Hey, bedbugs don’t come cheap. Neither do criminal firearms homicides.
The architecture is impressive from the air.
Just don’t go near the ground.
Lol.
How is the Miracle Mile looking these days?
rent + cost of living ? for a studio maybe...
https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/chicago-il/
If real estate is being leased and sold, the market is not overpriced.
Keep voting democrat.....they deserve what they get
I went to Chicago once when my youngest graduated from Navy boot camp. I WASN’T IMPRESSED. What was Capone thinking?
Chicago is a hellhole.
But LIFE there is real cheap, so...
It was a magnificent place to grow up in the 50’s. Housing was brick and yards were small, but the neighborhoods were safe and the schooling was excellent.
Transportation was difficult in that it was blocks to walk to the bus and there weren’t protective areas to hide from the chilling wind while you waited FOREVER for the bus, which often passed you by with people standing on the doorway stairs. But as soon as one would pass, all the others stalled behind it were sure to show up quickly. Never did figure out what the bunching buses problem stemmed from.
But taxis were also common and right on your door. Checkers, yellow cab. Not as cheap as a bus, but still not expensive. And safe. It took you to Illinois Central train stations that were a pleasant way to reach downtown Chicago. Or, for husband on the north side, the elevated train to downtown.
And downtown was magic. Not just Grant Park and the view of the lake. And if you drove to downtown, there was the magnificent Outer Drive to enjoy the whole way with biking trails, runners and waves crashing in windy weather. Every spring was the cherry blossoms and apple blossoms. They’d surround Buckingham Fountain and Grant Park with its magnificent evening concerts. Again, safe and friendly. The whole city was just a small town, built large.
The architecture was also magic. I was raised by an art student and my entire childhood was a fantasy of education on the buildings we passed.
***
The hikes that we took, when I was a child,
Wound through canyons and prairies and sweet sylvan nooks
Filled with wildflower storefronts and auto-clogged creeks.
I walked with my mother and saw with her eyes
Carrying all of her years with a ten year old’s pride.
She didn’t have money, we’d only have tea,
But she stuffed me with cupcakes of sweet memory.
***
Tea was Marshall Fields. Shopping was Carsons or Mandel Brothers. EVERYTHING there beautifully laid out in marble and gold decorations. Elegant and a place to rest before catching your breath for another visit to endless possibilities. And if you needed something special, like music, you’d find it under the elevated tracks - like Lyon and Healy.
Most important, it was midwestern. Totally. People on the street - total strangers - made continuous eye contact with you, often with smiles. I had no idea what that meant until I moved for work to LA and then to NY. In LA, they couldn’t have cared less if you were dead on the ground as long as they didn’t get blood on their shoes. In NY, they were terrified of you and dropped their eyes to the ground the minute you got close. I never knew loneliness until those moves. You had to work at getting to know anyone and among randoms you were always alone.
In Chicago, you were NEVER alone. You were part of a community and, because it was a city, you were constantly surrounded by people who would have run to your aid.
Mother was also raised in Chicago and her poem of the city got her a letter from a Boston publisher offering to publish a book of her work if she had others like it.
https://www.iment.com/maida/family/mother/jeanpoet.htm
That wasn’t her way and she never responded. But Chicago was a city to love and to be grateful for knowing during its good years. Now just memories.
