previously in 2006 to visit family - both times in the winter, in january, and late february/early march. i have to wonder when exactly is the weather nice in chicago. probably like ny, there's a small window in the spring and again in the fall when its too lovely for words.

i love that there's a street called "shakespeare avenue."
western avenue, the main drag off which this part of shakespeare is found, is one of the longest streets in the united states - 23.5 miles in length. i used it as a main thoroughfare commuting between my cousins houses on either side of chicago. it also moves constantly, unlike the freeways.

chicago is a fantastic world class city; it has everything you could possibly want in a city...including so much traffic. its worse than traffic in los angeles because los angeles is such a populous city, you expect the worst traffic. regardless, chicago is one of my favorite places in the USA.

my father was born there and just about all of my relatives from his side of the family still live there.

my grandfather owned a soda fountain/candy store on the south side when it was a big european immigrant neighborhood. a couple years ago, one of my cousins took me to the house where his dad (my uncle) and my dad grew up. well, actually, its an empty double lot on the corner of wentworth and 106. these days, the food purveyors in our family are in LA and own mcdonald's. postmodern greek diner people i guess. the men to the right are the stoes, who are my late aunt maria's brother and nephews. maria was married to my uncle pete, my father's brother. gus owned johnny's snack shop since 1971. it was at the corner of milwaukee and wabansia, just north of the big triangular intersection of north, damen and milwaukee. a hip and popular part of town these days, back when gus opened, it was not so hip.

but it was on a drive on western avenue all the way from the south side suburb of oak park to johnny's snack shop in logan square that i found shakespeare avenue.

on that may visit to chicago, my first night in town, i went to see demons claws at cal's. i know my way around the downtown area where cal's is. i often take the train into chicago and stay at another cousin's greektown condo. but this time, i was staying in the 'burbs, and was given freeway driving instructions...to take the 55 to the 94, etc. well, there was a baseball game going and construction on the 94 and i got all turned around. i realized that western ran all the way up and down from every part of chicago i was going to be visiting and it became my thoroughfare of choice from that late night onwards.




finally, chicago has some great manhole covers. that is perhaps a topic for another whole post for another day...