My MSN Homepage has many news and entertainment articles that are often pretty damn interesting. One of the sources for those articles is a travel website called Islands.com. I was shocked a while back when I saw an article on it touting the South Side Chicago Beverly neighborhood as a tourist destination. It is located just to the west of the Brainerd neighborhood, where I grew up. Granted, Beverly is a beautiful place, and I often biked through it as kid, but nobody ever thought of it back then as a place tourists would be interested in visiting. And just yesterday, I was again shocked to find they were hyping Whiting, Indiana, just across the state line from Chicago, as another worthwhile tourist destination. The article mentions beautiful beaches on Lake Michigan, a dynamite view of the Chicago skyline, and a charming retro downtown, as well as a world-famous Pierogi Fest that none other than Oprah Winfrey loves to attend. I don't doubt the article's author is telling the truth, but I know for a fact that town is surrounded by ugliness - steel mills, oil refineries, and other such industries to the east and south, and Lake Calumet, an industrial harbor entirely within the city limits of Chicago, to the west. As an elementary school student and a cub scout, I remember twice taking a cruise boat down the Little Calumet River to Lake Calumet, and I am telling you, it was damn ugly both times. It is amazing to me that there is actually a city worthy of visiting in the middle of that mess. Talk about keeping a secret. And will I visit there the next time I am in Chicago? Let me think about it.
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