West Loop

West Loop continued...

Two blocks south on Desplaines and just to the east, on Madison Street, Claes Oldenberg's 100-feet-tall "Batcolumn" -- a kind of steel-mesh baseball bat, a prime example of the city's tradition of unconventional public art -- makes its whimsical statement.

Two blocks farther south on Desplaines, at Adams Street -- still in the West Loop -- is Old St. Patrick's Catholic Church -- Old St. Pat's -- Chicago's oldest public building (1856) and one of the few surviving structures that were in the path of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. Down to four members in 1983, the church, with its beautifully restored interior, now has more than 3,000.

A few more blocks down Desplaines and a short block east, at Jefferson, is DeKoven Street. A training facility for firefighters, the Chicago Fire Academy, stands at the West Loop corner. Within it is a marker. On that spot, in a barn behind Catherine O'Leary's house on the night of October 8, 1871, something (a cow? ashes from a pipe? gravity's pull on an unstable lantern?) started the fire that changed Chicago forever.

And just south of where the O'Leary's barn stood, on Jefferson a few yards past Grenshaw Street, is Manny's -- and now we can start talking restaurants.

For nearly a century, the West Loop was a mix of factories, meat and produce markets and wholesale outlets. All those still exist here. But what's happened in the last 20 years or so is those factories -- many of which were closed -- have been converted to loft condominiums.

Meanwhile, boutiques and swank art galleries took their place among Fulton Market's meat packers and egg sellers. Kevin Lucero Less is assistant director of the chic Anne Loucks Gallery on Fulton Market near Racine Avenue.

"During the week," he says, "men are out there in their white coats and gloves hauling out big pieces of beef, lamb, all kinds of stuff . . . "

And restaurants happened.

At Randolph Street Market a couple of blocks south, the docks with trucks loaded with boxes of lettuce and broccoli share space with restaurants whose cool sophistication makes for a sometimes startling contrast.

Restaurants have long been part of the Randolph Market scene. But now on Randolph there's Red Light, where chef Jackie Shen adds imagination and sophistication to Pan-Asian cuisine. Blackbird is stylish in every way, from decor to what it does in the kitchen. Alhambra Palace blends Morocco with Hollywood. De Cero isn't your Little Village or Pilsen neighborhood taqueria -- and Sushi Wabi goes beyond the standard California rolls. The Tasting Room takes its wines seriously -- and what a view . . .

It's not just on Randolph Street. Pork is king (washed down with any of dozens of craft beers) at the Publican, on Fulton Market. Wishbone, on Washington near Harpo Studio (Did we mention Oprah works in the West Loop?), does Southern and Cajun right --especially at breakfast. Cheerful owner George Lemperis makes the Palace Grill on Madison Street more than the first-rate diner it is.

Which brings us in a roundabout way back to humble, zero-pretense Manny's.

It's a cafeteria-style deli restaurant, opened in 1942 to serve the wholesalers on Roosevelt Road and the storekeepers and stall-keepers who did business on Maxwell Street a couple of blocks south. Maxwell Street's market has been moved, in a way, to Desplaines Street, between Old St. Pat's and Mrs. O'Leary's barn -- and the hustlers who peddled socks by the bundle and factory-seconds are, for most part, departed as well.

But Manny's is still selling its overstuffed corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, matzo balls and latkes and kishke, and meat loaf and short ribs and cheesecake.

For more information about West Loop, please contact the West Loop Community Organization (312.666.1991) or the Chicago Art Dealers Association (312.649.0065).