ZACH GOLDHAMMER
Chinatown’s South Louie Parkway—just one block long, located squarely between Ping Tom Memorial Park and the Chinatown Square shopping district—is, for the most part, a quiet residential street. The rows of plain brick homes, built by the Richland Realty Group in 2002 as affordable housing for workers and recent immigrants, sit at the lot lines of the narrow road, lending it the feel of a suburban alley. Continue reading
Confetti fell at Cermak and Wentworth on Chicago’s annual Chinese New Year Parade last Sunday, which marked a raucous entry into the Year of the Horse.
Illustration by Isabel Ochoa Gold
Behind an ajar back door, two graying men play Chinese chess on a wooden board. The small room, held by a foam ceiling and walls of propped-up green acrylic boards, is the home of the Chicago Chinese Table Tennis Club, safely tucked away on West 23rd Street. Continue reading
Zoe Kauder Nalebuff
Chinatown ostensibly retooled itself for tourism in the early nineties, with the opening of the two-story outdoor Chinatown Square over what used to be the Santa Fe rail. And with fresh blacktop being steamrolled onto Archer and Cermak and those shiny, new Red Line renovations optimistically nearing completion, the rush of visitors doesn’t seem likely to ebb anytime soon. Continue reading