I took the photograph on the left of the corner of State and Randolph in Chicago's Loop back in October of 1979. This was about one and a half years before I moved to Denver, while I was still working as the manager of the Walden Book Store at the Yorktown Shopping Center in Lombard, Illinois. Although I returned for a visit to Chicago in 2010, I don't recall paying much attention to how this area had changed over the years. I was probably still in shock finding out that Carson Pirie Scott had closed its famous Louis Sullivan designed State Street store after more than a century in business at that location. The bastards. In any case, just for fun, I checked on the internet to see if the two prominent theaters in the photo, the Oriental and the Woods, are still there today.
The Oriental, which opened in 1926, closed two years after I took the photo, and was later restored and renamed the James M. Nederlander Theater. It is now run by Broadway in Chicago and is currently presenting Hamilton through the end of December. The Woods Theater, built in 1918, did not share such a happy fate. After a decline in attendance, it closed in 1989, the final films on the marquee being "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka" and "Hellraiser II," two of my most favorite movies. I'm pretty sure they both won Oscars. In any case, the Woods Theater was torn down in 1989 and the site is now the home of the Goodman Theater, replacing its previous home next to the Art Institute. Wait a minute - the Goodman is no longer next to the Art Institute? That is where I heard Studs Terkel once speak, a very memorable evening indeed. Is nothing sacred? And by the way, the Art Institute is also where I took the photograph on the right of my sister Susan behind one of its famous lions, God knows how many years ago.
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