Writer’s block

Rising from the flames

Tracing the footsteps of a famous author to help view the city in a new light

By Brenna Ehrlich
Photos by Cortland Rankin

Chicago is known by several names.

“The Pride of the Rustbelt.”

“The City of Broad Shoulders.”

“Gem of the Prairie.”

“Hog Butcher to the World.”

“The ‘I Will’ City.”

“Packingtown.”

“The Second City.”

And, of course, “The Windy City.”

Despite the fact that Chi-town already has many monikers, I’d like to add my own nickname to this vastly list: “The Phoenix.”

Since its 1871 baptism by fire, Chicago has risen from the flames on numerous occasions. Rebirth is not solely restricted to the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” formula, however. The streets are a veritable parade of palimpsest. Theatres have morphed into strip clubs, and homes have become storefronts. History is layered, nesting doll style, behind every brick. Once these bricks are licked by flame, the story doesn’t end there. The shell that’s left behind is filled, and another piece of Chicago history is born from the ashes.

I came to these realizations in a rather roundabout way, at first intending to write a story about the places detailed in Alex Kotlowitz’s book, “Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago.”

I thought I’d visit a few restaurants and some historical landmarks and write up a travel guide, simultaneously convincing people to read Kotlowitz’s book. So I enlisted the help of my friend Cort and his camera, and we took to the city streets.

The second stop on our tour, the Pilgrim Baptist Church, took the air out of my metaphorical tires, forcing me to re-route for repairs.

Driving down South Indiana Avenue, we saw the roof of the church in the distance. I had read in Kotlowitz’s book that the place of worship had formerly been a synagogue designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. After becoming a Baptist church in 1922, blues musician Thomas Dorsey gave modern black gospel music its start under the overarching Sullivan ceiling. The church had become a mainstay in the black community; the interiors were plastered with murals, and the former synagogue’s walls reverberated with gospel.

When we pulled up in front of the church, Cort and I let out varying exclamations, some less holy than others. The Pilgrim Baptist Church had burned down. It had burned down in January, actually, but being a college student, the most I see of a tribune is the front page on my way to class.

An empty, dented security car was parked in front of the gutted exterior. The walls were blackened, the inside a jumble of kindling which used to be pews. Where stained glass once filtered light, blue sky and clouds now had easy access into the church. Now all that’s left is the shell of a synagogue. There’s no evidence of the history that had been born within.

Cort and I got back into his car silently, and I started to read off the Mapquest directions to our next destination: Lawrence Avenue. This stretch of shops is the definition of palimpsest. Kotlowitz writes that this drag started off as a conglomeration of Russian and Eastern European Jewish establishments. When the Koreans moved into the neighborhood around 1960, the formerly Jewish stretch was dubbed Seoul Drive, home to immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Here you can visit Mexican groceries and Hookah bars, western shops like El Alacran Western Wear, (3956 W. Lawrence Ave) with its vast selection of boots and hats, and Egyptian cafes. You can also visit the old Admiral Theatre (3940 W. Lawerence Ave), opened in 1927 as a vaudeville house. The Admiral has gone protean over the years, reinventing itself first as a movie palace, screening everything from cartoons to porn. Now it prides itself on being the only all-nude strip club in Chicago.

Where once you could delight to the Vaudevillian stylings of the roaring ’20s, now you can view (but not touch!) the undulations of girls with names like Heaven and Athena. The Phoenix has found a whole new way to light its fire.

On the way out of Lawrence, I happened to look out the window to see black smoke billowing from behind the line of buildings and trees. Cort and I decided to investigate. The scene had the look and feel of a block party. The still-smoldering apartment building was charred, the insulation melting and drooping from the window frames. Firemen wandered through the interior, punctuating the still afternoon heat with the sound of breaking glass as they punched out windows. Two firemen chatted against the blue sky in Ladder 23, and the whole neighborhood leaned against the fences and basketball hoops of nearby Haugan Elementary school.

The fire had long since been put out, but the truck still sprayed jets of water into the building. Parents held children on their shoulders. Children who immediately started squirming when the ice cream man arrived. Within minutes, chocolate popsicles had been passed out, coated with ice crystals so that every sweet treat turned gray, and all the children seemed to be eating ash.

American flags were plastered everywhere — hanging from windows, painted on the back of the firemen’s helmets and on their sun-baked trucks. People wore their Chicago pride on their backs, with the exception of a kid with a “Chokers” t-shirt.

Everyone was out in droves to see the destruction, along with Cort and me, strangers to the neighborhood.

To go about the city treading in Alex Kotlowitz’s already published footsteps would be both a bastardization of his work and a complete lack of creativity on my part. Still, by following his path and taking my own detours, I got a glimpse of the real chicago. Like the city, this article is a palimpsest. In order to write something new, to see the city in a new light, I had to rip apart my old plan and use the skeleton.

I hope what has been born of these fragments will persuade you readers to find your conception of what I call the Phoenix, and to make it your own.

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