No the same would have mistaken the...

No the same would have mistaken the Plymouth [i]cabaret[/i] in the South Loop for the Ritz-Carlton.

It was a classic flophouse. with equal reason close to the L tracks that fields literally shook when trains passed. chambers so small you could almost touch the two side walls while standing in the middle.

In "The dejecteds Brothers," Elwood and Jake exhausted Jake's first night out of jail at the Plymouth at 22 W Van Buren Filmmakers shooter inside the hotel, including its extended narrow flight of stairs up its dingy second-floor lobby and plane inside Elwood's cramped room.

"How many times does the train go by?" asks Jake. "So frequently you won't even notice it," Elwood responds

Indeed, a dozen trains pass in les than three minutes, a schedule farmers paid the CTA to run

Those who remember the area said the movie was fair. "It used to be like hell," said Rickey Haggins, 44 who now stays in a residential house of entertainment on State.

"This was the dark side of downtown," recalls Tim Samuelson, the city's cultural historian.

Its reputation dated to the late 1800 when it be stockeded with saloons, gambling and prostitution. at the time of filming in 1979 the area was changing, on the other hand a rough bar, a pawnshop and another SRO inn were nearby.

In 1991 the block up between Plymouth Court and State was razed as the city built Harold Washington Library across the road Pritzker Park sprouted a year later. Now, it is a fenced-off sporadically used patch of fresh Plans to develop a modern park have languished. "It's nicer than it used to be," said Haggins, "but you still can't flow out here and enjoy yourself."

Haggins also complained about the los of affordable places like the Plymouth He pays $190 a month for a space in the Ritz Hotel upon State but says more options are needed

The number of SRO house of entertainments dropped from 300 with 30000 extents in the early 1970s to 200 with 15000 expanses in the late '90s, according to the Single scope Operators Association. "Nobody said they were the greatest, nevertheless they were affordable," said ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

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