South of Foster

There's a good sandwich shop called Ba Le on the northwest corner of Broadway and Argyle. I went there last night and got a vegetable sandwich and three Vietnamese spring rolls, all for just $7. Highly recommended.

Less pleasant is the walk north on Broadway from there. The 5130 block of North Broadway (between Winona and Foster) is particularly blighted.

This spring I did an informal survey of Broadway between Foster and Bryn Mawr. This was to gather information that might be useful for the Broadway redevelopment task force. I've published some of my findings here, and someday I'd like to write more about that. But I was really struck last night by how seedy things have gotten just south of my survey area.

When I first moved into the neighborhood, the 5130 block was dominated by a Burger King on the west side of the street. Then last year, I noticed the Burger King sign was replaced by one that said "Burger Delights." Shortly after that, I noticed that the sign was changed to "Chicken Delights" (though they didn't bother to change the drive-thru signs). I guess they had a falling out with their beef supplier? Last night, I noticed the lights were out; as I came closer, I could see parts of the building were boarded up. Burger/Chicken Delights is no more.

Across the street, next door to a Haitian church, is a single story building that was occupied by a Cingular Wireless store. But Cingular moved out sometime in the last three months. Rounding out the east side of the block is the run-down Asian Village shopping mall, which looks even less inviting now that it is surrounded by shuttered buildings.