[Torie]

The Woodlawn ghetto neighborhood just south of the University of Chicago was literally burnt to the ground while I was a student there, I guess for the insurance money. The population there dropped from 70,000 to 20,000 in five years. I assume it has improved since with new housing. I once walked three blocks through it with about 10 fellas to a chinese restaurant on 63rd street. It was like out of a Fellini film. Hundreds of kids on the streets smoking dope or drinking booze, broken glass everywhere, no grass, broken windows, you name it. But for some reason, they ignored us. Odd. But the worst of the worst was Oakwood from 47th to 35th street just off the lake. That place looked like Dresden after Churchill did his number on it.

[Clemenza]

I lived on 60th and Drexel, one block from where Woodlawn began. Lots of new housing by 63rd Street now, but most of the nabe is still bad, though not as gruesome as it was in the 1970s and 80s.

[wardaddy]

In 1998 I drove from Nashville to Minneapolis and back.

I drove thru downtown Chicago and onto I-94 and over towards Gary and then back thru Indianapolis and Louisville to here. The area just south of downtown where the projects towers go on forever looked most uninviting and it remained that way for what seemed like around 20 miles.

I do not know Chicago. My wife loves it. Chicago for her is like NYC is for me.....Center of the Universe sort of.