A post-fire building by Chicago’s first recognized architect, the first national bowling tournament, big band jazz in the 1930s, prime rib and spinning salad restaurant, gutted in a facadectomy that left the shell as a liner for the parking podium of a condo tower.

Once a community anchor where tens of thousands of people learned to swim, stayed healthy, and found flexible short-term housing. Now, it’s 80% parking lot and 20% fast food drive through—there’s my beef.

Immigrant flows, urban renewal, white flight, religious transition, jazz, schisms, CHA failures, demolition by neglect, dithering billionaires, sportswashing, promises made and promises broken.