Left of the Loop Part III: Where Have All the Pioneers Gone?

the West Loop, circa 198?

Tim W. Brown's Left of the Loop is in one sense a frontier story. If, as it is described in Frederick Jackson Turner's essay "The Frontier in American History," the frontier is a sparsely populated margin at the far edge of established settlement, then the West Loop in the Eighties fits the bill. Although the neighborhood bears no resemblance to the "meadows, timberland, mountain ranges, water systems and clean skies" traditionally associated with the frontier, Stark and Spungkdt are, by Spungkdt's own estimation, the only inhabitants for at least four square blocks or so; their Little House comes equipped with a huge industrial steel sliding gate, and their Prairie consists of weeds snaking up through cracks in the concrete.

As 50% of the population of the urban crumble surrounding Sangamon Street, Spungkdt naturally becomes interested in the origins of the word "sangamon," and his research leads him to a broader inquiry into the early days of American pioneerism as well as the early days of the West Loop itself. In the chapter "Geography of the Mind," Spungkdt delivers a fascinating lecture on these early days, shares with us some etymology, and is honest enough to admit the small degree of vanity inherent in the Urban Pioneer of the 1980s. I wondered if Brown's views on Urban Frontiersmanship had changed at all in the years since leaving the Wilderness...

As 50% of the population of the urban crumble surrounding Sangamon Street, Spungkdt naturally becomes interested in the origins of the word "sangamon," and his research leads him to a broader inquiry into the early days of American pioneerism as well as the early days of the West Loop itself. In the chapter "Geography of the Mind," Spungkdt delivers a fascinating lecture on these early days, shares with us some etymology, and is honest enough to admit the small degree of vanity inherent in the Urban Pioneer of the 1980s. I wondered if Brown's views on Urban Frontiersmanship had changed at all in the years since leaving the Wilderness...

MC: Where is the American Frontier now? IS the American Frontier anywhere anymore? What, if anything, is left for the urban pioneers of the 21st century?

TWB: People have been writing about where the frontier has disappeared to since before the U.S. Government declared it closed in the 1890s, which spawned the famous essay "The Frontier in American History" by Frederick Jackson Turner. With his "frontier thesis," Turner argued that throughout history the frontier has been a state of mind as much as a physical space in the American imagination. That's how I interpret the concept, too. The frontier aspect of the West Loop as it existed in the eighties has all but disappeared. However, the gentrification that affects urban neighborhoods as they go from run-down to hip and trendy continues apace in a variety of Chicago neighborhoods and in other cities. That's what gentrification is, really: rich, "civilized" (i.e., college-educated white) settlers gradually replace poorer, transient, often minority or immigrant residents in what amounts to expansion into "frontier" territories on the margins of more established, advantaged territories. It's a process that the colonial and pioneer ancestors of many Americans would immediately recognize.

I visited Brooklyn recently (a big deal for me -- I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been there since moving to New York in 2003). I went to see a salsa band with tickets I won from the radio. I was immediately struck by how much the surrounding neighborhood resembled Wicker Park or Bucktown in the mid-nineties -- you know, sushi restaurants and clothing boutiques situated amid tire repair shops and liquor stores protected by bullet-proof glass. The club itself, a sleekly renovated loft, was on the fringe of Park Slope in Gowanus, a highly industrialized area that was reminiscent of the West Loop at about the time a few scattered restaurants started to open along West Randolph Street, say around 1992. Even in a city like Brooklyn, which has existed since the 1600s, the process repeats itself ad infinitum. Old becomes new all over again.

Apocalypse or Frontier? A view from the Sangamon St. loft

MC: Similarly--has the Post Industrial Urban Apocalypse dissipated, disappeared, decentralized, changed faces? How do you see it now?

TWB: I had always expected the West Loop to evolve into the place it is today. It was following a pattern already well underway in the River North neighborhood around Wells Street and Chicago Avenue. The management company that owned our loft promised us that one day the neighborhood, including our building, would be fully renovated and transformed from a hopeless wasteland into a gleaming urban oasis. Problem was, the process took twenty years, not the three or four we expected. There are literally hundreds of examples of how the neighborhood has changed since the eighties, but one I immediately recollect involves a tarpaper freight house that was practically collapsing in on itself which I describe in the book. Today, that structure is the bright, airy La Borsa Restaurant.

When I lived in the West Loop, my roommate and I were the only residents for many square blocks. Of course, there were numerous homeless people who lived around the neighborhood, sleeping in doorways, under bridges and in improvised shelters built of cardboard boxes and scrap wood. Also, there were hookers plying their trade along Lake Street, who I believe came from elsewhere. But we were the only people in the vicinity who had, you know, an ADDRESS.

Now I see suburbanites popping out of limousines and into clubs and restaurants, condo dwellers taking little foo-foo dogs for walks, arty types sipping coffee and eating small delicate pastries at cafes, and tourists filing in and out of Oprah Winfrey's studios. Back in the day, suburbanites were frightened of the neighborhood, the only dogs I saw roamed in wild packs, gourmet coffee hadn't yet penetrated the American marketplace, and Oprah had just launched a new, unproven talk show broadcast from Channel 7's facilities.

Post-Industrial Urban wagon train

Left of the Loop is a delightful read and preserves a totally unique piece of Chicago history. In addition to the small cross-section I've been able to give you here, it's got poetry, stickin' it to the Man, a conversation between protagonist Ish Spungkdt and the Ghost of the Guy Who Threw the Haymarket Bomb, lots and lots of great ways to relieve urban ennui, and more broken glass than anyone will ever know what to do with.

Tim W. Brown lives in the Bronx. His fourth novel, Second Acts, will be published by Gival Press in October 2010.

His first three, Left of the Loop, Deconstruction Acres, and Walking Man, can be found here on the Chicago Underground Library shelves--along with the many other books and zines he's generously donated.

-Originally appeared in July 2010 on the blog of the Chicago Underground Library