Abandoned brick silo inside and out

Near the corner of Wolf Road and 167th Street in Orland Park, Illinois is an old brick silo that I photographed Thursday morning.

Here's how it looks from the outside.

And from inside.

Related posts:

• (Photos) Abandoned farm buildings near Orland Park
• (Photos) Orland Grassland in winter
• (Photos) Urban Decay in Chicago: The Damen Silos

New sordid details in Hastert case

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) destroyed boys' lives while he was a teacher and a wrestling coach.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Though some of the incidents described involved massages, one, involving “Individual B,” was more graphic:

"One day during his freshman year, when Individual B was 14 years old, Individual B was alone in the locker room with defendant after Individual B had worked out. Either just after Individual B showered or while Individual B changed by his locker, defendant told Individual B to get on a table so defendant could 'loosen him up.' Individual B lay on the table face-down and defendant started massaging him. Defendant had Individual B turn over so Individual B was lying face-up on the table. Defendant then performed a sexual act on Individual B.”

Also in the memo were descriptions of other Hastert behavior, including this:

"Individual D recalled that defendant put a 'Lazyboy'-type chair in direct view of the shower stalls in the locker room where he sat while the boys showered."

(Photos) The abandoned homes of Chicago's violent Back of the Yards neighborhood

Violence is skyrocketing in Chicago and the Back of the Yards neighborhood is part of the alarming trend. Back of the Yards is not an official city neighborhood but its generally agreed upon boundaries match the area known as New City--but almost no one calls it by that name.

At 842 W. 53rd Place you'll find this bleak duo of dwellings.

Most of the blight is in the southern half of BOTY--and that's the part that is adjacent to the notoriously violent Englewood neighborhood, the setting of Spike Lee's 2015 movie Chi-Raq. 

If Englewood was a desirable area realtors would be calling Back of the Yards "Englewood North." Perhaps cops already use this moniker.

One of the legs of Illinois' gerrymandered 7th congressional district reaches into Back of the Yards, its representative is Democrat Danny K. Davis, a West Side Democrat. I've never worked on a political campaign, but I have enough common sense to know that slapping posters on an abandoned house offers image challenges for a candidate. This two-flat is at 5433 S. Union.

Vacant lots proliferate in the south end. But the stubborn and expensive-to-remove foundation offer reminders as to what was there before.

Two years ago when Google Maps' truck passed by 748 W. 53rd Street the glass was gone from the upper left-corner second floor window that time too.

A few miles east is the University of Chicago, which was fortunate because I was able to locate an archaeologist who identified this stretch of concrete near the apartment above as a sidewalk.

Here's another neglected Chicago greystone--this one is on 55th Street.

The Back of the Yards gets its name because its south of the old Union Stockyards, when Chicago was the meatpacking center of America and, in Carl Sandburg's words, "hog butcher to the world."

Here is the limestone gate from the old stockyards.

Back of the Yards was the setting for Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle.

The Livestock National Bank building, which has been owned by the city of Chicago since 2000, has been vacant for decades. The design for this stately structure was based on Independence Hall.

Across the street is the site of the International Amphitheater, where the doomed 1968 Democratic National Convention was held. On December 8, 1979, my 18th birthday, I saw my first rock concert there, The Who.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Ecclesiastes.

Richard M. Daley has not been mayor for over five years.

Two more abandoned homes on 51st Street near Bishop.

Leftist community organizer Saul Alinksy, a role model for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, got his start in community organizing by co-founding the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council in 1939. It still exists.

Rubbish fills the backyard of this home at 5044 S. Laflin.

The former Goodman Equipment Company factory is at 4834 S. Halsted, which I explored in a post earlier this week.

Related posts:

• (Photos) Abandoned homes in Chicago's violent East Garfield Park neighborhood
• (Photos) Abandoned homes in Chicago's most violent neighborhood--West Garfield Park
• (Photos) Abandoned homes in Chicago's violent North Lawndale neighborhood
• (Photos) The abandoned homes of Chicago's violent Englewood neighborhood

Mark Levin slams "Stop Trump" people

And Mark Levin has endorsed Ted Cruz.

Here's what he says about the Never Trump movement:

From Real Clear Politics:

Now those people out there, those people out there who are saying "stop Trump," I can understand "stop Trump" in a primary process. But stop Trump or you'll vote for Hillary? Stop Trump or you won’t vote at all? These people are not conservatives. They’re not constitutionalists. They're frauds. They're fakes. They're not brave. They’re asinine. They’re buffoons...

If you believe that Hillary Clinton is in part responsible for the rise of ISIS and for what took care of Benghazi and what’s taking place in Libya and that [Vladimir] Putin is on the move and that China is on the move and all the rest of it, then how the hell – how the hell could you take any steps – passively or affirmatively that would put that woman in the Oval Office?

Bill zings Obama: Unlike when I was prez "A lot of things are coming apart around the world now"

Bill Clinton while campaign for wife today, claiming that when he was president "a lot of things are coming apart around the world now"

Chiraq: 5 shot as they were leaving party bus

Last night a birthday party bus drove all over Chicago but when the trip ended in the the South Shore neighborhood five revelers suffered gun shot wounds as they exited the vehicle.

Not too far away in Chatham about the same time a man was shot to death in a bar fight the spilled onto the street.

Sanders says Hillary "not qualified" to be president

The Vermont socialist and I agree on something.

From Fox News:

The Democratic presidential race is getting uglier — pulling other party leaders into the fray — as Sen. Bernie Sanders lashed out at front-running rival Hillary Clinton as "not qualified" to be president because of "special-interest" contributions to her super PAC.

"She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am quote-unquote not qualified to be president," Sanders told a crowd of more than 10,000 people Wednesday at Temple University's Liacouras Center in Philadelphia. "I don't believe that she is qualified if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special-interest funds."

"I don't think you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC," Sanders continued to cheers from his audience. "I don't think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don't think you are qualified if you have supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement which has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs."

Merle Haggard: Reagan "gave me a second chance at life"

Reagan statue in Dixon, IL

Country music legend Merle Haggard died this morning on the day of his 79th birthday.

And he had a great fondness for Ronald Reagan.

"He was a wonderful man in my life. He gave me a second chance at life in the form of the pardon he gave me," the Daily Signal reported today.

A longtime petty thief, Haggard turned his life around after his release from San Quentin prison. Reagan pardoned Haggard in 1972 while he was governor of California.

Haggard, who was one of the originators of the Bakersfield Sound, said that the Gipper was "the epitome of everything we would want a president to be."

"I think they ought to put his face on Mount Rushmore. I think he's done that much. He's the president of the century."

ILL-inois: Hastert feels "deeply sorry" over crimes

Here's another guy who is probably only sorry because he was caught.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Ten months after the feds shattered Dennis Hastert's legacy with a devastating indictment, lawyers for the once-powerful Republican said he is "deeply sorry," "overwhelmed by the guilt he feels,"and "prepared to accept the consequences."

Then they asked a judge not to send the former U.S. House speaker to prison.

"Despite his mistakes in judgment and his transgressions, for which he is profoundly sorry, we implore this court, in imposing sentence, to consider the entirety of Mr. Hastert's life," Thomas Green, one of Hastert's lawyers, wrote in a highly anticipated court filing Wednesday that sought probation.

Hastert's legal team made the plea for mercy in a nine-page sentencing memo, noting Hasterts "fall from grace has been swift and devastating." It also, for the first time, both apologized for Hastert's conduct and described the calamitous effect of his prosecution on the former speaker, his family and his reputation.

Prior to his entry into politics Hastert was a teacher and a state championship wrestling coach in rural Yorkville. The root of the financial scandal was that he was being blackmailed over a sexual relationship with a male student at Yorkville High.

And there were other sexual encounters Hastert had with students.

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