“If in the mid-’90s you told people you were looking for smack on Division Street, they expected needle tracks on your arms. Today, you might be after nothing more decadent than a $200 designer blouse from L.A. or a pair of low-rider cords ‘by Ruth.’ The fact that the owners of a boutique at 1650 W. Division could name the trendy shop Smack without a hint of irony shows just how much the once gritty strip has changed.
“Few commercial streets in Chicago have transformed as thoroughly or as quickly in recent years as Division, the thoroughfare that novelist Nelson Algren chronicled in the lives of the impoverished immigrants, petty crooks, crooked cops and hustlers of all kinds who populated its sidewalks.” Read more about the transformation of “the Polish Broadway” in our Division Street profile and visit our Wicker Park forum to vote on whether the changes have been good, bad or somewhere in between. See more photos of the Division Street Russian Baths (top), Vata Salon & Spa (bottom) and more Division Street haunts in our Wicker Park photo gallery.