I don’t recall much about this man except that he liked baseball. I photographed him in front of Wrigley Field, but he lived at 4035 North Sheridan in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Several people have written to me, observing that some shots in this blog were not taken in Uptown. It’s important to understand that the boundaries drawn on a map today do not necessarily represent the boundaries of a neighborhood that existed 40 years ago. Parts of Uptown “seceded” over time as they improved to distance themselves from its reputation and to create a new identity for marketing purposes. Wrigleyville, for instance, is a relatively recent addition to Chicago’s list of neighborhoods even though it has been there for a hundred years or more. When I was walking the streets of Uptown with my cameras, there were no boundary markers. You could “feel” neighborhoods by the condition of the streets and housing, the graffiti, the people, the shops and so forth. During the mid-1970s, Uptown and Lakeview felt like one neighborhood although Lakeview was starting to redevelop and Uptown hadn’t yet begun the process.
