SROs in Other Cities

SROs in Chicago

The Covent Hotel is at 2653 North Clark Street in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago. As of April 2016, it was still in operation with some occupants, as you can see in the second and third pictures below.

There's another Chicago SRO on 422-26 South Clark Street, in the first block south of the El in the Loop. The only sign says just "HOTEL" and "MEN ONLY".

According to this Streetwise article it was the Ewing Annex in 2013. A cubicle was $15/day, $90/week, and $300/month. "Many tenants are disabled, having been placed there by organizations such as Thresholds, Sisters Outreach and Salvation Army. Others are retired. Students of traditional age from 11 area colleges also reside here. Of the 210 rooms, all but nine are in use. Some tenants have lived at the Annex for over 30 years. The average stay is eight years. The Annex was formerly known as the Working Man's Exchange — the home to not only weekly tenants, but the location of city council meetings, film shoots (Batman), and more recently, a site for historical tours."

That article went on to say: "The Ewing Annex Hotel and the Wilson Men's Hotel, 1124 W. Wilson Ave., are the only remaining cubicle hotels in Chicago. In the 1920s and '30s these hotels, and many others, served as temporary housing to workers of the Stockyards, factories and steel mills. Each cubicle in the Wilson is 6-by-9 or 6-by-10 feet with chicken-wire ceilings separating one from another. The Ewing Annex Hotel rooms are a little smaller. Some cubicle rooms are slightly raised above the ground, forming a gap between the walls and the floor. The restrooms are communal and shared by all men on a floor—sometimes as many as 60."

It was also described in the Columbia Chronicle and on chicagohomeless.org, which also mentioned the Wilson Men's Club Hotel at 1124 West Wilson.

Elwood Blues lived in the Plymouth Hotel. I don't think the address is mentioned in the movie, but a display at Union Station on Chicago movie locations said that it was at 22 West Van Buren. By the 2010s this was a small park on the northwest corner of Van Buren and State, along the south side of the El line around the Loop. The Harold Washington Library was then on the opposite side of Van Buren. Here you see it at 34:18 and 39:29 into the movie.

The "Mickey Finn", a drink with chloral hydrate or other knockout drugs, is probably named after the manager and bartender of the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant. That business operated from 1896 to 1903 on the west side of State Street just north of Congress Parkway. That location is now occupied by the Harold Washington Library.

And Elsewhere

The Lincoln Center on North 14th Street in Lafayette, Indiana, offers SRO housing. It's in a former elementary school building. The Lincoln Center is operated by the Lafayette Transitional Housing Center.