The first thing one notices about the main street of Madison, Illinois, is the shear breadth of Madison Avenue. It is wide, very wide. So much so that traffic now flows through at a high rate of speed.

But surely at one point, the founders of Madison possessed grand plans for their new city, plans that called for such a wide central artery.

There’s some nice architecture along Madison Avenue, but I feel in many ways it’s increasingly becoming a place where no one goes.

There seems to be a strong Eastern European presence in Madison, at least historically. I spotted at least two churches for Bulgarian Orthodox, like the one below, and another for one nearby.