“Douglas don’t forget, don’t forgive, and sure as hell don’t flinch. You walk these streets with your head high or not at all—’cause even the spirits here got standards.”
Douglas stretches between the lakefront and the freight lines, north of Grand Boulevard and east of Bronzeville. Once the proud heart of Black cultural and intellectual life in Chicago, it now bears the scars of disinvestment and displacement. Jazz clubs are shuttered, grand mansions lean under the weight of time, and public housing blocks rise like watchtowers. The lake view remains, but most folks live behind double-locked doors and heavy curtains. The neighborhood remembers what it used to be—and it grieves.
The Veil in Douglas is unsteady. Sometimes it’s still and smothering, like an unsaid prayer. Other times, it erupts—through alleyways, church floors, and schoolyards. Old spirits here don’t fade; they cling. They teach. They punish. Douglas isn’t just haunted—it’s stubborn. It refuses to forget.
Douglas was once the beating heart of Black Chicago. It still thinks it is.
The Langston Club’s Veil protections are rumored to work on minds, not just spirits.
Arcane Division calls Douglas “Low-Grade Active.” Locals call that bullshit.
Mother Thorne says there’s a “memory gate” under the old trench. No one’s challenged her.
CPD barely patrols here—but their informants never seem to vanish.
BCN operates quietly, using South Commons as a dead drop route.
A string of recent deaths all involve dreams of drowning—none of them near water.
Several sealed mansions hum with faint electricity, even though the power’s been cut since ’44.
Neighborhoods
Prairie Shores
Prairie Shores hugs the lake, where remnants of upper-class elegance still hold out amid creeping decay. Towering brick apartments, collapsing rowhomes, and once-beautiful houses now used as boarding houses line the boulevards. At night, one building hums—a sound too low for children but loud enough to give the elders nosebleeds.Gap Town
Gap Town gets its name from the trench that runs through it—an old rail cut that divides the living and the strange. The west side is working-class hustle: food carts, open sermons, union talk. The east side feels...off. Doors close without hands. Shadows move wrong. It’s a neighborhood split by more than steel.South Commons
Half-cleared by bulldozers and half-abandoned by politicians, South Commons is a graveyard of promises. Brick cottages collapse while rumors rise about what moves inside the condemned buildings. Construction stops for weeks at a time. Workers vanish. Locals ward their windows and pretend not to see.Notes
The Veil here isn’t a storm. It’s a ghost choir. Sometimes you listen. Sometimes you can’t help but sing with it.
| Wealth | |
| Security & Safety | |
| Criminal Influence | |
| Occult Influence |
| African American | 76% |
| White (Jewish, Italian) | 14% |
| Other | 10% |
| South Side |
| Southwest Side |
Douglas
The Langston Club – Underground poetry club protected by verses that cut
Public School No. 8 – Boarded shut but still full of sound
The Franklin House – Gilded ruin that eats time and spits out doors
South State Market Tracks – Ghost trains whisper along the rails most nights
The Switch Vault – Buried box tied to disappearances and cold sparks
Prarie Shores
Crime & Underworld Locations: The Lakefront Cut – Where smugglers pull water routes; stash spot for Veil contraband The Rose Arms – Luxury flats turned Outfit blackmail base Southview Pharmacy – Front for illegal Veil-doped painkillers Veil Locations: The Franklin House – Rooms that rearrange, voices behind sealed vents Prairie 1218 – A townhouse no one recalls buying, selling, or entering The Humming Block – Entire row vibrates nightly at 3:03 a.m.
Gap Town
Crime & Underworld Locations: Deacon’s Chop Stand – Hidden dice room in the meat locker Hilltop Union Hall – Where union leadership deals with BCN in back offices Copper’s Rowhouse – Informant safehouse turned ambush zone Veil Locations: Ebenezer Ministry House – Veil-thick sanctuary where sermons echo backward The Switch Vault – Rail control box that triggers strange disappearances Revelation Streetlight #19 – Never goes out, sometimes hums scripture
South Commons:
Crime & Underworld Locations: Harper & 26th Lot – Turf war flashpoint between BCN and rogue cliques Tangle Hall – Underground Veil drug den posing as a labor co-op Miller’s Lot – Where stolen cars go to rot or get Veil-marked and sold Veil Locations: Public School No. 8 – Boarded since '49, still rings its bell some mornings The Hollow Stair – Empty house with 22 stairs to nowhere The Langston Club – Verse-fueled Veil ward disguised as a poetry society
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