5 Most Notorious Places in Chicago

When it comes to notorious places in Chicago you wonder how the count can be narrowed to only five.

It ain't easy.

It's even hard to narrow down the categories of notorious places. A simple way to narrow down the places would be to stick with a couple of topics that are ingrained in the Chicago subconscious and Chicago legend, such as places were Al Capone and his buds did some dastardly deeds, or perhaps locations when the mirror image of mobsters --politicians-- managed to betray, stab or kill the public trust.

No problem with those. Some have to be included, but we will take a look at other places that can fit under the heading of "notorious", as defined by society, polite and otherwise.

1. Camp Douglas

Built during the Civil War to house Confederate prisoners, this hell hole was built on a swamp.

Because no waste could run off from the thousands of men and horses who were unlucky enough to be locked up at Camp Douglas, disease claimed at least twenty percent of the population. So bad were conditions that Camp Douglas was nicknamed the "Andersonville" of the North, though Andersonville claimed fewer lives.

Douglas Camp boundaries extended from Cottage Grove Avenue on the east to present day Martin Luther King Drive on the west. The northern boundary of the camp was to what is now East 31st Street; the southern extent to the current East 33rd Place.

Just outside the southern fence was four rows of garrison barracks and a station for the Illinois Central Railroad. Go there today and it is an urban landscape, and occasionally shots are fired. However, those who believe in ghosts claim that some of those shots are echoes of misery from the old Confederate prison camp.

2. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

Today it is a landscaped parking lot, but back in the bad old days (as opposed to the bad new days of now), the garage at 2122 North Clark Street in Chicago was a favorite warehouse and distribution point for illegal hooch. Prohibition was the law of the land, and the law -- and most anything else-- could be bought it Chicago.

When a rival gang of Al Capone's, the North Side Gang, lined up that on that fateful day created for love and good wishes, they believed they were lining up for a routine shakedown or bust by police and federal agents. That's how the men who surprised normal operation were dressed, as law enforcement.

Seven men were shot in the back while facing the brick wall of the warehouse, cut down by the infamous Tommy Gun's rapid fire of bullets.

Many have claimed that the cries of the victims are still heard late at night and even during the day, but especially on Valentine's Day. The mystery is still unsolved. The bloody killing was never pinned on Al Capone or anyone else.

Needless to say, they were left on that Valentine's Day with holes in their hearts -- and elsewhere.

3. The Chicago Met Lab -- The Manhattan Project

Some have described Chicago as "the bomb". Those who have are more accurate than they might suppose.

Nearly seventy years ago, the United States was fighting World War II, and victory was far from ensured. The Nazis of Hitler's Germany were hard at work on real weapons of mass destruction. One of those was a bomb capable of killing thousands at one time, and many thousands more from the radiation sickness that would result.

It was under the stands at the Old Stagg Field that Enrico Fermi and a dedicated staff of scientists, working in extreme secrecy, released the first nuclear chain reaction at Chicago Pile-1, on December 2, 1942, and changed the history of the world. Today the Regenstein Library, the main library of the University of Chicago, sits where the Old Stagg Field used to be.

Though the students attending the University of Chicago are generally smarter than most, there are probably many who walk the rows of books or quietly tap away on their computers, who have no idea of the profound change that took place deep beneath their feet due to the dire struggle between good and evil years before.

4. The Everleigh Club

They did their research, the Everleigh sisters did, Ada and Minna. The two sisters discovered that many wealthy men in Chicago were lacking in better locations to purchase the services of practitioners of the world's oldest profession.

Knowing that it's "location, location, location" when it comes to real estate and finer brothels, the two sisters opened their own palace to prostitution in 1900, in Chicago's notorious Levee District, at 2131 South Dearborn.

Money was no object in decoration, with spittoons that were made from gold and cost around $650 dollars at the time. Like attracts like, however, and they were shrewd business women.

It wasn't long before their register of "guests" included those on both sides of the law -- often at the same time.

5. Chicago's Rich Thrill Killers -- Leopold and Loeb

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb weren't the first killers who did so for the thrill of it, but their brutal murder in 1924 of,a young boy, Bobby Franks, was custom made for the burgeoning sensational mass journalism of the time. Blazing headlines in the daily papers first in Chicago and then around the world then put the tabloid press of today to shame.

Both killers were young men when from wealthy backgrounds when they decided to embark on a life of crime, which climaxed in the death of young Bobby Franks. Both considered themselves to be brilliant and were totally involved with themselves and each other. They set out to commit the perfect crime, in order to prove their superior knowledge.

Bobby Franks was kidnapped from the Kenwood School for Boys and hit in the head with a chisel and died. Leopold and Loeb took the body to a remote area just across the state line in Hammond Indiana and poured acid on Franks face and removed his clothing. Later they concealed the body at 118th Street near Wolf Lake. Shortly thereafter they stopped and had a hot dog, no doubt congratulating each other on their perfect crime.

They were eventually done in by a pair of eyeglasses found by a Chicago police detective. It turns out that only three people in Chicago wore this type of glasses, one with a unique hinge, and one of those was Nathan Leopold.

Clarance Darrow defended Leopold and Loeb, and managed to get them life imprisonment instead of being electrocuted in "Old Sparky", the electric chair in Joliet's Stateville Prison or, alternatively, being hanged.

The shores of Wolf Lake are a bit of an urban oasis, where families fish, oblivious to the horrible scenes that played out some seventy some years ago.

Visiting

Five places in Chicago that you might want to stay away from. Unless you want to see all of Chicago. Maybe it's best to go to these sites early in the morning and not late at night when the voices and sounds of some of the more notorious places may be more real than just history and fading memory.