This shot was taken from the corner of Clifton and Wilson in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, one block west of the ‘L.” It shows a man sitting on the fire escape of the Wilson Club Men’s Hotel. The hotel was notorious throughout Chicago for “rooms” that cost less than a dollar a night. It attracted street people, migrants, alcoholics and the unemployed. Chicago’s alderman at the time, Chris Cohen, publicly called it “unfit for human habitation,” which may be why this man was sitting outside above the Do Not Enter sign. Ironically, Google Maps street view shows the same scene today with a man sitting on the same fire escape in the same position.
