Early Edition

My sister Susan and I are watching the first two seasons of Early Edition on the days when I drive up to Fort Collins to help her out with her errands. This series was on the air for 4 seasons, from 1996 to 2000, and features a man - Gary Hobson (played by Kyle Chandler) - who gets tomorrow's newspaper (the Chicago Sun-Times) today, and goes around trying to stop bad things from happening to the citizens of Chicago.  I just loved this series, especially since it takes place in Chicago, my home town, and each episode includes great scenes of the city.

I was so enthusiastic about this series that I made a point of visiting several sites connected with the show, including the old Chicago firehouse that was the location of the fictional McGinty's Pub, and the Blackstone Hotel on Michigan Avenue, back when I returned to Chicago for a visit in 2010, as seen in the photo on the right. What I don't understand is why so many characters on the show referred to the Blackstone, where Hobson lived during the first season, as a dump.  As a native Chicagoan, I know for a fact that hotels on Michigan Avenue, right across from Grant Park, are not dumps.  I associate dumps with low prices, and if the Blackstone were truly a dump, I would have stayed there instead of the Schiller Park Motel 6.  Not that the Schiller Park Motel 6 wasn't lovely.
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