Cheongnyangni 588

The area around 588 Jeonnong-dong (전농동), Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul. Just a few steps from Cheongnyangni Station, this district seemed for a long time to exist outside the city's official map. Even in daylight the depths of its alleys were dim, and nights of unextinguished neon stretched on for decades.

Residents of the surrounding neighborhood referred to the place only by its house number — "Oh-pal-pal," five-eight-eight. There was a vague, unspoken fear that merely saying the name aloud was enough to draw something toward you. It was recorded as the area with the highest frequency of reported crimes in all of Dongdaemun-gu, and the wail of police sirens repeated itself like a lullaby over those streets.

Children who attended the school at the edge of the alley learned first to take the long way around on their walks to and from class. It is said that no adult taught them this — that the alley itself did the teaching.

In May 2016, redevelopment work began and the buildings were demolished one by one. There are accounts that each time an excavator brought down a wall, decades' worth of darkness bloomed upward like dust. In that same spot today, a sixty-five-story residential tower pierces the sky.

Yet among late-night passengers passing through the area, a certain rumor still circulates. Now and then, in the glass of the high-rise lobby, a reflection appears that looks like the glow of an alleyway. Whether it is merely the city's afterimage, or something else entirely, no one has been willing to find out.