Making A Scene

For whatever reason, I didn't see the entry in my RSS feed of DeRo's blog, but Time Out Chicago quotes him in its rundown on the sale of the Uptown Theater:

"A redeveloped Uptown Theater is seen by many, including 48th Ward Ald. Mary Ann Smith, as the key that finally could turn Uptown from a “war zone” into a thriving entertainment district — the only one in the city where live music is the main attraction."

I'm not so sure. Three large venues and a jazz club do not an entertainment district make. Ideally, you would need more small- and mid-sized clubs. Maybe along Lawrence Avenue? If you can push it far enough west, you could reach the Old Town School of Folk Music, and then start working down Lincoln Avenue to Martyrs'.

And if the city cared about that sort of thing, they would have encouraged it twenty years ago with Lincoln Avenue, which could have had a club or two every two or three blocks all the way from Lounge Ax up to, again, Martyrs'. Maybe the existence of the Chicago Music Commission changes things, but I remain pretty skeptical.