Out of the Past by CoreyBlack
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Description
This is how the corner of North Broadway and West Melrose in Boystown looked 25 years ago. This location is about 500 feet south of where my earlier post "Take My Picture (Cuz I Don't Remember)" was made 3 years later. If you squint, you can even see the Unabridged Bookstore sign hiding back there. Though Unabridged still exists, their original distinctive sign has now been sanitized into a "safer" flush-with-the-facade affair, thus complying with former Mayor Daley's neurotic fixation with removing all protruding signage. Must be Freudian or something....
Though some of the store fronts have changed, the buildings themselves have remained more or less the same. Nettlehorse School still resides across the street. The Chinese restaurant was long ago replaced by a queer themed card shop called He Who Eats Mud. The perfectly useful convenience store on the corner is now one of those pretentious " Americanized" faux-European gelatto places guaranteed to go belly up within a year. And will most likely be replaced by something equally pointless.
While still GLBT (and especially upper-middle class white gay male) friendly, Boystown has become a squeaky clean shadow of its former self. Needless to say, when this picture was made, the area was the polar opposite of squeaky clean. And a hell of a lot more fun.
Photographed in the Newtown/Lakeview area of Chicago on July 2, 1986.
Comments (18)
MrsLubner
Corey, this might have been the "rough" times in this district, but if I compare this to what I see on my downtown streets today, it looks most welcoming. I would love to hang out here and take in the flavor of the streets. I simply adore this older look to this...it could have been done in the '40s as well as the '80s. Stellar shot.
Chipka
Ah yeah, the gelatto place...where you sit (or stand) precisely on your mark, posed, ever-so-elegantly, while nipping at your oh-so-fashionable desert in an exquisitely "out of town" fashion, while making sure that everyone sees you. It kinda makes me miss the surly Albanian guys who ran the convenience store that was guaranteed to give you service with a frown. I like that the neighborhood hasn't changed that much, in terms of architecture and Unabridged Books is still there and the staff is still cute...for the most part...and well...I like this glimpse back at what this place once was. Gotta say, too, that Mister I'm-So-Sexy-in-My-White-Miami-Vice-Jacket drew my eye immediately. I miss hair like that! This is a great shot.
parrotdolphin
I always learn something from your images and comments... usually about Chicago, sometimes about cars. But it's always something interesting and I always look forward to seeing and reading your next post.
bmac62
Now that we've seen "yesterday"...if you get a chance, I'd like to see this same corner today. Fine urban landscape with an insider's narrative. Outstanding.
auntietk
I love looking at your pictures from the 80s. Well, shoot ... I like looking at ALL your pictures! The b&w work you were doing then is especially fascinating, though. You draw me in, make me wish I could pan around and see more, show me a totally different 1986 from the one I was living in. It's outstanding photography. Journalistic. And SO interesting to view! That 30-year-old is now 55. At least 90% of those cars have gone to the big junk heap in the sky. The trash in the gutter (well ... along the edge of the sidewalk) has been swept up and replaced with newer trash. I wonder, if you stood there now, what would be the same and what would be different? Not just the corner store, but the school zone sign. Is it still there? Is it the exact same sign, or has it been replaced with a new one? (And if there's a new one, does it contain a modal verb?) These are the sorts of things I wonder about when nobody's looking ...
annie5
Your informations are interesting are your pictures! Great scene :)
kgb224
Outstanding photography my friend.
blinkings
I love old shots like this. It really is a look back in time. Hmmm I was 18 at he time.......I hope I didn't just give away my age. ;(
CoreyBlack
And I was 23, Andrew, so you're still younger than I am...
KatesFriend
Hmmm, everything comes back to Freud. There's a paper in this somewhere. And I guess this photo is the answer to, "tell me about your childhood". Cue Thomas Dolby. I kind of miss those overhead signs. Many cities are working to get rid of them. Regrettably, some building owners don't maintain them (intentionally) and they fall onto the sidewalk one windy day. Something else from a bygone era: A drug store sign that advertises health and cigarettes in the same (shortened) breath. Thanks for posting this.
durleybeachbum
All absolutely fascinating, Corey! Such a lot to see. It strikes me that folk who are constantly on the move and fail to put down roots miss out on such richness. Mind you I am biased, having lived in the same place for 62 years!
flavia49
wonderful picture!!
jeanebean
Hey Corey. Look at the two omen in the foreground on the far right side. Do they remind you of anyone? Nice photo.
CoreyBlack
Well,now that you mention it... the guy in the extreme foreground looks an awful lot like yours truly at the time, only a bit older: same hair, build, facial features and definitely working that ultra trendy "Miami Vice" look. We all wanted to be Don Johnson, I'm not sure why now. Then there's Chip, who was 17 at the time and wanted to be one of the lizards in "V" with tear away skin that he could scare people with at parties....
sandra46
SUPERB IMAGE!!!
dashboard_jehovah
Cool photo...back then, all I was looking for was something to smoke,swallow or put up the nose..minus the white jacket or pastel open collar shirt! Welcome to the 55 club!
Lashia
an amazing capture of this capsule in time. I love old archive photos, and I love the hectic bussle of these Chicago streets. Congrats on this image being featured in LWitG!
anahata.c
Your old b&w's of chicago streets, esp Boystown, have been gems, and esp beautiful for anyone who knew those areas back when...As always, you do urban collision with ease: For all the activity packed into this shot, it flows into itself without to-do. And while the greatest part of the shot is in the street & to its left, the focal point is in the narrow corridor on the right, where we look down the street, and from which everything else seems to grow. Great lineup of street signs (and great signs too; and yes, though I don't know this street as well, I agree how these general neighborhoods have sterilized & gentrified; much of the corridor from Diversey & upwards was gritty, very urban, and packed with life back then). You apologize for nothing, not one bit of debris; and kind of like a Nelson Algren novel, you find poetry in the everyday grit of Chicago's old neighborhoods. I love these shots of yours. When I'm studying so hard to get a certain angle or a "classic" pov, I remember shots like these and remember that the poetry of a city is much vaster than the perceived "right" shot. Beautiful & natural seeing.