Welcome to West Loop week on the Yo

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Olympic Meat Packers, 810 W Randolph St

No neighborhood in Chicago draws more comparisons to New York’s SoHo than the West Loop. The eclectic blend of fine dining and meat markets (literal and metaphorical), businesses and residential lofts, art galleries and offices makes the neighborhood directly west of the Loop a fascinating study in urban life. We’ll be exploring the fabric of the West Loop this week on the Yo, posting on West Loop real estate, building, restaurants, shopping and life in general.

To kick things off, the boundaries of the West Loop are roughly, the Chicago River, the Eisenhower Expressway, Ashland Avenue and Grand Avenue.

Get a feel for the neighborhood by perusing a West Loop gallery by our favorite photographer, Joeff Davis. You can find more Yo photos of the West Loop in our West Loop Flickr photo set, and our videos on our West Loop playlist at YouTube (coming this week). New Homes Magazine’s profile of the neighborhood in 2006 focused on tensions over new high-rise construction in the community, which is dominated by loft conversions and new condo mid-rises.

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