Division Street at dusk between Wood and Damen
The soundscape starts mildly at Phyllis’ Musical Inn and bumps up a notch at Smokedaddy, where the forest of sidewalk tables begins; move further west and Moonshine thumps into the cool autumn nights. A few doorways of quiet, past the closed-by-night Milk & Honey, and then you are in the throng: Via Carducci, The Boundary, Jerry’s, Coco Rouge, Vintage, Easy. The block west of Damen is eatery-chocked, too, but the loud music chiming and clashing and crowds noshing and gnashing and flashing and splashing are a solid wall of attitude, if not style, the closest approximation in this new yupscale nightlife zone to the most impossible, impassable stretches of Miami’s South Beach. Cross the street! Quickly!
Best of Chicago 2007