AtDDtA1: The Stockyards

[Tim Strzechowski]

Joe, I remember smelling the godawful stockyard stink as a young kid when we'd go visit family around 47th and Ashland (a location which, btw, I will annotate next week).  I must've been nine or ten when the Union Stockyards closed, so I remember well that stomach-churning rotsmell that pervaded the neighborhood.  My grandfather, who worked for Swift and lived in the wake of that stench his whole life, used to tell me how it puts hair on your chest.

When my dad used to take me to Sox games and we'd pass Spiegels on 35th Street just east of Ashland, you'd catch a whiff of the 'Yards.

As far as I know, the stink is only a memory for residents now.  I take my sons pretty regularly to Comiskey Park over the summertime (true White Sox fans *never* call it by that shitass U.S. Cellular moniker), and we never catch stink remnants.

Today, only one thing remains in this city as stinky as the 'Yards:  The Cubs.



  I don't know if anybody here has actually ever smelled a slaughterhouse, stockyard, or feedlot. I can attest that they are revolting. To learn that Chicago literally means "bad smell" is poetic justice. (No offense meant to Chicagoans - your bustling big city does not smell for the most part.) 

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