A mile of storefronts under a masonry arch, and the corner Stranger Than Fiction used as a bakery.
What Little Village looks like
26th Street runs for about two miles of storefronts on Chicago's Southwest Side. A tiled masonry arch spans the road between Troy Street and Albany Avenue, built in 1990. Two dome-topped towers and a clock rise over the roadway, and its ironwork banner reads Bienvenidos a Little Village. Ground floor shops fill one and two storey brick buildings the length of the street, their windows layered with painted and neon signs, most of them in Spanish.
holds a two storey tan brick corner further down 26th Street, arched stone trim over its windows and a green neon sign lit above the sidewalk. At the corridor's east end, a limestone courthouse block from 1929 stands at California Avenue, its entrance carved with relief figures.
On Cermak Road, at the neighborhood's north edge, a red brick church rises in three copper-topped towers next to its parish school. Arched windows and a stepped brick parapet run along the school's front wall, its name painted in blue letters across the second floor.
The side streets carry brick two-flats with stepped gables and dormer windows. One larger house on Millard Avenue, behind an iron fence, adds a columned porch and cut stone trim to the same brick and stone vocabulary.
Toward the west, 26th Street crosses rail tracks at grade near , a brick factory lettered Metomic Corp standing beside a small guard tower behind chain link. Alleys run behind the storefronts, utility poles and wires overhead, with exterior metal stairs climbing two-tone painted brick at the rear of the commercial blocks.
Shot in Little Village
For Stranger Than Fiction, the production used La Catedral Cafe and Restaurant on Christiana Avenue as the exterior of Ana Pascal's bakery. The crew shot in Chicago in the spring and summer of 2005.
Stranger Than Fiction, 2006
Played Ana Pascal's bakery
Ana Pascal's bakery exterior was filmed at La Catedral Cafe and Restaurant on Christiana Avenue, a block off 26th Street. The building sits on a quiet residential corner rather than the busiest stretch of the corridor. Street View
What Little Village can double for
Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, California
Whittier Boulevard has the same scale of one and two storey storefronts serving a Mexican American community, with dense painted signage over brick the length of the corridor. Murals cover many of the blank end walls, more of them than 26th Street itself has. Los Angeles palm trees and the boulevard's own width give the city away in a wide shot, so tighter storefront frames hold the illusion best. Try searching painted storefront signage now.
Market Square in San Antonio, Texas
El Mercado's building at Market Square uses the same Spanish Colonial vocabulary as the 26th Street arch. Cream stucco walls and a red tile roof run the length of its arcade, and the covered walkway reads close to the arch's own roofline in a tight shot. Market Square is a plaza rather than a through street, so a wide shot needs to stay along one arcaded edge and avoid the open center to hold a corridor feeling. Try searching arcaded Spanish colonial walkways now.
