Living in Pilsen, Chicago

Murals cover entire building facades along 16th Street and Blue Island Avenue in Pilsen, work ranging from religious imagery to political statements that turns a walk through the neighborhood into something close to an open-air gallery. The National Museum of Mexican Art sits inside Harrison Park, its free admission and rotating exhibitions drawing visitors from across the city, while Thalia Hall's restored 1892 auditorium hosts concerts and a street-level restaurant near 18th and Allport. The Pink Line's elevated tracks run along 18th Street, with a stop close enough to most blocks that a car becomes optional for trips into the Loop, though the trains rattle overhead through the day and into the evening, loud enough to notice from a porch or open window on the blocks directly beneath the tracks. Two-flats and worker cottages built for the neighborhood's original industrial workforce make up much of the housing stock, some with hand-painted storefronts doing business at street level.

Pilsen's identity runs deeper than any single mural or museum show, layered instead into the building facades, the taquerias, and the bakeries that line 18th Street block after block, each one adding another layer of color to a streetscape that rewards a slow walk over a quick pass-through.