Sundays often are relatively quiet in many area towns, but that quiet seemed closer to desolate Sunday afternoon, the first day of a shelter in place for the entire state.
Along some streets, there were no people to be seen walking or vehicles moving along. In others, a lone figure could be seen walking down a sidewalk, sometimes with a dog on a leash. On La Grange Road, at the south end of the downtown, a mother walked along a sidewalk with her two young children in hand.
On First Street in downtown Hinsdale, one car made a U-turn in the middle of the street before pulling into a parking space in front of a restaurant so that the driver could go inside to pick up a carryout order.
In downtown Clarendon Hills, a man came walking out of a pizza restaurant with a carryout order, quickly got into his car and drove off.
On Burlington Avenue in downtown Western Springs, west of Wolf Road, there were no signs of an open business, or people.
It would have been a great time to have a pick of parking spaces at Oakbrook Center. One of the electronic signs that indicates how many spaces remain in the various parking garages indicated that 2,189 were available. But there really wouldn’t have been much point to parking at the mall, as its stores, which already had been operating for six days with reduced hours, closed, indefinitely, at 5 p.m. Saturday, the same time at which the state’s shelter in place took effect.
