That's where my love affair started with the Windy City and she's always be my Mistress.
My next experience to Chicago was with my high-school and early college friend C. I'm not sure what exactly inspired us to go there beyond they 'hey we're adult to do something like this now'. We had an absolute blast. One of the experiences we had was going to the Second City comedy club. It was a great funny night and afterward we figured we'd just wander around and walk back to the hotel. We were staying right downtown and could see the taller buildings and figured we'd easily find our way. Well... we didn't think about what was between us and the hotel. This is back in the early to mid 90s, and after walking for awhile we noticed that everything just suddenly got... scary. The sounds of traffic died off and there were almost no cars moving on the road. There were a lot of people out though and we noticed that almost all of them were noticing us. Even back then I tried not to consider race, but it was hard not to see that we were the only two white people around. About 2 blocks into this scary area an old black man came toward us from his porch and asked quite abruptly if we what we were doing. I'm sure our scared white faces was answer enough, but he asked us if we knew where we were anyway. When our answer was only 'Chicago' he thankfully pointed us back the way we walked in and told us to get on the next cab and get the hell out of there.
It took a couple years, but I figured out exactly where we had been. Cabrini Green. It was near the end of that horrible place, but the cops still didn't go there. I'm fairly sure that old man saved C and I from a beating, a robbery, and maybe even saved our lives.
Seriously.
But that was the only 'bad' experience on either of those trips.
The next trip I took to the city of broad shoulders was my college photo trip. This was a big deal for the photo program as Chicago is a HUGE photo city. At the time there was a book where all commercial photographers would advertise. The Big Book, or The Blue Book, or something like that. Most big cities have some kind of guide like that and they have dozens of photographers listed. Chicago, at that time, had 1400. A lot of commercial photographers work there and it's one of the few towns in America where you can go with a photo degree and find consistent work. That trip was a blast. I firmed up my friendship with E on that trip. It was my first visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was the first time I had a meal that I paid over $50 for (that was food money for like 4 days!). We hit Calumet Photo and if you've never heard of them, Calumet's store was about the size of an average Walmart but it's all professional grade photography equipment. Cameras, lights, stands, tripods, monopods, filters, lenses, backdrops, props... if you can think of a photographer using it, they had it.
I'm fairly sure it was that trip that settled it into my heart as MY city. The other trips were important, but that trip took a nebulous idea of liking a big urban city and changed it to specifically loving Chicago.
My next experiences is when I physically made it MY city. Moving there. I've covered this before, but to give a brief overview, E and I moved to Chicago after photo school with the intent of becoming commercial photographers. We'd get a cheap apartment and work as photo assistants for a few years, soak up all the experience we could, and then eventually start up our own business.
Did I mention that between the year before we moved there and the year I moved back home the book for photographers went from 1400 photographers to 800? Yeah, it was hard times for photographers. Not all of those photographers left. In fact, most of them just started working as photography assistants. For the remaining photographers it's pretty easy to pick between a former working photographer and a newly graduated student as an assistant especially when we were both asking for the normal minimum... $100 per gig. I only worked with two different photographers in my year of living in Chicago and between the two of them I might have earned about $1400. Obviously there was no way I could afford to live off of that, so I got a job working at Office Depot. I mean, the rent alone was $700 to split between E and I and we had to pay for electricity, garbage, water, and everything else. Oh yeah, and we liked to eat on most days so we had to buy food too.
I more or less stopped paying on my car (which was doubly bad as it was a loan from my grandfather!), stopped paying for car insurance, defaulted on my two credit cards, and sold my cell phone to E and then defaulted on my cell phone contract. At the end I was paying for rent, the associated bills that came with the apartment, food, and gasoline. Whenever I came home to visit with the family, I had to save up the money for gas to get there and then 'borrow' money for gas to get back.
Now being broke as a joke in a big city like that can be tough and a lot of the time it was soul crushingly difficult to deal with. But there are ways to make a dollar stretch in a town like that too. I could scratch two ten dollar bills together occasionally and that could get a movie and dinner out. There were street vendors for hot dogs and that was some damn fine good eating. Sure, I had a car but it wasn't necessary as the bus and L trains could get me anywhere I needed to be. There were friends and most of them were having trouble making ends meet, but we'd get together and have fun.
It would be easy to say that once the lease was up it was an easy decision to move back home. I mean, in 12 months I destroyed my financial future (and that harm lasted a good 7 years!). I learned what hunger really is. I learned what failure really is. But you know what? It wasn't an easy decision.
Because I love that town!
At the end of the day I accepted that I couldn't afford to live there so I moved home. But I always wanted to go back.
Fast forward through a good portion of my life... 9 more years failing as a photographer, 3 years of nursing school, and 2 years looking for a nursing job. I might have visited my sweet home once or twice in those 14 years, but each time it was heaven. When I got my job as a registered nurse though and got financial freedom for the first time in my life.... well I visit Chicago as often as I can. Sure, it's not the several times a year I wish it was.. but it's at least once a year. And visiting Chicago with money is way WAY different than living there without any. Staying in the big hotels, drinking in the cool bars, eating in the great restaurants, going to the museums and the shows.
On one visit with E we couldn't help but visit some of our old haunts and eventually wound up at our old apartment. 20 years ago we were living near the intersection of Chicago and Damen in the Ukrainian Village. It was... well it was poor. The houses were falling apart, the streets were in disrepair, the business were constantly coming in and going out. We had a couple city blocks (one mile) to walk up to the nearest L station (the Damen stop on the Blue line) and inbetween us and that stop was Wicker Park. Wicker Park was another neighborhood in disrepair, but it was full of artists. And just north of that was Bucktown. Bucktown had been like Wicker Park but property values had gone up, moved all the poor artists out and had become far more gentrified and commercial. Well fastforward 20 years and the Ukrainian Village is now where Bucktown was. It's gentrified and commercial and gogeous. Wicker Park is hip and cool and Bucktown is actually declining (artists are moving in!). The whole area is hip and cool and hippster and crunchy and just fucking sweet. But man it is really weird to see some nice banks where the burned out gas station used to be. That old Puerto Rican mechanic? That's a Starbucks. The old beat down crumbling grocery store that we only went to when we were absolutely desperate? That's an organic farmers market now.
And rent? Inflation has taken our $700 in rent and changed it to just over $1000. But rent in that area now starts at $1500. It ticks up quite a bit higher as I saw an apartment in Zillow going for $3500 a month. It was smaller than our apartment and in the back of the building with 3 story walk up.
Now I've heard all the stuff on the news about all the killings and death in Chicago. But one thing that really sticks out to me is when they say it's the worst year for murders in Chicago they always add a 'since'. And that 'since' is from the era where I lived there. Yeah, it's bad but I lived there when it was worse and I didn't think of it as a violent place then. Like any big city, there are neighborhoods that you just don't go to. In Chicago most of those neighborhoods are on the south side.... but like E's and my neighborhood, even those are changing. They're further south and further west. If you head north of the city... you're more or less in the clear. Head west? You're fine. East? Well if you head east you're heading into Lake Michigan, but that's fine too.
Seriously there is a lot going for Chicago. The transportation options are just fantastic. There are always plenty of taxis and now with Uber and Lyft and such available, it's even easier to just get into a car and tell them where you want to go. If you want to go further, just jump on one of the L trains. If you know the system you can get really close to just about anywhere. There's the Loop downtown where all the lines go...um well.. into a Loop. So if you want to go from O'Hare to Wrigley Field, you just jump on the Blue Line, go to the Loop, get off at a station that also has a Red Line train, wait a few minutes, then get onto a Red Line heading North.
The lines are all colors. There's the Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, and Pink. They all spider out into different directions from downtown so just know what color is near the neighborhood you want to go to and you're golden no matter where you are. There's a vast bus network too, but to be honest I never got into the buses. Both the buses and the trains are part of the Chicago Transportation Authority (CTA), so when you visit you can just get a pass for the number of days you need it that gives you unlimited rides on each. A weekend is $20.
Driving? Well, you're insane if you want to drive yourself. I did it when I lived there and it's possible to do it now... but I'd far rather just take the train in. I have the grand luck of living in a town with an Amtrak station so I can just take a train from home to Union Station downtown. If for whatever reason I can't get a train ticket I just drive up to Midway Airport, park there, and then either take the L in (it's right on the Orange Line), or take a Lyft/Uber into town.
So why am I gushing about Chicago? Because I'm heading down there this weekend. It was a last minute thing as E has training there next week and can just fly in a couple days early. My original plan was to not even take time off for it... just head out from work at 7pm Friday drive straight there, have a blast with E on Saturday and Sunday, then drive back Sunday afternoon/evening. The train would be nice, but I really want to soak up every minute and waiting until Saturday morning to get there was just too much wasted time in my opinion. And then at the last minute, I asked for Monday off of work. I still won't stay Sunday night, but I can drive back LATE Sunday night and not worry about laundry and other things before work on Monday. Instead I can get into home around 3 am, sleep late, and have a day to prep for the week.
2 days with almost no time to plan though, that can be tough to fill in right? Yeah... maybe in some other burg, but this is fucking Chicago. Once E and I agreed on this, it took us all of 30 minutes to find enough events and stuff to do to fill in 4 days. There's the Wicker Park Fest (a 4 day music fest in Wicker Park). The Lincoln Park Tasting (they have a whisky tasting that includes 30 Midwestern whiskys!). There's the Art Institute. There's a Burlesque show. We're going to want to visit the old apartment as it's the 20 year anniversary of living there. There's a blues bar E wants to hit and that sounds amazing (Moma Rosa's?). Either Friday or Saturday night will be spent walking downtown among all the all buildings and visiting the Picaso and the Flamingo sculptures. I'm fairly sure we're both going to want to go and pee on Trump International Hotel and Tower (don't look at me like that... I was poor in that town for a long time and I've peed on many buildings!). We want to get a hot dog, an Italian Beef, and a Deep Dish Pizza. There's a bunch of craft breweries in Chicago now and I'd love to hit one or more of those too.
Seriously, I could spend a week there and not run out of stuff to do. And if I WAS running low on my backlog of things I want to do, I'd just have to hit up an events calendar and find another few neighborhood parties like Wicker Park fest or find some new show in town or hit a Cubs game or hit a Sox game.... get the idea?
There have been several points in the last 5 years as a working nurse where I've considered moving to Chicago. I mean, I most certainly wouldn't be poor there again. But there's a big difference between simply 'not being poor' and living well in a town like that. Nurses don't make all that much more money there than they do here and everything is more expensive there. I mean, did you see those rents above? So I don't think that will ever happen unless I win the lottery... but damn it will always be on my mind.
Because that town is my Sweet Home Chicago!
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