You can’t go inside, but on the third floor of this apartment building writer Nelson Algren created some of his greatest works about life in the once down-and-out neighborhood. He won the 1950 National Book Award for his novel The Man with the Golden Arm, about a drug addict hustling on Division St near Milwaukee Ave (a half-mile southeast).
Other insights Algren picked up in the 'hood: ‘Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own’ – classic advice he relayed in A Walk on the Wild Side . His short Chicago: City on the Make summarizes 120 years of thorny local history and is the definitive read on the city’s character.
