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Crit week allowed for a new normal in which the wanders © of Bridgeport and Little Village provided the model. Instead of heading east with the flow of commuters went upstream to head west. Exiting the back entrance the relative quiet allowed for a common symphony as passing the platforms the voiced announcements would state both in unison and then in dissonance their numbers

Track number 6
Track number 6 7
Track number 7
Track number 7 8
Track number 8


It was Pilsen via the Pink Line to-day – a walk along 18th street to Halsted then back up to look at work tangentially related to the world outside the walls. My travelling companion Joãozão.

Colder than the other outings, my hands were becoming numb, wasn’t all that keen on taking them out of my pockets to make snaps, the area obliged by not requiring me to do so.

I was expecting a street of shops that were as distinct as those along 26th Street, what I wasn’t expecting was the amount of vacant storefronts. I thought that Pilsen would active as I did see mixed in with the latinos the new urban pioneers but it barely held my interest some diversions especially when I crossed areas that I saw on the Blue Island 26th Street bus. Tried to remember what I actually saw. Hung around the six corners a bit hoping to make something of the street furniture. It was the most heavily populated area with people sitting about, some waiting for the bus Really couldn’t do much with either the formalism or objects left as neither caught my interest. A couple of nice cafés but I was out to wander ©.

This coloured my thinking when I made it to Halsted, thinking the street would be more or less the same – especially when I went under the railway tracks and entered the dystopia land of University Village, I headed back staying south of the tracks until I ran into a mural the Virgen de Guadalupe consorting with some footballers. Actually this street held out more promise but it was time to head back for the main event of the day. Making grad students cry.

When I think that Chicago has got over its fear of others I run I always find that it is not the case. From the south , the Burlington Northern Santa Fé tracks acted as a moat over which one could see the towers condos of the University Village urbanistas. The infiltration of people not like them was discouraged not only by only being able to enter at the underpasses, some of them were blocked off.

This area – the old Maxwell Street Market used to be so cool, there was an individuality to Halsted Street, The Hill Streeet Blues Police Station used to stand above the vacant lots, now there pitches for UIC., Starbucks, and dry cleaners. Tastefully placed among the endless condos.

Downed my sorrows with a passion fruit smoothie.