One of Chicago’s fastest growing neighborhoods is also one of its oldest. When Chinatown was relocated from The Loop in the last century, it landed in a hardscrabble, industrial corner of the city, amid rail yards, factories, and a shipping channel.
Today, Chinatown is surging with new life as more and more families move ino the area from smaller ethnic enclaves in the suburbs and other cities. If you’ve wandered the area in the last five years you’ve probably noticed it bursting at the seams, and overflowing into neighboring Bridgeport.
The city has noticed as well, and is throwing infrastructure money at the area. Loop Spy Eric sent in this photograph of the boardwalk at the renovated Ping Tom Park. A new library is also under construction. And the Wells-Wentworth Connector will link the neighborhood directly to downtown; ironically to the very street from which Chinatown was ejected decades ago.