Met a guy at the Brown Line who taught me about my neighborhood's history

Last Tuesday I was waiting at the Belmont stop and this older guy next to me starts pointing at a building down the street. He told me it used to be a jazz club in the 1920s where Louis Armstrong supposedly played once. I've walked past that place for 3 years and never knew. Has anyone else had a random stranger drop some wild Chicago history on them?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.lisa16d ago

Bet those old jazz clubs had tunnels under them for hiding booze during prohibition.

wren_rodriguez16d ago

Honestly, my buddy @king.lisa is on the right track. I've actually helped a buddy map out an old speakeasy's floor plan in St. Louis once, and there were three different tunnel entrances hidden behind bookcases and under trapdoors in the basement. Most of those joints had at least one tunnel, sometimes two, because the speakeasy owners needed a quick way to dump booze if the feds showed up. Tbh, a lot of those tunnels still exist under old buildings today, just sealed up or forgotten. Wouldn't surprise me if some of them still have old bottles and crates down there.