The Steampunk World
Bubbly Dynamics, part II
The building sits just a few blocks away from Bubbly Creek, in the heart of Chicago's famous slaughterhouse district, though these days it's mostly manufacturing and the only reminder of its former glory is the occasional open-topped truck full of entrails jiggling past. It was pretty much a rectangle, three floors and a basement, in the concrete-squares-filled-in-with-bricks style that most warehouses in Chicago are built in. It was built in 1910, and served as a paint and varnish warehouse until the 50s, when a meat-packing company bought it to use as storage for something besides meat. They added a larger freight elevator and a railroad siding, which tacked some odd lumps on to the side of the rectangle. This period in the building’s history is unclear, some say there was a conveyor system in there at one point, and a room full of old wooden soda crates would hint that it held carbonated beverages sometime in its life. But ten or fifteen years ago, it became Scooter World.
Scooter World was a scooter graveyard, where you could go and dig around for parts. To this day various motorcycle parts litter both the inside and out. City code allows a single “family” to live in an industrial building as caretakers, and the residents during this period were Santa Claus and Cowboy. Santa was so-named for reasons that become obvious the minute you see him, and Cowboy, I presumed, was called that because he loved his guns.
Scooter World was also used as a place to hold raves, as various graffiti saying dumb things like “420” can attest. Cowboy’s other hobbies included breaking into surrounding warehouses, fighting, and shooting out every window in the building. This he did an impressively thorough job of, making sure to put a bullet hole in even the smallest and most out-of-place windows. Say what you want about the fella but you gotta admire his dedication to perfection. His other hobbies got him into trouble eventually, and at one point (possibly during an aforementioned rave) he pronged a guy in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocked him off the loading dock, and received a life sentence for it (it was unlikely that this was his first encounter with the law).
Scooter World was already going under, and with all the utility bills being ignored the residents had resorted to powering everything by propane. Towards the end some crackheads had taken up residence in a derelict semi-trailer behind the building, occasionally using the building itself as well. They’re nice crackheads, though, always willing to do odd jobs for Santa for a few bucks.
Three months or so ago, the building was sold to Bubbly Dynamics, a Delaware LLC corporation. The owner of the building had been afraid to enter it after Cowboy (who was squatting) put a knife to his neck. So once Cowboy was safely socked away in jail, the owner (frustrated by the presence of all those motorcycles) looped a chain through the frames of a few hundred motorcycles and then to his truck, which he drove off in, dragging the contents of the warehouse right out the door. Health and Human Services was called to ask the crackheads to leave. Other tales were also told to the new owner, tales of wild parties and EPA cleanups and the body buried in the back yard. In fact, everything here is hearsay, and second-hand at that, so forgive any errors I might make in my attempt to record it all here in my journal.
Just north of the new headquarters of Bubbly Dynamics is the Schulze & Burch Biscuit Company, makers of Toast-ems and every other “toaster pastry” that’s not a Pop Tart- such as store-brands (Aldi’s, Jewel, Kroger’s, whatever). I can only assume that inside is a gigantic toaster where they toast a tremendous toaster pastry and cut it into the smaller ones.
The proximity of the Toast-ems factory means that when the wind is blowing south, the air smells like Pop-Tarts (my favorite is when they’re making the strawberry ones). When it blows from the east the smell is of pizza, from the southeast cooking meat, and from the southwest molten steel. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where you can tell the direction the wind is blowing by smell.
The building sits just a few blocks away from Bubbly Creek, in the heart of Chicago's famous slaughterhouse district, though these days it's mostly manufacturing and the only reminder of its former glory is the occasional open-topped truck full of entrails jiggling past. It was pretty much a rectangle, three floors and a basement, in the concrete-squares-filled-in-with-bricks style that most warehouses in Chicago are built in. It was built in 1910, and served as a paint and varnish warehouse until the 50s, when a meat-packing company bought it to use as storage for something besides meat. They added a larger freight elevator and a railroad siding, which tacked some odd lumps on to the side of the rectangle. This period in the building’s history is unclear, some say there was a conveyor system in there at one point, and a room full of old wooden soda crates would hint that it held carbonated beverages sometime in its life. But ten or fifteen years ago, it became Scooter World.
Scooter World was a scooter graveyard, where you could go and dig around for parts. To this day various motorcycle parts litter both the inside and out. City code allows a single “family” to live in an industrial building as caretakers, and the residents during this period were Santa Claus and Cowboy. Santa was so-named for reasons that become obvious the minute you see him, and Cowboy, I presumed, was called that because he loved his guns.
Scooter World was also used as a place to hold raves, as various graffiti saying dumb things like “420” can attest. Cowboy’s other hobbies included breaking into surrounding warehouses, fighting, and shooting out every window in the building. This he did an impressively thorough job of, making sure to put a bullet hole in even the smallest and most out-of-place windows. Say what you want about the fella but you gotta admire his dedication to perfection. His other hobbies got him into trouble eventually, and at one point (possibly during an aforementioned rave) he pronged a guy in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocked him off the loading dock, and received a life sentence for it (it was unlikely that this was his first encounter with the law).
Scooter World was already going under, and with all the utility bills being ignored the residents had resorted to powering everything by propane. Towards the end some crackheads had taken up residence in a derelict semi-trailer behind the building, occasionally using the building itself as well. They’re nice crackheads, though, always willing to do odd jobs for Santa for a few bucks.
Three months or so ago, the building was sold to Bubbly Dynamics, a Delaware LLC corporation. The owner of the building had been afraid to enter it after Cowboy (who was squatting) put a knife to his neck. So once Cowboy was safely socked away in jail, the owner (frustrated by the presence of all those motorcycles) looped a chain through the frames of a few hundred motorcycles and then to his truck, which he drove off in, dragging the contents of the warehouse right out the door. Health and Human Services was called to ask the crackheads to leave. Other tales were also told to the new owner, tales of wild parties and EPA cleanups and the body buried in the back yard. In fact, everything here is hearsay, and second-hand at that, so forgive any errors I might make in my attempt to record it all here in my journal.
Just north of the new headquarters of Bubbly Dynamics is the Schulze & Burch Biscuit Company, makers of Toast-ems and every other “toaster pastry” that’s not a Pop Tart- such as store-brands (Aldi’s, Jewel, Kroger’s, whatever). I can only assume that inside is a gigantic toaster where they toast a tremendous toaster pastry and cut it into the smaller ones.
The proximity of the Toast-ems factory means that when the wind is blowing south, the air smells like Pop-Tarts (my favorite is when they’re making the strawberry ones). When it blows from the east the smell is of pizza, from the southeast cooking meat, and from the southwest molten steel. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where you can tell the direction the wind is blowing by smell.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home