Midway Statement

The first interstate, I-70, and the first McDonalds began in 1956. Since then — as long as I’ve been alive — there’s been a relentless flattening of the cultural landscape. Interstates, strip malls and every manner of commercial franchise have reached into all corners of American life. Everywhere is now looking more like everywhere else.

            Midway is one such place. The heart of it is Midway Airport in Chicago, one of the few airports in the United States embedded within a residential area of a city. Though all working class, the Midway community is difficult to define and routinely ignored by everyone going to the airport to fly to places that are far more exotic. Just about every ethnic group in the city lives here against a backdrop of strip malls, fast food, motels, light industry, shipping and transportation. Everyone is midway between urban and suburban – between immigration and assimilation – all striving to be somewhere else; although very few have flown on the jets that make their dishes rattle every seven minutes.