Belmont Avenue El Platform by Chipka
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
Chicago sleeps. Quite a lot. There are times when it seems as if trucks enter the downtown area and roll the streets up at night. For as large a city as Chicago pretends to be, it really shouldn’t sleep…and yet it does. Most parts of it anyway. Belmont Avenue when you’re around the 1000 West block of it, is an insomniac’s street. At 10am, you can find traffic there…you can come back at 2am and still find traffic. Where the streets are rolled up at night in other parts of the city, Belmont remains stubbornly useful. It’s a nexus street, connecting western areas of the city to the lakefront. It exists well within the region known as BoysTown (spelled in a number of different ways) and its location guarantees a jittering sort of non-stop energy. The area has been domesticated lately; it’s no longer edgy, loud, bouncy and vibrant. Street punks don’t amble around with hair like electrocuted tropical fish…panhandlers don’t ask for change for piercings, and Betty Page’s accidental younger sister/clone (mentioned in an earlier post) no longer lives in an apartment with an Elvis Presley bust in her front window. But Belmont still lives. Somewhat.
I took this picture last week, while ambling around with Corey. It almost captures what the Belmont Red Line stop once looked like. It’s a lot cleaner now. There are no drunk people nearly falling onto the electrified tracks. You can’t hear throbbing, sweaty music oozing out of the Vic Theater (those bricks in the background) and if you’re on the southbound platform, you can’t look into the alley and see me on one of the fire escapes, smoking clove cigarettes (or Camel Wides) with Kirby, Hugh, and a number of other friends all sweaty with dance-moisture and Calvin Klein cologne rubbings (from other dancers who’d gotten a bit too close.) I can’t say that I miss my boogie club days with Kirby and Hugh (a mad-woman and a country-boy-all-grown-up) but I do miss hanging out in venues that offered live music (or beer with movies) and smoking space on a fire escape. It was good to see the backside of the Vic. It was good to wander. It would have been good to find some Calvin Klein scented dancefloor…but oh well…It was probably just as well that all we found was a northbound el.
As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great weekend.
Comments (23)
And you lived the youth when youth was young... as it is intended. Great, big city ramblings of the past and now. You have that town in the palm of your hand.
WOW! This takes me back. Or at least it almost does. When I first looked at this I thought it was an archival photo and then saw that it was the new station. You do that "aged" thing so well in post. Love how you congered up the feel of the old Belmont/Boystown. Back when I was a Klub Kidd and hung out with drag queens with names like Debby Diabetic and Juicy Butt. The area isn't as edgy and fun as it once was then neither am I. Great work!
wonderful to go to places you been to. brings back memories. I was just on the metro in paris fr. a long time ago to ride to places. it cool to ride too.
This has an almost vintage look and I like it a lot. It's also a gritty, urban foto, the kind you do SO well!!
Superb! At least Chicago doesn't prop up her dead in the bus shelters.
It is if there is an Auro around every person in this picture. Outstanding work my friend.
Great shot Chip - I'm with Corey - I thought this was of el station nostalgia but realized from your narrative that it was actually a more modern shot...it does make me wax poetic for the old days you describe...Corey and I used to go dancing at Berlin or the Avalon...miss the days of innocent dancing, boozing, hanging out for very little change...now alot of the fun times have been scrubbed away to make room for our homogenious city by the lake. The things that brought such character to the place have been outsourced to other parts of this great city so all you see in this neighborhood now are hermetically sealed suburban androids....nice shot and narrative
SO you are a nostalgic :-) Yes, I say, if you are nostalgic, you usually have something good the think back about. Not bad at all to have that.. and this shot is excellenly done.
As always you provide a good insight to Chicago.
fantastic work
Your photo is great and I love the post work. Your description of your boogie club days brings back my own memories, not of Chicago, but in every other way almost identical, down to the smokes.
This is a movie set, is it not...? Great capture and postwork.
A nice slice of life :) The post work is very cool, I like the "aura" surrounding the people.
Wow... Really wonderful captures in your Gallery! Great look for people and details! Very well done!
Something about your shots always has a feel of other worlds...not necessarily extraterrestrial, but otherworldly nonetheless. This is no different, you can see the auras around the creatures on the platform, which makes me wonder what sort of element they subsist on that is so different from my own. Wonderful work!
Reading your narrative and everybody's comments above, I think the otherworldly feel comes from this being an El. There is something unnatural about people waiting for and riding around in trains 30-40 feet up in the air. As for the memories invoked...smokes on fire escapes, sweaty dance floors, old friends and beer with movies, I haven't been there personally, but I've seen it all in New York City. All very nostalgic...an easy, fun visualization for me. Cool. Great postwork.
I love the gritty look you've achieved with this! What a great image. I remember the days when you didn't have to go out on a fire escape to smoke. Ahhh ... those were some fine times! There's something so antiseptic about smoke-free bars. Now who on earth thought THAT was a good idea? Even though I quit smoking years ago, I still think a smoky bar is the way to go.
stellar shot
Superb photo and I love the postwork you've done with it. It's very reminescant of those old postcards you used to see back in the 50's. Excellent!
terrific slice of life and post treatment work!
Great bit of personal history to contextualise your image. I really like how you post worked this. It has a definite retro feel to it, and some of those people have glowing edges that remind me of some old sci-fi-alien-invasion-type-thingy on TV where the aliens had a personal shield to protect them from our atmosphere, but only certain people could see it. It's terrible how the memory goes as we get older. It's like having that memory loss problem - the one where you forget things - what's it called?
in great mood! this is what I like about your art, both images and writing
Perfect street photo which I like so much.