Our Towns

Chicago: Sin City?

W.T. Stead, British journalist and minister, came to Chicago in 1893 and convened a civic meeting to discuss the question, "What if Christ came to Chicago he wouldn't find anything in Chicago he would have altered?" You know the answer. Capitalizing on the subsequent outrage, later that year he published a pamphet, If Christ Came to Chicago! (emphasis his). This map was the frontispiece. We can assume it wasn't always used as intended. Which begs the question: why doesn't Google maps have this functionality?

Lest you think W.T. put a stop to the evildoing in Chicago ... he didn't. Check out these great bathroom scrawls on the Univ. of Chicago campus, courtesy of Quinn Dombrowski, a new tech. staffer and researcher there. (Via Jacket Copy, LAT). Sample:

Labels: bathroom graffiti, chicago, maps

posted by Matt @ 8:57 AM