To the library!
SAM: Curiosity caught our attention this weekend. The Branch Manager at CPL’s Clearing Branch set up his collection of retro video games, which was quite popular among patrons, ourselves included. I felt like I was thrown back to my childhood days in the ‘90s (back when I was addicted to Super Mario on GameBoy, Pacman on my PC and Street Fighter on my PlayStation). It was really cool for our kids to get a taste of our childhood experience.
Ben tried the pinball machine and Daniel was especially good at Pong. One of Nathan’s favorite games was Sonic.
BEN: There was something wonderfully whimsical about watching my 9-year-old, who lives in the age of ChatGPT and Mars rovers, absolutely enraptured by Pong. I’ll take this as proof that classics never die and that Gen Alpha will be OK after all.
And, massive kudos to the branch manager, whose passion for these classic games was on full display in the magnitude of his personal collection and his patient explanations to kids who had never seen any of this stuff before. CPL is rife with deeply committed, colorful personalities like this – what a gift.
What’s a Clearing?
BEN: The neighborhood of Clearing, along with Garfield Ridge to the north, juts out of the southwest side of the otherwise smooth border of the city, a visual reminder that this area was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1915. The name comes from the large industrial park that fueled local development, which included “clearing” cargo through railyards, which themselves have a complex history (or maybe it was named because land was cleared to make room for the railyards – seems there’s some disagreement on this point).
The neighborhood today seems to be primarily residential (apart from the airport, of course), though its industrial history is still a reality in Bedford Park immediately to the south. The fantastic Adult Services Librarian, Meredith, pointed out some local hot spots, though, including Stunod’s Pizzeria, a favorite of the library staff and just one among a surprisingly dense population of pizza joints. Seeing as one of us is lactose-intolerant, we did not partake.
A final note – on the East side of the neighborhood, directly south of the airport, sits Chrysler Village, a weird little oval-shaped residential enclave with a park in the center. Wikipedia reports that the rowhomes in this area were built to house workers at the nearby Chrysler plant during WWII, where B-29 bomber engines were being produced
What about transit?
DANIEL: The Clearing Branch is served by CTA Bus Routes 63W, 165, and 55N. If you are coming from outside the city, use the Pace Route 386. These routes all go to Midway International Airport, with connections to CTA Bus Routes 54B, 55, 55A, 55N, 59, 62H, 63, and 165, and Pace Routes 379, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, and 390. At Midway, you can also connect to the CTA Orange Line, which takes you into the heart of downtown.
Personally, I think that, as this library is so close to Midway, where a train brings you to the Loop, you have endless options of how to get to Clearing Branch.
BEN: I didn’t expect to play an Atari in Clearing, and I’m so glad we did. Here’s to the public library being far more than a collection of books – a community gathering spot for shared interests, across generations.
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