A week ago today in the midst of a family trip to Chicago, I set out with my two children from the Fairmount Hotel in downtown Chicago (morning coffee in your room $11, thank you very much), to the ultimate Chicago Jewish comfort food emporium. That's Manny's, at 1141 S. Jefferson St. on the city's near southwest side, just off Roosevelt Road (1200 S.). As per our standard operating procedure, we cabbed it over, and were planning to take a bus back east for further adventures. The bus ride turned out to be a grand sociopolitcal adventure, but more about that in a moment.

Chicago's Roosevelt Road is a major arterial street which leads out west to nightclubs where performers like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and Little Walter spawned Chicago's famous, post-WW II electric blues sound, which subsequently inspired so many other players. Also on Roosevelt, but closer to Chicago's eastern border of Lake Michigan, near Halsted St. (800 W.), was a hub of Jewish-owned retail establishments. A few of them remain, selling hats, clothes, and shoes. The famous Maxwell Street Market, which survived for years in the shadow of the newer University of Illinois Chicago "Circle" Campus, was nearby as well. Known to some as "Jewtown," Maxwell Street was home to a famed outdoor flea market, live electric blues in empty lots, and the best hot dogs and Polish sausages you could get anywhere. These were slathered with succulent, greasy grilled onions and handed to you through the sliding window of a mobile home trailer perched on cinderblocks. My dad took me to Maxwell Street many a time when I was a kid, and I went back as a young adult living in Chicago. That's gone now, but for an ex-pat visitor in Chicago, Manny's is a real tonic to the flash and hype of downtown.

Downtown and in the adjacent River North area, restaurants are either way over the top or hyper-hip, which is apparently just what the tourists, conventioneers and monied players want. In contrast, Manny's is where locals go, and looks like it's in a time capsule sealed in 1958. A bunch of regular guys - cops, politicians, salesmen, bagmen, high-risk finance specialists - belly up to the cafeteria line, trays in hand, and choose from an array of downhome hot entrees and classic deli fare. I captured a digicam shot the day of my visit; behind the sandwiches waiting to be snatched from the counter is the late Manny's son Ken Raskin (center). He presides over the cutting board with flair and friendly wisecracks.

Every day Manny's offers five or six hot lunch specials, a different homemade soup, hot and cold deli sandwiches, and don't hold up the line, okay? Here's the menu, some reviews, and a little bit of Manny's history. Manny's has been in business 50 years.

I got a half a peppered pastrami sandwich on rye, with a crunchy garlic dill pickle slice, a hefty potato pancake and a bowl of chicken kreplach soup. My kids had a typically bewildering lunch of hot dogs, rice and jello.

At Manny's, people are in a hurry to eat, even if they do often linger over the rice pudding. The first cashier quickly rings you up and hands you a ticket, which you present at a separate station on the way out.

Afterward, we parked ourselves on the corner of Roosevelt and Jefferson to wait for the #12 Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus back east toward Michigan Avenue, from where pathways lead under Lake Shore Drive to "Museum Campus" housing the Field Museum Of Natural History, The Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planetarium. Here's a view of my old home town, from the bus stop. That'd be Sears Tower looming large. I tinted it a bit purple because that's the shade it really ought to be. Manny's is the place with the reddish sign out front.

Well, the bus finally came, and I can safely say that as nice as it was to go back to Manny's, this was when the real fun began. People were standing from front to back, and they weren't in the least moving to make more space, although there was just enough to squeeze in some more riders. My kids and I had been waiting in the cold a good 15 minutes, and we were NOT going to wait for another bus, which for all I knew could be slow to arrive and just as packed. The driver was defeated, not saying a word. I somehow pushed us up a few steps, and then applied some of my soft-spoken Seattle charm, while channeling my Inner Chicagoan.

Matt, in a booming friendly voice: "Hey people, c'mon now, we gotta make this work, okay? Think New York subway. Sardines, sardines, sardines, serious sardines. YOU know. We're gonna get to know each REAL well, alright?" And so on. Grudging half-smiles. some mild grumbling, some shuffling. Space is created. We squeeze on. As we're pulling away, a guy runs up and bangs on the door, wanting to get on. The lady driver, heretofore mute, loses it, and starts yelling at him. I start chatting up my neighbors. "Whaadaya think? Jesse Jackson Jr. for mayor? He'll fix this, won't he?" Digital camera in hand, I realize it's important to secure documentation. Okay, here ya go. The Roosevelt #12 bus, at somewhere between 12 noon and 1 p.m. on Tuesday Oct. 24, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois.

Cozy, huh? As it happens, overcrowding on the CTA has become a serious problem. In a post titled, "Living Like Sardines," Chicago blogger "CTA Sound Off" writes:

For years, the CTA has received tons of complaints about unsafe transit conditions which will eventually contribute to many serious injuries or mass loss of life during a train or bus accident, should one occur while overcrowded conditions are present. At the least in the current day, it contributes to people being involuntarily groped, exposed to foul breath, body odor, and the criminal minded who know just how to take advantage of the situation. This situation causes more than just unwanted physical friction: passengers become irate and verbal hostilities take place, fights even break out. Another problem this causes: passengers miss their stops because they can't get off, and CTA personnel are instructed to just ignore the overcrowding because the CTA wants their money! For $2.00 a ride, this is NOT worth it!

Nearly two and a half years ago, the Chicago Tribune noted:

Twenty minutes pass and still no sign of the bus. More commuters crowd the curb, peering up the street. Someone gets frustrated and flags down a cab. Then from around the bend, three buses on the same route appear all at once, lined up like train cars. Sound familiar? In addition to bus bunching, many CTA bus and "L" passengers complain of unreliable schedules, overcrowding, impractical routes and dirty facilities, according to interviews.

Mission statements are a fine thing. Assuming you can take them seriously. Under "values,"The CTA's states:

Professional - We will provide transit service with the highest standards of quality and safety for our customers and ourselves.

Reliable - We will be dependable for our customers and fellow employees, and will maintain the highest standards of trust.

Uh huh. Even on my brief visit to Chicago, I noticed not only absurd overcrowding on the bus, but also wasteful bus bunching. Coming back east toward the lake another day on Chicago Ave. with my kids, I espied another bus with the same route number literally right behind us at the stop, as we boarded. Both were scantly filled. What a crummy allocation of resources.

On the very same day last week that my kids and I were doing the Sardine Tango with everyone else aboard that CTA Route #12 on Roosevelt Road, the Tribune's transit columnist Kyra Kyles was urging the agency to bring back more field supervisors to ensure a better flow of buses. Good suggestion, but how can the cash-strapped agency do that? Here's a thought. Deadwood political hacks filling CTA middle management chairs and lesser clout-driven sinecures can take early retirement with no bennies. Politically-connected "consultants" can be shown the door for good. All management salaries can be cut, say, 12 percent because system performance stinks. Annual outside performance audits would monitor progress on resource allocation within the agency and service improvements. How's that for starters?

When I lived in Chicago as an adult between 1983 and 1994, I gave the CTA farly high marks for having train lines that get you nearly anywhere in the city, and especially to both airports. We still haven't managed that in Seattle, or even a second airport. But the chronic financial problems of the CTA have forced some ugly cuts and lowered the quality and reliability of bus service starkly. Trains aren't doing so hot, either. The necessary reforms - involving public employee pensions, labor agreements, and CTA and city staffing and budget priorities - are unfortunately anathema to the entrenched local Democratic hoodlums still running the show in Chicago. People more or less get the government they deserve. So, people of Chicago, you've got to take the first step.

The #12 crowd had thinned out considerably by the time we got off at Michigan Ave. and took the nearby path to the museum campus, and then on into the Shedd to see fish, sea creatures, Amazon yellow toads and a highly entertaining river otter. Chicago is great for pathways and civic flower beds and amusements. In fact, that's the Ferris Wheel (far right, below) at The Navy Pier entertainment complex. But I'd much prefer to ride a bus where you don't have to body surf to get out the door.

TECHNORATI TAGS: CHICAGO, TOURISM, MANNY'S, PASTRAMI, CTA, BUSES, OVERCROWDING, POLITICS, JESSE JACKSON JR. SHEDD AQUARIUM

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 31, 2006 01:45 PM