The Finkl steel mill on Cortland, almost sandwiched by two AnnTaylors (one each on Clybourn and Halsted), leaves the doors open for ventilation on cool nights. It's quite jarring to go fetch some organic granola from the Food Hole or a bottle of port from Sam's Wines, then get fleeting glimpses of Dark Satanic Mills on the way back. A tiny island of Heavy Industry stuck amidst an orgy of post-industrial mass-class retailing.
After years, I finally figured out why so much debris clogs the bike lanes on Cortland: not glass bottles thrown from cars, but tiny bits of scrap metal and tempered glass that have flown hundreds of meters from a scrapyard next to the steel mill (feeding them scrap for recycling) have given me at least one flat tire.
ChicagoSage, hilgum, steve_quirion, and 18 other people added this photo to their favorites.
A.J. Kandy 94 months ago | reply
behind you! the Terminator!
er, the Governator!
Payton Chung 80 months ago | reply
It's closing.
don sorsa 79 months ago | reply
Beautiful photo, just saw it in chicagoist. Too bad about the closing, lots of lost jobs.
George Donnelly 63 months ago | reply
Nice photo.
sleepinyourhat 54 months ago | reply
The Chicago Weekly is doing a story on the move, and we plan to use this excellent photo on our site (with your credit, of course).
chicagoweekly.net
ddittell [deleted] 50 months ago | reply
Payton Chung,
Really cool photo (can't go wrong with fire and metal!), though I'm sorry to hear about your bike. I wanted to thank you for releasing this; I've used it at my blog Alphabet Soup Kitchen with full attribution and a link. Again, thank you.