Uptown Literary Walking Tour

This past Saturday, June 28, was a near-perfect day for our three-hour Uptown Literary Walking tour. It was sunny and maybe a touch hot, at around 85 degrees, but we found some shade and resting places along the way.  About 30 of us divided into two groups. We were lucky to have Robert Loerzel, John Lillig, and Barry Jung help lead the tours, as well as incredibly knowledgeable people like Adrian Marin, Amy Yee, and Mike Burke amongst us. John D'Emilio surprised us by popping out of his apartment building while we stood on West Ainslie Street....talking about The Great John D'Emilio. We made it inside the Uptown post office to look at the W.P.A.-era murals of Carl Sandburg and Louis Sullivan. We positioned ourselves at the edge of St. Boniface Cemetery to tell the story of Theodore Dreiser's famous musician brother, Paul Dresser, and how a Wabash River boulder wound up marking his gravesite. Dr. Carmen Arellano met us at St. Augustine College to share her knowledge about the Charlie Chaplin Auditorium and the old Essanay Studios. In visiting important homes, like that of Studs Terkel and Margaret Anderson, as well as historic institutions like Preston Bradley Center, The Aragon Ballroom, and the Green Mill, we earned almost 10,000 steps on our pedometer. We ended up at Big Chicks for drinks. This was a free tour. We encourage discretionary donations to help us do more of these.