Windy City wannabe

“I show up and somebody says they’re going to build me a street!” John Ridley said, shaking his head as he stood on the newest addition to the Paramount lot, “Chicago Street,” a full block resembling Chicago’s South Side business district. “I was afraid to be happy about it, but it turned out really great.” Ridley, executive producer, director and writer of “Barbershop,” the new Showtime series premiering Aug. 14 and spun off the successful Ice Cube-led film franchise, added that “other than being able to move everyone’s families to Chicago and actually having the facilities to do this in Chicago, this is the next best thing.”

It’s also a rarity. At Paramount, the only other back lot -- as permanent outdoor sets are called -- is a cluster of streets made to look like various parts of New York City, built in 1991. For a shared price tag of about half a million dollars, the cable network now has a filming home for its new show, and Paramount has a new back lot to use for its projects.

“It’s all in the detail,” said Donald Lee Harris, the production designer in charge of constructing the Chicago Street. “It’s more layers, it’s more dirt, it’s more weeds, it’s more of everything.” Looking up at a painter applying an “aging” glaze to the second story of a storefront, Harris said: “We’re trying to make it look like we didn’t build it this morning.”

-- JOSH GAJEWSKI