The town of Bensenville has been in the media lately due to the plans for the O'Hare Airport expansion. Their plans are to build new runways on the south side of Irving Park Road, demolishing a whole neighborhood full of homes in the process. There has been much opposition, but many homeowners have already sold off their homes. This has created an ever increasing "ghost town" feel in a once bustling neighborhood. Naturally, anything involving abandoned buildings sparks my interest. I had to go check it out for myself.

I found the neighborhood and starting driving around. It was about 3:30pm. There were hundreds of homes in this neighborhood, and from what I saw, about 90% of them were boarded up and abandoned. This was the most concentrated area of abandoned houses I've ever seen, even more than Gary, IN. There were no cars driving, no people walking their dogs or children playing, even on a beautiful summer afternoon. All that could be heard was the sound of airplanes flying overhead, a constant reminder of the neighborhood's fate. It was a very eerie feeling driving up and down these streets. I got out of the car a few times, but most of the pictures I took were out of my car window.

I came across a few homes that were still inhabited, all of them hanging huge signs of protest in their front yards. Unfortunate for them, it looks as if the battle against O'Hare has been lost.

After exploring for 20 minutes or so, I passed a man in a full size sedan who was parked in an entryway for a townhouse complex. I got the vibe that he did not want me here, but I continued down the street and took more pictures from my window. He eventually began to follow me. When I pulled over to get another picture, he pulled up behind me, got out of his car with his giant Mag-lite (for intimidation apparently). He said that he was with the O'Hare Expansion team and that there have been many arrests lately of people scoping out the area during the day, and then returning at night to break into the vacant homes to steal copper pipes and stuff like that. I told him that I was just taking pictures. He left me alone, but I didn't want any more shit from this guy, so I decided to leave.

While it will be nice to have a more efficient O'Hare airport, I couldn't help but think about all the countless families that were forced out of their homes. Some people who have probably lived most of their lives in these homes, raised their families, had many fond memories. And now they won't even be able to come back and visit the neighborhood that they called home for so long.

View more pictures here.