Chicago's downtown loop is a nice but fairly dull part of the city but it wasn't always. Chicago was a frontier town with all the vice and lawlesness that comes with it. So in the 19th century parts of the loop were full of gambling dens, bars, chaep hotels, brothels and other forms of low amusements. This past St. Patricks day I thought it would be a good time to take a little walking tour of some of the "hot spots". We start at Clark and Randolph now home to the Daly center, Thompson Center & The Picasso. In the 1870's after the Chicago fire it was known as "gamblers row" with games of chance linging the street down to Monroe. At the corner of Monroe & Clark we find the ontime headquarters of Mike McDonald a gambler who is credited with being the man who organized crime and the corruption of city govenrment. Creating a "machine" that ruled for the better part of a century. He is also said to have invented the term "there's a sucker born every minute". The sin and vice continued down Monroe where the gambling gave way to the prostitutes. Of course at Roger Plants "Under the Willow you could women, gambling and just about anything else in the world of vice and depravity. Rogers hayday was the 1860's and his place was so poular with the troops it was also known as "the barracks". The selling of human bodies for sexual pleasure continued south down Wells street. Including one streach between Quincy & Polk that was home to "Shinbone Alley" home of the "colored" whores. The ...