Years ago, when crowds gathered on downtown sidewalks, they did so, or so it seemed, for ghoulish reasons. Maybe they were looking at the tangled metal remnants of an auto crash. Perhaps they were staring up at a sad soul perched on a skyscraper ledge.
There were sometimes gentler reasons for the gatherings: a preacher, perhaps, or a tap dancer.
These days, however, when people gather on city sidewalks, they seem to do so for only one reason: to spot a star.
“What is it?” a tall man asked one sunny but brisk afternoon, seeing a crowd gathered at the entrance to an alley off Lake Street. “What’s going on?”
“Movie,” said a woman.
“Mel Gibson’s movie?”
“Don’t know.”
And didn’t care.
Many of us are drawn to the lights and crew trucks of movie sets–even when no stars are present–with the same wide-eyed wonder we might display at the arrival of an alien spacecraft.
There are lots of movies and TV shows shot in Chicago. Isn’t it about time we all got used to that?
