The Last Men’s Hotel in Chicago(newrepublic.com)
newrepublic.com
The Last Men’s Hotel in Chicago
https://newrepublic.com/article/161808/ewing-annex-hotel-housing-crisis-chicago
67 comments
And this is an excuse to link to this really thorough documentation of the architecture and history of Uptown, which has had a wild history.
https://chicagoflaneur.com/2020/04/24/portrait-of-chicago-up...
https://chicagoflaneur.com/2020/04/24/portrait-of-chicago-up...
Where are some of these SROs at? Are they along Sheridan north of Montrose? That seems to be where things are the most dodgy (which isn't to say they aren't nice people, only that you notice the stark contrast when you cross Montrose on Sheridan or Hazel).
I would like to see America build more of these.
Even lightening building codes, and zoning requirements (allow for very small rooms). If the Infrasctructure bill promised more of this type of housing I would be thrilled. I'd be happy with a few public restrooms strategically placed around cities, but I guess I'm the only one that needs easy access to a bathroom!
1. It's obvious homlessness is just getting worse. I just heard the head of the Federal Reserve comment on the increasing size of the homeless encampment mext to his office.
2. We need building codes that encourage small simple housing units.
3. I like the hotel doesn't have a list of rules. I feel giving people some control over their lives is very important. I like there are no mandatory religious meetings, or curfews. Treat a man like a thinking adult, and you might be suprised with the result?
4. Yes--I understand this place is in disrepair, but why couldn't we built simple housing? I sometimes think authorities make projects more complicated because they secretly don't want anything built, especially for the poor.
5. Oh yea, America needs more people like thus guy:
"Wesley Duran, a porter at the hotel. “I try to give everyone respect, treat people fairly here. There’s too much hatred in the world for me to go that way. We’ve gotta be nicer to one another.”
Even lightening building codes, and zoning requirements (allow for very small rooms). If the Infrasctructure bill promised more of this type of housing I would be thrilled. I'd be happy with a few public restrooms strategically placed around cities, but I guess I'm the only one that needs easy access to a bathroom!
1. It's obvious homlessness is just getting worse. I just heard the head of the Federal Reserve comment on the increasing size of the homeless encampment mext to his office.
2. We need building codes that encourage small simple housing units.
3. I like the hotel doesn't have a list of rules. I feel giving people some control over their lives is very important. I like there are no mandatory religious meetings, or curfews. Treat a man like a thinking adult, and you might be suprised with the result?
4. Yes--I understand this place is in disrepair, but why couldn't we built simple housing? I sometimes think authorities make projects more complicated because they secretly don't want anything built, especially for the poor.
5. Oh yea, America needs more people like thus guy:
"Wesley Duran, a porter at the hotel. “I try to give everyone respect, treat people fairly here. There’s too much hatred in the world for me to go that way. We’ve gotta be nicer to one another.”
Like Doya in Japan?
https://youtu.be/kBPyN3LE65g?t=334
https://youtu.be/kBPyN3LE65g?t=334
Ugh, I hate to pull this out, by: NIMBY-ism.
To a first approximation nobody wants an SRO on their back yard. Me? I am just fine with it, I have lived near SROs for years. But…oh whatever, I’ll be blunt: Karen doesn’t want a giant building full of itinerant men on her block, and she is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent such a thing.
To a first approximation nobody wants an SRO on their back yard. Me? I am just fine with it, I have lived near SROs for years. But…oh whatever, I’ll be blunt: Karen doesn’t want a giant building full of itinerant men on her block, and she is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent such a thing.
So let's be realistic and admit these buildings do NOT have to be built in residential areas with Karens abounding. The perfect is the enemy of the good here; let them be wedged into industrial areas or other "not as desirable" parts of town.
Trying to pretend that the "bad part of town" can be removed if we just figure out the magic steps is part of the problem.
Trying to pretend that the "bad part of town" can be removed if we just figure out the magic steps is part of the problem.
Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26880612 and make your substantive points without swipes.
Not sure I completely agree, but I definitely do think this kind of project can be derailed by proponents who want to be uncompromising about it and don't think it's acceptable to compromise in something like location because its harder to get built where people don't want it.
An example people probably won't like is those mixed income buildings (can't remember where now) that had separate entrances for the subsidized units. It's definitely not egalitarian in some sense, but if it allows more subsidized housing to be built for people that need it, is it really better just to not do it?
An example people probably won't like is those mixed income buildings (can't remember where now) that had separate entrances for the subsidized units. It's definitely not egalitarian in some sense, but if it allows more subsidized housing to be built for people that need it, is it really better just to not do it?
Mm, yes, this is closer.
You see this with other goods too, notably cars. Creating a car that meets all contemporary safety standards is hugely expensive.
Is that safety a net good? Yes. Does it have societal costs? You betcha.
You see this with other goods too, notably cars. Creating a car that meets all contemporary safety standards is hugely expensive.
Is that safety a net good? Yes. Does it have societal costs? You betcha.
It was NYC. (Manhattan.) And they didn't have separate entrances for subsidized units, they had separate entrances for wealthy penthouse owners who really did have greater security concerns than the run of the mill residents living on lower floors. People who can afford a 20 to 50 million dollar penthouse do think long and hard about security.
But the masses simply ignored the service provision aspect and screamed "Why do you guys have a poor people door!?!?!"
But the masses simply ignored the service provision aspect and screamed "Why do you guys have a poor people door!?!?!"
I guess I didn't get the memo. When we say "security" in this context, what do we mean ? Kidnaping ? Assassination ?
More basic things like robberies. It's nice to have the building security guy open the door of your car and walk you inside when you're carrying hundreds of thousands worth of jewelry on you.
I don't live in a dangerous area (Westminster), but targeted robberies happen here too. I (and much less my girlfriend with her high jewellery obsession) wouldn't feel super comfortable living in a townhouse or apartment building without 24/7 security staff.
If someone wants to kidnap or assassinate you, this kind of security will probably do nothing to stop them. At least it'll disincentivize robberies, there are easier targets out there.
I don't live in a dangerous area (Westminster), but targeted robberies happen here too. I (and much less my girlfriend with her high jewellery obsession) wouldn't feel super comfortable living in a townhouse or apartment building without 24/7 security staff.
If someone wants to kidnap or assassinate you, this kind of security will probably do nothing to stop them. At least it'll disincentivize robberies, there are easier targets out there.
Honestly if having varying levels of service enables services that wouldn't exist otherwise, I'm all for it. First Class seats don't hurt me and subsidize my flights, so yay first class!
I've often wondered if mass transit would do better if we just openly had first class cars and otherwise segregated them on a price level.
I've often wondered if mass transit would do better if we just openly had first class cars and otherwise segregated them on a price level.
It is more expensive to build a separate entrance for certain classes, not less expensive.
And those kind of affordable housing schemes are a joke from a social perspective. Yes, it's great if you win the lottery. But it doesn't do much for the 99.998% of people who don't win the lottery.
And those kind of affordable housing schemes are a joke from a social perspective. Yes, it's great if you win the lottery. But it doesn't do much for the 99.998% of people who don't win the lottery.
It's probably still a net win to build separate entrances if they would lose significantly more money on decreased value of the non-subsidized units than the separate entrances would cost.
So how are we dealing with transit?
We are going to build giant housing projects (with what capital or grants) and then create mass transit to them?
How’s that ended up working so far?
We are going to build giant housing projects (with what capital or grants) and then create mass transit to them?
How’s that ended up working so far?
Based on SF, it appears that any such attempt will fail on the grounds that you are attempting to put these people "out of sight, out of mind".
It’s not like Karen doesn’t have a point. I live in Ballard and our property crime rate has skyrocketed ever since the homeless camps took over a few parks. One camp over in the U district is even famous for hosting a bicycle chop shop where components are stripped from stolen bikes, which the SPD won’t do anything about. Not wanting drug needles and smashed car windows in your backyard really isn’t unreasonable.
There are no easy solutions to these problems, at anyrate. We will all have to make a few trade offs, but they have to be more reasonable than dumping all of the problem in a few places.
There are no easy solutions to these problems, at anyrate. We will all have to make a few trade offs, but they have to be more reasonable than dumping all of the problem in a few places.
Can you people stop using my mother's name as a slur that means obnoxious white woman? I'm used to this bigotry on Reddit but why is it ok here? I'm so sick of it.
If you look at HN comments including "Karen" there aren't that many usages this way: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... But I agree, we don't need it here. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26880612.
I do agree with you, it would be super frowned upon to go around doing the same thing with common names of other ethnicities. I don't think its right that we're okay with low-key disparaging one race but not another. At one point in time I think people would have considered that to be racist, but I guess that's not a thing anymore.
You can't help being born black, or being born a woman. However, you can not be an entitled person who abuses their privilege in order to get ahead of literally everyone else, which is the attitude a "Karen" embodies. Sure, I'll concede the name has been picked poorly, but to be honest, I really do not think it's nearly on the same category as racism or sexism.
I turned off the flags on your comment; your point is the kind of thing I meant in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26880612 about how society is divided on this category of putdown.
On HN, fortunately, we have a simpler playbook than the Big Book of Social Norms Worldwide, which is impossible to make consistent. It's at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, and I think that the rules "please don't call names" and "eschew flamebait" suffice for us all to just avoid the Karen thing here.
On HN, fortunately, we have a simpler playbook than the Big Book of Social Norms Worldwide, which is impossible to make consistent. It's at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, and I think that the rules "please don't call names" and "eschew flamebait" suffice for us all to just avoid the Karen thing here.
Sure thing, that's fair. "No name-calling" is pretty clear-cut all things considered.
Notice I really haven't used the term myself (or "boomer" in a derogatory way) but it's the sort of thing that admittedly ruffles my feathers.
EDIT: Alright, apparently I did allude to someone being a boomer once, but it was fittingly in a generational way and not as gratuitous name-calling.
Notice I really haven't used the term myself (or "boomer" in a derogatory way) but it's the sort of thing that admittedly ruffles my feathers.
EDIT: Alright, apparently I did allude to someone being a boomer once, but it was fittingly in a generational way and not as gratuitous name-calling.
Yes, I noticed that, which is why I don't think your comment should have been flagged.
It’s not just NIMBY-ism, and NIMBY-ism isn’t what drove these away. What it is is pretty much the minimum mage—housing has to meet a minimum threshold in quality or else it can’t exist. Never mind that people might still be willing to live there and are able to make their own decisions. And some people might not have other options.
To many, this seems like exploitation. They’d rather have people living on the street than have a business make money off of them.
To many, this seems like exploitation. They’d rather have people living on the street than have a business make money off of them.
Bingo.
And it's not even the exploitation. Believe it or not, it's the fact that there is no one to hold liable if things go wrong. At root, it's about on which head does liability rest. You don't meet code, firefighters rush in, and the staircase collapses. Who do the cops and the firefighters go after? If it's the owner of the SRO, then no real estate investor will build one. (At least, not one that isn't up to code.) You can try to loosen the code, but the firefighters are only going to allow you to cut so much before their unions have your picture up on billboards around town as the big, bad, slumlord pushing for substandard housing.
Owning a lot of real estate is not a picnic, and you learn a lot of things you never knew before about how local politics work.
And it's not even the exploitation. Believe it or not, it's the fact that there is no one to hold liable if things go wrong. At root, it's about on which head does liability rest. You don't meet code, firefighters rush in, and the staircase collapses. Who do the cops and the firefighters go after? If it's the owner of the SRO, then no real estate investor will build one. (At least, not one that isn't up to code.) You can try to loosen the code, but the firefighters are only going to allow you to cut so much before their unions have your picture up on billboards around town as the big, bad, slumlord pushing for substandard housing.
Owning a lot of real estate is not a picnic, and you learn a lot of things you never knew before about how local politics work.
My dad ran section 8 programs for a decade or more. They meet higher code standards than many suburbia “luxury” apartments.
Slumlords who don’t maintain buildings to code are bottom of the barrel renting to a very limited and desperate clientele. Encouraging that is nuts.
The notion that evil firefighter unions are making real estate expensive by advocating for codes that put them out of business is probably the most ill-informed comment I’ve read in some time. Absurd. Getting rid of balloon frames and cocklofts raised construction costs... but saved thousands of lives.
Slumlords who don’t maintain buildings to code are bottom of the barrel renting to a very limited and desperate clientele. Encouraging that is nuts.
The notion that evil firefighter unions are making real estate expensive by advocating for codes that put them out of business is probably the most ill-informed comment I’ve read in some time. Absurd. Getting rid of balloon frames and cocklofts raised construction costs... but saved thousands of lives.
>They’d rather have people living on the street than have a business make money off of them.
Considering the way these cities are going they will end up with a lot of people on the street.
Considering the way these cities are going they will end up with a lot of people on the street.
I know I'm working from incomplete data and confirmation bias, but it seems to me that those who fight against permanent facilities also seem to be against taking action against ad-hoc encampments. This just one of an almost endless set of contradictions I see in discussions of public policy these days.
I'm fair certain Karen is leading the charge to shut down ad-hoc encampments as well. Let's be honest, we have a lot of Karens in the US, and they're well known for not liking things like tent cities.
Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26880612 and make your substantive points without swipes.
[deleted]
The conclusion we can draw from this is that "people" (in quotes because, as you say, this is an incomplete data set) don't want to solve the problem of homelessness, they simply want to remove the visible signs of it in their local area. Make them go somewhere else, as it were.
To be fair, this is not necessarily one person holding a contradictory position, but the only realistic outcome of a process where people can't agree on a solution; several groups agree the encampments are a problem, but if they can't agree on a solution than the only action taken is removing the encampments.
To be fair, this is not necessarily one person holding a contradictory position, but the only realistic outcome of a process where people can't agree on a solution; several groups agree the encampments are a problem, but if they can't agree on a solution than the only action taken is removing the encampments.
If you want to use gendered raced insults go for it but if you would prefer to be more accurate and inclusive you could use NIMBY, middle class homeowner or environmentalist.
A big part of the missing SROs are the lack of ones that don't target itinerant men, such as are found in much of the world. The accommodations aren't the problem, the perception is -- plenty of medium- and high-income people in low-density areas participate in house shares.
But since SROs are illegal almost everywhere in the US, the few that have stuck in our memory are the ones for folks who didn't have any other real choice, rather than the ones that were simply the best choice.
I'm not sure how perception might shift. If I were to spitball, steps might include finding catchy names that combine student housing, nursing homes, and general-audience SROs and finding a couple flagship projects where luxury towers have high-floor SROs geared toward minimalist tech/finance bros and rich people in need of a crash pad.
But since SROs are illegal almost everywhere in the US, the few that have stuck in our memory are the ones for folks who didn't have any other real choice, rather than the ones that were simply the best choice.
I'm not sure how perception might shift. If I were to spitball, steps might include finding catchy names that combine student housing, nursing homes, and general-audience SROs and finding a couple flagship projects where luxury towers have high-floor SROs geared toward minimalist tech/finance bros and rich people in need of a crash pad.
I was about to comment the exact same thing.
There needs to be SRO's catered to non-poor people just needing a place to crash while exploring a city, minimalists, etc.
Outside America the hostel/guesthouse scene worked well for me as a longer term traveler, I even met others doing the "digital nomad" thing and fairly well-off people so there isn't a stigma like in America. When I mention the concept of hostels (even private room ones) to less-traveled Americans, some rolled their eyes and made comments about personal safety, poverty, and "not having your own big space."
There needs to be SRO's catered to non-poor people just needing a place to crash while exploring a city, minimalists, etc.
Outside America the hostel/guesthouse scene worked well for me as a longer term traveler, I even met others doing the "digital nomad" thing and fairly well-off people so there isn't a stigma like in America. When I mention the concept of hostels (even private room ones) to less-traveled Americans, some rolled their eyes and made comments about personal safety, poverty, and "not having your own big space."
This isn't the only place where this happens in urbanism, of course.
One such issue is busses. People with a choice will gladly ride trains and streetcars, but busses are stigmatized.
It turns out that if you design a bus line a certain way, busses are every bit as good a transportation system as light rail up to a pretty high throughput, and often cheaper (always cheaper upfront). But even places with really good Bus Rapid Transit lines, folks don't want to get on a bus to get them where they're going faster.
This is HN, I suspect many of us have taken company busses. I've known tons of people making over 500k/yr who took a bus to work in the US. And that was a bus that gets stuck in traffic! People not wanting to take a bus is not fundamental to the mode, it's a perception thing.
In much of the world, there's no stigma, and everyone will gladly take a bus if that's the best way to get where they're going.
One such issue is busses. People with a choice will gladly ride trains and streetcars, but busses are stigmatized.
It turns out that if you design a bus line a certain way, busses are every bit as good a transportation system as light rail up to a pretty high throughput, and often cheaper (always cheaper upfront). But even places with really good Bus Rapid Transit lines, folks don't want to get on a bus to get them where they're going faster.
This is HN, I suspect many of us have taken company busses. I've known tons of people making over 500k/yr who took a bus to work in the US. And that was a bus that gets stuck in traffic! People not wanting to take a bus is not fundamental to the mode, it's a perception thing.
In much of the world, there's no stigma, and everyone will gladly take a bus if that's the best way to get where they're going.
Lol. Only on HN.
I got rid of an SRO in my neighborhood. It was a shitshow... drug deals, issues with open containers and prostitution, car break ins, etc.
There are NIMBY assholes. But there are people who just want to live their life peaceably. Something like an SRO can turn from OK to a nightmare with a change in management or ownership. Nobody in their right mind wants one nearby.
I got rid of an SRO in my neighborhood. It was a shitshow... drug deals, issues with open containers and prostitution, car break ins, etc.
There are NIMBY assholes. But there are people who just want to live their life peaceably. Something like an SRO can turn from OK to a nightmare with a change in management or ownership. Nobody in their right mind wants one nearby.
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> Karen
I'd put this in the same category as "ok boomer" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Society may be divided about how ok those putdowns are relative to others, but in an HN context it's flamebait and name-calling, so it breaks the site guidelines. Your comment would be fine without it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'd put this in the same category as "ok boomer" (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Society may be divided about how ok those putdowns are relative to others, but in an HN context it's flamebait and name-calling, so it breaks the site guidelines. Your comment would be fine without it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
My small town has turned down apartment buildings for reasons like 'preserving the character of a run down building built after 1970' and 'not wanting to have apartments near a planned business hotel'.
The people opposing the projects absolutely don't want them built. For the one, there was also a discussion of having more poor people in the area that is a few hundred feet from the poorest census block in the county.
The people opposing the projects absolutely don't want them built. For the one, there was also a discussion of having more poor people in the area that is a few hundred feet from the poorest census block in the county.
I live in a hundred year old SRO in a blighted downtown area. It's how I got back into housing after years of homelessness.
I wanted to be an urban planner before life got in the way, so I see all the things wrong in my downtown and have some idea of what broke and why.
So one of my online projects is a website called Project: SRO trying to put together info about where things went wrong and how we could course correct.
http://projectsro.blogspot.com/
I wanted to be an urban planner before life got in the way, so I see all the things wrong in my downtown and have some idea of what broke and why.
So one of my online projects is a website called Project: SRO trying to put together info about where things went wrong and how we could course correct.
http://projectsro.blogspot.com/
There is dorm style co-living housing aimed recent college grads. Private bedroom, but most every other kind of room is "community". I have wondered if these places could discriminate against frugal older adults.
In the 19th century there were boarding houses aimed at working men. They bedded like this and had communal meal service.
This block of Chicago is really interesting. It’s like going back in time to when American cities were far seedier places than they are now.
It survives in part because the neighbor across the street is the Metropolitan Correctional Center [1] (an architectural masterpiece that was ruined by painting it about 10 years ago). The other reason it survives is that many buildings are owned in full by people that just aren’t interested in huge piles of money. When they pass away, their children will surely cash out and another skyscraper will rise.
There are quite a few hole-in-the-wall lunch places along this block. My favorite was a fried chicken place with some homemade (?) hot sauce. Around the corner is a fantastic old-school pizza place and I think the guy who runs it owns most of the buildings.
[1] https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/ccc/index.jsp
It survives in part because the neighbor across the street is the Metropolitan Correctional Center [1] (an architectural masterpiece that was ruined by painting it about 10 years ago). The other reason it survives is that many buildings are owned in full by people that just aren’t interested in huge piles of money. When they pass away, their children will surely cash out and another skyscraper will rise.
There are quite a few hole-in-the-wall lunch places along this block. My favorite was a fried chicken place with some homemade (?) hot sauce. Around the corner is a fantastic old-school pizza place and I think the guy who runs it owns most of the buildings.
[1] https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/ccc/index.jsp
A few years ago, I lived sever blocks south from this SRO in the South Loop (might be considered Printer's Row) neighborhood of Chicago.
It's squeezed between Federal and county buildings, and the commercial district. It's not residential but neither is it an undesirable part of town (w/r/t physical location). Indeed, it's the site of the old Chinatown.
It's as if this singular block was forgotten as modernization/gentrification reshaped everything else. It's curious.
It's squeezed between Federal and county buildings, and the commercial district. It's not residential but neither is it an undesirable part of town (w/r/t physical location). Indeed, it's the site of the old Chinatown.
It's as if this singular block was forgotten as modernization/gentrification reshaped everything else. It's curious.
Also the site of Chicago's first Chinatown. https://chicagodetours.com/forgotten-chinatown-chicago/
I worked at this intersection for half a decade. Your analysis is spot on. As for the chicken, you must be referring to Chicken Planet:
http://www.chickenplanetchicago.com/
I had to look it up because I knew it by location and not name. It was Mickey’s, not Chicken Planet.
The pizza place is Boni Vino and the lunch crowd is floor traders and guys with thick Chicago accents. Full bar at lunch.
The pizza place is Boni Vino and the lunch crowd is floor traders and guys with thick Chicago accents. Full bar at lunch.
Chicken Planet is great but it's not fried, and the hot sauce is wanting
I visited Chicago years ago and that prison is one of the I remember. I wondered if the place in the article was in that area but I was too lazy to check... Thanks!
"Like his friend and like his son, Mike strongly believes in caring for what and who are already here. In every one of the many conversations we have from May 2020 to February 2021, he shares with me, in his quiet, passionate voice, his vision: shuttered schools across the south and west sides remodeled, their doors opening like petals for women and children fleeing violent homes or for other Chicagoans in need of shelter while they wait for housing vouchers to come through, classrooms converted to dormitories, cafeterias serving whoever needs to eat."
It should be noted that this is unlikely to happen, unfortunately.
https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/school-closures-and-gentri... https://prospect.org/education/gentrification-school-closing...
Like Campus 805 in Huntsville, Alabama, they're much more likely to be torn down or redeveloped into a play-space for new transplants. Any sort of public service runs directly counter to the purpose of shutting down those schools in the first place.
It should be noted that this is unlikely to happen, unfortunately.
https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/school-closures-and-gentri... https://prospect.org/education/gentrification-school-closing...
Like Campus 805 in Huntsville, Alabama, they're much more likely to be torn down or redeveloped into a play-space for new transplants. Any sort of public service runs directly counter to the purpose of shutting down those schools in the first place.
Without disputing the need for cheap, low barrier shelter, this place looks like a tinderbox. It seems like it's one carelessly dropped cigarette away from a couple of hundred dead men.
Wow, I used to walk by this all the time (I lived in the South Loop and worked in the Loop). I never realized it was the last one. It's the one noticeably dodgier block in the area.
For what reasons would you say it was dodgier?
Not OP, but I wouldn't say it's dodgier, but rather that it feels like a time capsule from the past: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8760356,-87.630659,3a,75y,34...
It doesn't help that it's across the street from a prison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Correctional_Cent...) .
(edit, looks like OldHand2018 said basically the same thing I did!).
It doesn't help that it's across the street from a prison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Correctional_Cent...) .
(edit, looks like OldHand2018 said basically the same thing I did!).
I would get harassed on that block far more often despite it being considerably less dense than just a bit farther north (business) or south (residential). Maybe "dodgy" isn't the right word. You can also have a look around for yourself--the buildings on either side of this block are quite a bit nicer (although that on it's own isn't a good proxy for dodginess): https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8761663,-87.630677,3a,75y,31...
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With the bar on the top and the uncloseable bar on the bottom, this site was too claustrophobic for me to commit to reading the whole article.
They named the div at the bottom nicely, such that $('.paywall').remove() in the js console removes it.
"Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
But there are still single-room occupancy buildings, or SROs, around. They are largely clustered in Uptown. I would link to them, but, perhaps unsurprisingly: not much of a web presence.
And let me tell you, as one of those gentrifying tech folks living in the new or refurbished developments in Uptown and Edgewater: there are some nice folks there. One of them gave me a clicker randomly to help me train my dog. Walk by these buildings every day, they always compliment my dog.