Chicago’s ‘Hoods

A map I am totally engrossed in right now. “Lakeview” is also known as “Boys Town” (or at least it was when I lived there) – the gay area, that’s where my first apartment was. Very cool map – reminds me of the awesome illustrations for Ellen Raskin’s book The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel) – a childhood favorite (excerpt here). The drawings are spectacular – I can’t find any online, dammit – but if you’ve read the book you’ll know what I’m talking about: people are made up of big swoopy letters, that somehow come together to form a person – and each person has different words, to signify their interests, defining characteristics, etc. Hard to explain – but very much like that cool Chicago map, with letters big and small, curling up and curving in upon one another, in order to accommodate the outer border.