Interesting piece on The Uptown Theatre in Chicago, which is the world’s second largest movie palace. When I worked for a theatre company in the Uptown neighborhood for a brief time there always seemed to be some initiative or the other afloat that we were involved in to revive this giant show place. Of course none of that ever came to be.
I got to go inside the building once and its decayed condition (much like you see in this picture) reminded me so much of the neighborhood that surrounded it. Uptown was then the last hold out on the Lake Michigan shoreline, resisting the rebuilding and reclamation that had happened all along Lake Shore Drive and further west. This was largely due to politics and the existing power structure that didn’t want its base of under privileged voters to move away, as had happened in wards all around it.
Seeing this story, I’m sad we didn’t pass through Uptown on our recent trip to see if and how things are changing there.
Via Neatorama
