NPR's Scott Simon visited the Inn of Chicago this week, where migrants are now being housed. The building is the same one his father died in 55 years ago.
The Inn of Chicago houses migrants from Venezuela. It used to be the Hotel St. Clair when Scott Simon and his father lived there.
The city of Chicago opens a new shelter for migrants every six days. About 1,500 people can be housed in the Inn of Chicago, which was the Hotel St. Clair when my father and I lived there — a faded, old place with small, dim rooms for people who worked in nightspots nearby. My father died there one morning — room 12-M — in 1968. My wife and I dropped by this week.
The people living here now have walked through fields, jungles, and swamps to reach the US border from Venezuela, where they say life has become treacherous under a tyrannical regime. Then they were brought by bus to Chicago. We weren't permitted inside, but saw many families outside the shelter, sipping drinks from a donut shop. A little girl stood up on blue and pink-wheeled roller skates. A little boy bounced a ball against the hotel's stone wall, and ran after it into the street.
Many people don't want to use their names; they're in the middle of the asylum process. But my wife and I spoke with a small group, who wore tee-shirts donated by charities, with logos from local bars, high schools, and also-ran sports teams. There have been reports of thefts and violence in the shelter, but residents on the street told us,"Life here is much quieter, much calmer, much safer, and that people respect them here. There are rules and laws.
Yet to be in front of my childhood place reminded me how Chicago and other great cities had been built and energized by people who wanted to work and make better lives for their children. They came over fields, borders, and oceans to be here. I asked people who live in the old St. Clair if they knew who lives in room 12-M now.Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters.
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