Photos

Photo documentary of the Belmont Avenue and Clark Street area in the neighborhood of Wrigleyville in Chicago. Includes tattooing and a nightclub sequence in addition to the places and people that make up the everyday life of this quirky section of the city.

Back Cover:
Before I ever came to Chicago in 2006 to study journalism, before I ever expressed an interest in photography, before I spent all my weekends exploring the area around the Belmont red line stop, I was a suburban pre-teen who listened to the radio where I heard endless commercials for the famous Alley Chicago.

The Alley, at the corner of Belmont Avenue and Clark Street, is a 40,000-square-foot goth/punk merchandise mecca selling all cuts of leather, T-shirts to upset any dress code, thigh-high eight-inch boots, corsets, arm warmers, Zippo lighters, belt buckles, flasks, knives, coffee mugs, wallets, body jewelry of varying gauges and any number of other rebellious, rockcentric knick-knacks and accessories.

The radio spots that played on Chicago’s Alternative, WKQX-FM 101.1, embraced the anarchist attitude that draws millions to the Alley every year and basically insulted people into coming down. “Belmont and Clark: If you dare,” the raspy voice would taunt at the end just after reminding you that your car will be towed from the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot.

As a responsible, angst-ridden adolescent I was already well acquainted with the Alley’s corporate twin Hot Topic, but I wanted authenticity and a taste of the city. For the entire summer after eighth grade, my brother and I begged our parents to take us to the Alley, and finally one muggy Saturday night we set out down the interstate around 9:30 p.m. to the only cross-streets in Chicago that I knew by name.

Every slice of the diagonal intersection seemed alive with people standing on the corners smoking, talking, drinking and crossing the streets freely from one odd sounding shop to another: Hollywood Mirror, Taboo Tabou, Blue Havana, Secrets, The Tragically Hip and The Architectural Revolution, to name a few.

I don’t remember even buying anything that night, but I do remember a tension between feeling completely comfortable and totally illicit, switched on and intrigued, but scarcely able to look. Those two hours wandering through the leather-clad crowd of jagged hairstyles, visible tattoos and chunky rubber soles made such an impression upon me that countless trips to the Art Institute and Chicago Symphony Orchestra could not wash away what I imagined to have been my only glimpse at the real Chicago.

When I moved to the Loop to attend Roosevelt University some six years later, one of the first places I visited with my unlimited transit pass was Belmont and Clark. It was remarkably the same, still teeming with youth, music and a certain electricity that goes along with shopping until midnight. A year later I returned with my camera, determined to capture that tension, to share that glimpse and to walk away with more than memories.