Never a City So Real - Alex Kotlowitz [52]
To Doug Pepper, for asking—and for seeing it through with such care and good cheer. It’s a better book for it. And to David Black, my agent and good friend, for making it happen, as always.
Finally, to my father, Bob Kotlowitz, for all good things. And to my beloved wife, Maria, who keeps me real.
ALSO IN THE CROWN JOURNEYS SERIES
Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown
by Michael Cunningham
After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival
by Edwidge Danticat
City of the Soul: A Walk in Rome
by William Murray
Washington Schlepped Here: Walking in the Nation’s Capital by Christopher Buckley
Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg
by James McPherson
Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
by Chuck Palahniuk
Blues City: A Walk in Oakland by Ishmael Reed
Time and Tide: A Walk Through Nantucket
by Frank Conroy
Lost in My Own Backyard: A Walk in Yellowstone National Park by Tim Cahill
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Kotlowitz is the author of The Other Side of the River and There Are No Children Here, which the New York Public Library named as one of the most important books of the twentieth century. A former staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, as well as on This American Life and PBS. He has received the George Foster Peabody Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the George Polk Award. He is a writer-in-residence at Northwestern University and a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame.
ALSO BY ALEX KOTLOWITZ
The Other Side of the River
There Are No Children Here
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Donadio & Olson, Inc., for permission to reprint an excerpt from Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren. Copyright © 1951 by Nelson Algren. Reprinted by permission of Donadio & Olson, Inc.
Copyright © 2004 by Alex Kotlowitz
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Crown Journeys, an imprint of Crown Publishers, New York, New York
Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN JOURNEYS and the Crown Journeys colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Title page photograph © Sandy Felsenthal/CORBIS
Map by Jackie Aher
Map source: City 2000
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kotlowitz, Alex.
Never a city so real: a walk in Chicago / Alex Kotlowitz.
1. Chicago (Ill.)—Social life and customs. 2. Chicago (Ill.)—Biography.
3. Chicago (Ill.)—Description and travel. I. Title.
F548.3.K68 2004
977.3′11–dc22 2004002860
eISBN: 978-1-4000-9750-0
v3.0