An interesting and sometimes overlooked sideline to My many Chicago area railfan photographs, are the many random snap shots or neighborhood images I began photographing just for the heck of it during the 1980's. I took this photo in Febuary of 1983, looking towards the southeast corner at the intersection of West 47th Street and South Kedzie Avenue in Chicago's Elsdon neighborhood. Seen here during the demolition operation, is the seedy , run down, and very transient Jakter Hotel. This old school "Skid Row" type of transient hotel was recently closed for good. Today, it is the site of a small strip mall.
During the late 1800's, this building was used as a relay station for America's first transcontinental telephone call. This old brick building unfortunately gained low class undesireable fame in later years as a transient hotel with a basement strip club and an in house prostitution ring ( Supposidly.) A few people I spoke to said that it had an all night lounge, and many local alchohaulic bar flies would come here after the other places had closed, or on Sunday mornings when no other bars were open for business yet.
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