CHICAGO -- When the world was isolating in pandemic bubbles, Alex Hardaway was channeling his inner Bob McGrath — the late “Sesame Street” character who sang the “People in Your Neighborhood” song.
Hardaway began a marathon music project — his first solo album, called “Be My Neighborhood,” where he wrote a song for each of his neighbors in his 15-unit Andersonville apartment building. The album debuted Thursday.
During the height of the pandemic, Hardaway, a longtime employee at Oiistar Japanese restaurant, had started doing maintenance work around the building to chip some money off his rent. That led him to meet all his fellow tenants. The 33-year-old graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University said a lot of his musical material comes from real life interactions.
