What kind of place did Elwood live in?

Elwoods Apartment was filmed at: 22 W. Van Buren Street, downtown Chicago, Il. It is now actually torn down and is now Pritzger Park .

I think it would be best called a flophouse.

A flophouse. It's not a hotel, but it's not an apartment. My brother lived in one for a while. His wasn't too bad. Not good, not livable, but no-one got killed. Or at least, the killings were minimal.

I had a friend that lived in one when I was a kid. Shared kitchen and bathrooms. One kitchen for a four story high building. One bathroom per floor. My friend lived with his dad and his brother. His dad covered the rent by doing the cooking, dishes, and "cleaning" for the whole building. No pay, but free rent. He had something else on the side I'm sure for cash.

I'm not even sure there was even an owner of the building. It seemed self sustaining and really sketchy. My friend had a Nintendo though so that was cool. We used to play Punch Out together in his 10x8 apartment with 3 people living there.

The building was torn down in the late 80's.