The scene

Memory lane The 2400 block of Lincoln Avenue deserved a double take last week as a production crew for director (and Chicago native) Michael Mann’s John Dillinger biopic, Public Enemies, whisked each storefront back to 1934 so that star Johnny Depp could be gunned down in the most historically accurate of settings. A Mexican restaurant was seamlessly shaped into a chop-suey dive and a watch retailer. Bars and a bookstore were reimagined as everything from appliance outlets to a men’s hat shop, complete with rusting neon signs and detailed window dressings. The Biograph Theater’s marquee touted its newfangled “iced fresh air” and advertised a screening of Manhattan Melodrama. (Dillinger took in the film, which coincidentally stars Clark Gable as a gangster, before meeting his violent death.) The blast-from-the-past avenue wasn’t a blast for everyone, though, despite the film’s backers compensating some businesses for truncated hours. Victory Gardens Theater, which occupies the Biograph, cleared its mainstage schedule as crews constructed a Depression-era lobby on top of the current foyer. “I lost five feet in my front office,” said Victory Gardens’ box-office supervisor Mariangela Saavedra. “I think it’s a fabric store now.”