Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Squatter's Delight

A reader sends in the following photo and info:
"Thought your readers would like this rare glimpse inside the former home of the "Wilson Donut Shop" in the vacant Wilson L storefronts at 4620 N. Broadway. Someone had bashed in the vacant storefront's door and presumably taken refuge. I poked my head inside to snap this pic and the smell of urine was very strong. I called 911 to let them know of the situation. Surprisingly, though the space has been vacant for years, it looked in relatively good condition. Hopefully the CTA gets this boarded up ASAP. Who knows what will go on in here otherwise?"

7 comments:

  1. The real-life Superior Donuts?

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  2. I take the Berwyn stop these days, but they had a vacancy that was caused by "black mold" according to two different CTA station attendants. It's a space right inside the station. Some 25,000 people come and go through this station on workdays.

    Well the space is already cleaned up. It's being turned into a gallery space of some kind.

    When the CTA wants to, they can get gears spinning again. So what's going to take to get them to notice the rather healthy looking gears at the Wilson stop?

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  3. I made attempts to contact the owner more than a dozen times about renovating this space in homage to the former Snack Shoppe and what it represented in the neighborhood. I have no response from the space owner and absolutely no help from the alderman's office (but then again, is anyone surprised?). It's a shame that people who sincerely believe in the possibility of Uptown can rarely change it.

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  4. ...it's not you,
    Was it Jones, Lang LaSalle that you contacted? They are now marketing the spaces for the CTA, just not our Wilson spaces yet.

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  5. The "gallery space" immediately west of the Red Line station on Berwyn Ave. has been vacant for at least
    2-3 years. Only very recently were the front windows of the space appropriated to feature the "Edgewater Artists in Motion" project.

    This project is also currently featured directly across the street under the El tracks in yet another vacant CTA storefront.

    These are not permanent occupancy situations.

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