In the late 1800s this stretch of Dearborn Street was the printing hub of America. Publishing giants like Rand McNally and R.R. Donnelley called this block home. At its peak you could smell the ink just walking down the street.

When printing moved to the suburbs in the 1960s the neighborhood went quiet. Buildings sat empty, storefronts shuttered, and for a stretch Printers Row was more forgotten than anything else. Then developers arrived in the 1980s, saw what was hiding in those soaring ceilings and cast-iron facades, and converted everything into lofts. The neighborhood came back.

What returned wasn't a chain-lined corridor or a sanitized version of itself. It came back as something rarer: a walkable stretch of independently owned businesses that reflect the people who choose to live and work here. That's still what it is today.