Just north of Lawrence on Broadway are the Uptown Theater and Green Mill Lounge. The Uptown is a spectacular Balaban and Katz theater from Chicago’s Gilded Age and larger than Radio City Music Hall. The theater was closed to regular audiences in 1981, but still open when I took this picture in 1976. “Killer Force“starring Peter Fonda, Telly Savalas and O.J. Simpson was playing. The Green Mill Lounge, a couple doors down from the Uptown, has a famous history too. It hosted jazz groups and poets. It opened for business in 1907 under the name Pop Morse’s Roadhouse. During the 1930’s, one of Al Capone’s lieutenants was a part-owner. If you enlarge the photo, you’ll also be able to see a store called the Book Box. A reader wrote to tell me that the B in Box eventually fell off and that, for the longest time, he thought the name of the store was the Book Ox. He says it’s still a GREAT used bookstore called “Shake Rattle and Read.” Here’s what the scene looks like today in Google Maps street view. If you rotate the image, you will be able to see the proximity to the Aragon.
