A Long Way From “Satan’s Mile”

The booming South Loop has a tortuous and tawdry tale to tell.

As the clock struck five on a recent Friday, patrons began to bounce through the doors at the Bar Louie in Dearborn Station. First two, then five, then a boisterous group ten strong and looking barely legal. Laughter erupted from a quartet of African-American women in business casual. Two young Latinos worked laptops at a two-top by the bar, where a lone white guy in a painter’s cap nursed a Corona and watched the Blackhawks game flash across a bank of TVs. A couple of cops in yellow vests stomped in to shake off the cold. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” squealed from the PA; somewhere a bartender dimmed the lights. Welcome to the new South Loop: Prosperous. Multiethnic. Clean. A far cry from the days when South State Street was known as “Satan’s Mile.”