Chicago, Day 3, Part 2

 Action!

It’s wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.

                                                                                                Dan C. Quayle

 Do you recognize that house?  A little familiar?

 That is the Gallagher house from the Showtime show Shameless. 

Chicago has been the setting of many well known movies over the years.  The Blues Brother’s, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, When Harry Met Sally, About Last Night, Home Alone, The Fugitive, Risky Business, The Color of Money, High Fidelity, and, of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, to name a few.

I’m not that interested in the big movie sites.  I want to see the few sites that interest me.

 Shameless is based on a British series of the same name about a lower class dysfunctional family as they struggle with the unique challenges of six children taking care of themselves and the hijinks that follow.  Add in a hilariously drunk and chronically opportunistic father, played by William H. Macy, and you find me there every week in front of the T.V.

Shameless is set in the Canaryville neighborhood of Chicago, but it is filmed in South Lawndale. 

The Gallagher’s neighbors, Kev and Veronica’s house is actually just two houses down.  No movie magic needed here.

I make my way into the alley and around to the back of the Gallagher house.  Many scenes are shot in the yard and I wanted to see if it resembled the show.

 Just as I am about to take another picture I hear a screaming voice that I can only describe as that of a woman so fervent and possessed with purpose that she could order God to reverse the rotation of the Earth.

 “HE’S TAKING PICTURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

I simultaneously duck and look around.  I can’t see her, but I feel like I should keep my head down, as if her voice could somehow cause physical harm.  I’m out of here.  This isn’t a good neighborhood and I don’t want whatever made that noise to get a hold of me.

I’m shooting on the fly now, but there is one more house from Shameless that I have to see.  The character Sheila is a dowdy middle aged widow with a prim and proper demeanor, flighty nature, and an odd sexual predilection.  She lives in a nice looking house immediately adjacent to an “L” track.  If you look in the upper right corner you can see the tracks above me.  People actually live that close to train tracks.  You will notice there are no window’s facing the tracks and I bet the brick does something to shield the noise, but what about the vibrations?

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Hill Street Blues

 Created by Steven Bochco and taking place in an unnamed American city, Hill Street Blues ran from 1981 to 1987 chronicling the lives of the staff and guests of a police precinct in an inner city neighborhood.

The precinct house is an actual police station in Chicago, but the show went to great lengths to not reveal a city.

I spent many weeknights watching re-runs of this show, which came on right after the news.  A truly compelling and innovative show for it’s time, TV Guide named the series The All-Time Best Cop Show.  I agree.

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ER

Created by Michael Crichton and running from 1994 to 2009, ER was based out of a fictional County General Hospital in Chicago.  Although most of the show was shot on set in LA for the hospital scenes, you may recognize this angle of the ambulance bay/entrance to the emergency room. 

 This is Nurse Hathaway’s house.  If you look to the side you can see the "L" tracks up against the house.  She was one of my favorite characters early on.  I was truly disappointed when the series ended.

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Andersonville

Hopleaf

Andersonville is a neighborhood just north of downtown Chicago.  It was started in 1855, but really grew in prominence after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  After the fire, wooden homes were outlawed in Chicago and Swedish immigrants who couldn’t afford to build homes of stone or brick moved north of the city limits.

No one seems to know where the name “Andersonville” came from. 

I am starting to learn that if someone in Chicago does not want to give you a straight answer, they act like they don’t know. 

Why not “Little Sweden” or “Swede Hollow”; but “Andersonville”?  My theory is that calling someone an “Anderson” was a derogatory reference to people from Sweden. 

Being Swedish, I kind of like that.  In Minnesota we could generalize it more, “Hey, quit being an Anderson!”  “What an Anderson!”  “Did that Anderson just cut me off?”  Much more polite sounding than my current vocabulary.

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Hopleaf

Hopleaf is a tavern. You must be 21 years old or over with valid ID to enter. Children, including infants, will not be admitted.  Hopleaf website

 I could tell right away this was my kind of bar. 

Gastropub:  a pub, bar, or tavern that offers meals of high quality.  Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, August 2012

 It is officially recognized!  Gastropub.  I was never fond of the name, but the embodiment of the idea is my perfect bar.  Good food and good drink.

The term was coined in 1991 at The Eagle pub in London.  Prior to this, London pubs had simple, often cold foods, and shellfish vendors would visit the pubs at night selling cockles, whelks, and mussels.  The Eagle started to serve gourmet food with the usual drinks.  The idea caught on and came over to America in 2003, or 2004 – depending on who you talk to.

Most sources point to The Spotted Pig in Manhattan’s West Village as the first gastropub in the U.S.  Supposedly Chicago’s Hopleaf predates The Spotted Pig by at least 6 months.  The Chicago worship of being number one makes me wonder about this contention, but I do truly believe that this is the American gastropub Mecca.

Most important to me for a gastropub is the drink.  It’s not because I have an uncontrollable need to consume mass quantities of alcohol, but without a good drink, it is just a restaurant. 

I like restaurants, but restaurants have a certain rhythm that circles around breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The have a focus and purpose, with prescribed procedures that leave you little freedom.

A gastropub lets you come in at any time and decide what you want it to be.  It’s up to your mood.  They are there to serve.

Come in to Hopleaf for a cup of coffee and some relaxing reading and they’ll fire up the massive espresso machine behind the bar and direct you to what is allegedly the best magazine rack in Chicago. They also have a full set of encyclopedias and no T.V.s.

 Come in for a snack and Hopleaf is known for the best steamed mussels in the city.  A Belgian focused bar with many Belgian Beers and food items, the mussels can be had Belgian-Style or in white wine.  Belgian-Style is the only way to go I’m told, where the mussels are steamed in Wittekerke white ale with sliced shallots, celery, thyme and bayleaf.

The mussels come in a heavy cast iron pot covered in a bowl to be used for your shells.  On top of the mussels are two pieces fresh made and hardy bread.

The mussels were incredible, but the sauce was amazing.  After all the bread had been used up, I looked around to make sure no one was watching and then scooped up spoonfuls of the sauce directly into my mouth.  I’m not proud.

More to come...