Drive-In Saturday
A train, a hospital, old meat and a drive-in theatre.

A cloudy Saturday afternoon with nothing better to do than cruise for places to explore. It was nice outside with a pleasant breeze and we decide to head down and take a look at the old county hospital. I had heard about it's beautiful architecture and history, but I had never been anywhere near it. We cruised down southwest and got off the highway heading into the icky little town of Cicero. This is where we spotted the "Bel-Air", but made a note and passed on by.

We ventured through Cicero and found a wonderful Mexican restaurant somewhere on 31st Street. (You can get a huge burrito and a soda for less than $4.00! Fresh and phenomenal! Highly suggested!) We stopped for lunch and then headed down by the hospital.

Ok, not a great place, considering that the hospital is SURROUNDED by the county jail and other foreboding structures of correctional ilk! This area is just too public and busy. We quickly lost interest. I guess that I had visions more along the lines of a huge sprawling institutional campus. Not the case.

We took our sweet time and cruised into the old Chicago Stock Yards area. In our encounter's we stumbled upon a train and it's engineers. It was sitting on the tracks not really going anywhere and we got a wild hair up our asses to see if the guys would be so kind as to let us photograph it, and they did.

We got out of the car and took some photos. These guys were so nice and invited us up to see the engine and control room! They gave us the grand tour of where you start the engine, the compressor room, the electrical room and best of all...They even let us drive the thing! (Not very far of course, just back and forth a couple of feet.) But it was so exciting! We thanked them very sincerely and took off to cruise the stockyards.

Although rich in animal slaughter houses and meat packing plants in their heyday, the Chicago Stock Yards are quite a different story now. Now the place is more of a gated industrial park with little historical remnants remaining. There IS one beautiful old building with a clock tower that still stands, before you reach the Packinghouse Gate off of Halstead. It appears as though it was abandoned and boarded up, leaving even the curtains and blinds behind. Pigeons seem to love the old tower and have taken it over as their own. We found no interest and moved on.

 

Back the way we came from and on the the BEL-AIR! Aaahhhh...the memories! This place must have been quite an attraction with 3 large movie screens on a well laid out plot of land completely surrounded with towering hills blocking the view from the outside world.

The largest screens 1 and 2, are in about the center of the place. They look as if you could have possibly driven through them at one time. Inside, there is a nasty old ladder leading up to a rotting roof. Only severe insanity could compel ANYONE to make that climb..and people have! If you take look at the top edges of the screen you can see a small bit of graffiti here and there. My sincerest admiration goes out to the folks who literally risked their lives for that stunt! I probably would have had a heart attack just watching them!

As you move towards the back of the lot, you find a small brick and block building. This thing is the projection building for screen 3. It is littered with crap and filled with ash and burnt objects. If you can muddle through the muck, you'll find some small remnants of the old projectors, bits and pieces of film, and the sound system box. All that is left of the concession stand and projection building for screen 2, is a pile of rubble, washed away film and this sign...