Chicago's Alleys
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| The
different sides of Chicago feature a variety of different characteristics. With that
being said one must note that as the streets differ so to do the alleys. Therefore,
I created this little page to give players a better idea of the different nooks and
crannies of the Windy City. Chicago is a tightly compacted city whose buildings become
more spaced out the further one travels from Downtown. Streets are more crowded and
compact in the center of town, but in the outskirts, buildings tend to have more space
between them. |
Alley, Downtown - Gold Coast.
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Alley, Downtown. |
Therefore in these sections, alleys are more
narrow and hidden as the walls of the tall buildings on either side prevent much light
from penetrating them. They most often are dank, dirty, and smelly. Most of
them are used during the day for loading and unloading of shipments or tossing of trash
into large dumpsters. At night, alleys transform into places of refuge for those
seeking to forage through refuse and debris or for those seeking to quickly dispose of
stiff or rough up a mark who is behind in his payments to "da boss". Alleys
behind bigger businesses have subterranean loading docks where vehicles can rum down ramps
to a lower level. Chicago even has a series of tunnels beneath it fanning from the various
docks to downtown to relieve the congestion of large trucks in the downtown area. They
vary in width as you can see by the picture on the left. In one area an alley may be
wide, while at the next block it will narrow depending on the buildings surrounding it.
Pavement varies from dirt to gravel to cobblestones to tar. Alleys in which the "L" tracks run overhead offer other amazing
possibilities as they are further sheltered from vies overhead and tend to be much darker
as the steel tracks make it nearly impossible |
| for
overhead light to shine down upon
them. Here the noise from the rumbling from the roaring trains above deafen even
screams and gunshots. Victims of violent crimes are often discovered in these areas
several weeks after the fact and like the Michigan Avenue
Underground, police avoid entering these places unless they are in groups of five or more. Litter and other
debris from the city streets collect in these alleys as the rush of wind from the passing "L"s acts as a vacuum. |
Alley, Under "L" tracks.
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Alleys in the slum areas
of Chicago vary in length and width as well. Some feature rickety wooden stairways
in the backs of tenements strewn with trash and fences marking property lines of these run
down areas. Rear entrances to apartments and
businesses face into them as with the alleys in the heart of the city. However, they
are more filthy than the lit alleys of the wealthy Gold Coast
(see the picture at the top of this page). In the slums, alleys are strewn with
drying laundry from above and often times have narrow bridges connecting tenements in a
given neighborhood. The smell of raw sewage permeates in these places as often time
a narrow stream of waste will meander down its center. In the industrial areas alleys
are wider as large shipments of raw materials must be accommodated. Here piles of
junk and stray lumber are common components to the landscape along with buildings made of
corrugated steel and other metal alloys.
When encountering an alley in Chicago, it is important to factor in the type of
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Alley,
Slums.
Alley, Slums - Backs of tenements.
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Alley, Slums- Backs of tenements. |
neighborhood one is in. It is my hope that
that this page gives you as a player a clear understanding that no two alleys are alike. Click
HERE
for the index of locations! |
