![]() 66 west Van buren, in 1930, would have been one of many SROs on that To me, Van Buren has always been a strange street. Nan Brennan, who seems like a Chicago expert, replies to a question as to if 66 W Van Buren was technically in Skid Row? She replies:Īnd I’ll look forward to reading input from others on our list. I did some research and couldn’t come up with much on that address, except the following from RootsWeb – Irish In Chicago archives. ![]() Hi, Pam – How kind of you to help your friend. Photograph of Madison Street, 1973, Alan Parr current site of Presidential Towers. The story shocked Chicagoans, prompted a crackdown on the area…and boosted circulation of the Daily News by 20,000 copies a day. ![]() They watched hard-faced jackrollers stripping the pockets and stealing the shoes from sodden bums, saw prostitutes plying their trade amid the lumber piles and back alleys, found that ‘a surprisingly large number at one time were trusted employees, executives or professional men.'” The reporters took their readers on a guided tour of 46 flophouses, where 12,413 bums slept in lousy cubicles for 50¢ or 60¢ a night. “In the twelve-part series, Reporters Mooney and Bird described the worst of 82 squalid saloons in three-quarters of a Madison Street mile (most of them selling the “morning special,” a double shot of whisky for 18¢), listed the names & addresses of saloonkeepers who were breaking the state liquor and health laws, and put the finger on couldn’t-care-less cops. Bill Mooney and Fred Bird spent two weeks on Skid Row. ![]() Norlander sent two young “rewrite” men to live as “bums” in order to write an exposé. His next reaction was that he was walking through a good story.” One morning last June, as he picked his way to work through Skid Row’s reeking garbage and broken bottles, and stepped past the bodies of sleeping derelicts on the sidewalks, Daily News Managing Editor Everett C. Time leads off with: “Along West Madison Street, within sight of the handsome Daily News skyscraper, sprawls the noisome slum of saloons, hash-joints, missions and flophouses that Chicago calls Skid Row. It is actually the story of how the Chicago Daily News found a good story in Skid Row. I had done a little research and found that Time magazine discussed Chicago’s Skid Row in 1949, calling it “Land of the Living Dead” – and I used that phrase in my tours. Leading some architecture tours on a Chicago River boat, I felt compelled to mention Skid Row as we glided along the South Branch, past the glass and steel office towers that have replaced the derelict area. I remember being shocked and saddened by the down-and-out men lining the streets.įast forward to today. And we drove through what was left of Skid Row. We explored Uptown where he had worked at a runaway shelter. Because he had gone to college in Chicago, he knew a city beyond the tourist zones. When I visited Chicago (from Milwaukee) in the early 1980s with my husband, we explored parts of the city most tourists wouldn’t see. From its beginnings around the turn of the last century to its demise by the 1980s, there is much to be said of life amid the squalor of West Madison Street. Chicago’s former Skid Row is a big subject.
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