Chinatown, Charles. It's Chinatown.

RAINY NIGHT IN CHINATOWN

From Armitage to Chinatown, The Red Line Underground

An opportune seat, the train had extra cars to accommodate fans leaving the Cubs game, but this car was empty enough for me to snag the seat nearest the window facing north. These aren't great photos, you'll see portions of the train car in some shots. For whatever reason, yet again, the Red Line was sluggish. This time it worked to my advantage.

Three Frames: Eight

Chinatown, 3

This is the last of the photos. Blogger, i. e., my never-ending battle with Rumsfeld was messing with me over the last few nights. The lovely Chinatown Hotel, replete with garbage in the hallways. As I'm won't to do, I scavenge hotel rooms. I opened up the mini-bar to find it empty, but for a broken smoke detector. Nothing beat the bathroom medicine cabinet, one razor, three toothbrushes, and a bottle of Elmer's Glue.If the cops took DNA samples, I'd bet there'd be a dozen unsolved murders off the books.

Chinatown, 2

Bob asked, and yes, this is in Chicago, right at the south end of greater downtown. Old Chinatown is maybe ten square blocks, and as tons of buildings went up in the 90s after the Orange Line began operation, we got a China Place and  Tan Court and Ping Tom Park, where I saw old guys fishing when I kayaked last summer. As opposed to muich of the crap that gets built here, at least the new Chinatown is OK, several grey apartment buildings have Chinese characters on them. But tonight I'm putting up photos of the area around 21st Place.

Chinatown, Part 1

I have downloaded the photos I took in Kentucky, but it will take me a while to reduce them in size, because I have a lot of them. So I'll finally start posting the photos of Chinatown, taken on the way to meet Mark at the lovely Chinatown Hovel, um, Hotel, and after that we went to see Diana in Oak Park.

The first photo is from the Cermak-Chinatown el stop, even though the diagonal road to the right is Archer Avenue. The Cermak Avenue bridge is just north of Ping Tom Park, so before Chinatown expanded in the 90s, there was a more direct route to Cermak. Then the direct entrance into Chinatown, and I think I'm wrong saying that this is Wentworth Avenue, that might be a block further west. Regardless, there is some ornate entrance above a small concrete area where a lot of old men were reading the Sunday paper. I've included other shots I took as I walked towards the Chinatown Hotel on 21st Place, and when I post those shots, I also took photos of several two and three flats along that street.