“It’s where the old bosses lived, the new money parties, and Chinatown keeps its knives under the counter. Every block’s got a ghost, and not all of ’em are dead.”
The Near South Side is a layered precinct—stacked with pride, fear, rot, and ritual. Once home to Chicago's elite along Prairie Avenue, it’s now a battleground of memory and momentum. South of the Loop and hemmed in by the South Branch and the lake, it connects old wealth, restless working-class flats, and the tight-knit enclave of Chinatown. Union halls clash with opera houses. Car showrooms double as shrines. The air shifts street to street—perfume one minute, burnt motor oil the next.
To the north is the Loop, with its glare and gears. To the west, Pilsen and the remnants of industrial sprawl. Chinatown presses against Armour Squares’s belly to the southwest, proud and guarded. The whole area is a confluence—rail, road, water, culture—and something older, deeper, still moving beneath.
Neighborhoods
Prairie Mile
Gentrified decay meets municipal muscle. Prairie Mile was once the heart of the city’s aristocracy. Some mansions remain—hollow, haunted, or bought up by secretive societies. Civic buildings, libraries, and clubhouses dominate now, though whispers say deals with the Veil still fund a few mayoral campaigns.
Motor Row Flats
Old auto showrooms turned into jazz clubs, union offices, and outlaw garages. Black musicians mix with white fixers. The Outfit keeps a polite but firm grip on protection rackets, while local sorcerers run power lines into deeper networks. The hum under the pavement ain’t mechanical.
Chinatown
Closed-in and self-policed, Chinatown is a sovereign city behind red lanterns. Centered on Wentworth and Cermak, it's full of grocers, teahouses, temples, and places you don’t go unless you’re invited. Spirits walk more openly here—honored, bargained with, or trapped. The local tongs keep things in line, and rumor has it one of them employs a shaman who hasn't aged in forty years. Outsiders see bright signs and dragons. Locals see power buried deep.
Notes
The old Coliseum is half rubble and half portal—sealed shut by Black Belt rituals during the riots of ’19.
Motor Row’s last functioning garage is run by a man who hasn’t blinked since 1947.
A Veil-marked opium den in Chinatown sells forgetfulness by the cup.
A secret tunnel under the Harold Washington Library site leads into old Union Station catacombs.
Prairie Avenue’s last real estate holdout is owned by a woman who speaks only to birds.
Ghost trains are said to pull into the 18th Street rail spur once a month, full of screaming boxcars.
Chinatown’s Ping Tom Park wasn’t a park in ’53—it was a walled-off garden the locals never discussed.
At least one alderman’s heart is kept alive in a porcelain urn beneath his old home.
Wealthy on the surface, haunted underneath—this is where the city remembers, and sometimes regrets.
| Wealth |
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| Security & Safety |
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| Criminal Influence |
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| Occult Influence |
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| White (Irish, Jewish, Italian, Anglo elite) |
40% |
| Black |
30% |
| Chinese |
20% |
| Other (mixed, Eastern European, Latino, etc.) |
10% |
|
Central Chicago
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South Side
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Southwest Side
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West Side
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TODO
Key Landmarks & Locations (Real-World & Civic):
Second Presbyterian Church – Veil-touched Gothic structure with shifting stained glass.
The Coliseum – Now-abandoned former arena, site of old blood oaths and political power.
Motor Row District – Historic showroom strip turned night haunt.
Cermak-Wentworth Gateway – Chinatown’s ceremonial arch, rumored to be a Veil seal.
Chess Records Building – Legendary recording studio, Veil-tainted legacy of sound.
The Lexington Hotel – Future haunt of Capone’s ghost, already a nest of whispers in 1953.
Prairie Mile:
Greywall House – Abandoned mansion that shifts architecture when unobserved.
Club Alderman – Private political club with a Veil-bonded speaker’s podium.
The Candle Archive – Underground document vault requiring flame to access safely.
Harold’s Study – A locked office once used by city founders, now used by no one—alive.
Prairie Stone Lodge – Masonic hall repurposed by a Veil cult into a “clarity chamber.”
Benton's Hollow – A sunken park where kids vanish and return grown.
Motor Row Flats:
The Blue Halo – Jazz club where each note peels something off your soul.
Hammerline Garage – Hot-rod chop shop powered by haunted spark plugs.
Union 47 Hall – Longshoremen's stronghold with hidden Veil knowledge in the bylaws.
Midnight Market – Flea-market open from midnight to dawn only on Thursdays.
The Humline Trench – Deep crack in the street that hums Veil resonance.
Auto Temple – Showroom once consecrated to commerce, now a theater of pain.
Chinatown:
Moy Tong Tong Hall – Real-world tongs headquarters, rumored to house an immortal.
The Red Needle Apothecary – Sells Veil poisons, cures, and memories.
Lantern Street Teahouse – Neutral ground for tongue meetings and spiritual ceremonies.
Old Courtyard Shrine – Hidden behind a grocer, protected by paper spirits and knife rites.
The Golden Fan – Gambling parlor built around a sealed Veil fracture.
Dragon Bone Tunnel – Beneath the viaduct lies something old, scaled, and bound.
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