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I've lived in middle TN all my life (18 years now) and let me tell you- it is such a thriving cultural area with plenty to do. (That's funny- I tried to make a funny)
But anyways- I'm moving the Chicago greater area next fall (specifically to Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee county (about 40 minutes south of the Chicago loop))
But those of you who might live there or have been there (I've been there- but didn't really do a whole lot) tell me what you think of the city? All the people I talk to say it's a fantastic city, and that I should never be in the city alone. I've also heard it has a lot of culutral spots. Is that true?
Anyways- tell me what you ugys think of America's third largest city.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I've lived here all my life. Although I sometimes think of moving, I really can't imagine living elsewhere. I know that if I DID move, I'd miss Chicago dearly. I really love this city.
quote:I should never be in the city alone
o_O This strikes me as... odd. Yeah, there's parts of the city I certainly don't like going to alone. But I've been out and about in the city PLENTY of times by myself, and have, for the most part, felt safe. This includes walking around downtown alone after midnight. There's still plenty of people around, even at that time of night. Yes, be careful, but I don't think the city's so dangerous that you couldn't go anywhere alone.
quote:I've also heard it has a lot of culutral spots. Is that true?
Yup. Chinatown is just south of the city. Little Italy is to the west, and Little Mexico is (if I recall correctly) southwest. There's also Greektown, and the Ukranian village. I've been to a Korean Catholic church. There's a rather high Asian population in the northwest suburbs (Mitsuwa, a fantastic Japanese grocer, is in Arlington Heights). Lots of Middle Eastern folks, too. That's one of the things I really enjoy about the city--the mix of people.
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Well xnera- I suppose I must have misstated their quotes. They said there are certain neighborhoods I should not be alone in.
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True- but considering I've lived in the 'burbs my whole life (and still will- just visit Chicago occasionally) and closest nearby city is Nashville and I've spent very very little time in. Living near Chicago for college is different.
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Chicago is great. Like xnera I've lived here my whole life and can't really imagine living anywhere else.
There is always something to do here. We have a great theater community, from the big name stuff like Steppenwolf, Second City, and the Goodman to the small storefront theaters that are speckled around the whole city.
The CSO is a wonderful orchestra. The concert hall is pretty cool, and they don't just do classical shows there. I saw Herbie Hancock play there, as well as Wynton Marsalis and it was fantastic.
There are lots of fun neighborhoods with cultural appeal. I live in the heart of "Little India." Chinatown is kind of sad compared to the ones in NY and San Francisco, but worth going at least once.
Pilsen is what I think xnera is referring to by Little Mexico. It's slightly south and west of the UIC campus. There are a lot of great restaurants there as well as the Mexican Fine Arts museum, which has great permanent exhibits. They also have an excellent 'Dia de los muertos' exhibit that changes from year to year.
As far as certain neighborhoods you shouldn't be in alone, I would say: Englewood (south), Humboldt Park (some of it, not all, west) and East Rogers Park (far north) come to mind. However, I've been in all those neighborhoods ('cept Englewood) alone, late, and I'm still here to tell the tale.
Another thing you should know: If you ask a Chicagoan what's great about the city, they can go on forever. See above. Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I lived in Chicago for three months and thought it was absolutely miserable (and I went up there with the idea that I might stay). I also almost NEVER found anything to do.
quote:Originally posted by pH: I lived in Chicago for three months and thought it was absolutely miserable (and I went up there with the idea that I might stay). I also almost NEVER found anything to do.
-pH
I'm curious what it was about the city that made you so miserable. Did you know anyone there at the time who was familiar with Chicago?
Posts: 291 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I was only there for about 24 hours, but I thought it was fabulous and can't wait to go back and see more of the city. I'm curious too, Pearce, was there really nothing to do? By just flipping through brochures at the airport I found a ton of places I would like to visit. The art museum alone would probably take me weeks to thoroughly take in.
Posts: 1225 | Registered: Feb 2002
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As I recall, pH was in Chicago on account of a forced relocation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I also believe that she was given little to no support by the school she was (is still?) attending, some of her classes were unavailable, stuff like that. I can certainly understand why she was miserable here under the circumstances.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Goody Scrivener: As I recall, pH was in Chicago on account of a forced relocation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I also believe that she was given little to no support by the school she was (is still?) attending, some of her classes were unavailable, stuff like that. I can certainly understand why she was miserable here under the circumstances.
Yeah, and they made me wait forever to see a doctor or a shrink, and the other students were really, really mean to all of the evacuees. As were, actually, a LOT of people in the city. Apparently we were all morons for not bringing more than a weeks' worth of clothes with us (don't forget, when we were told to leave, the hurricane wasn't realy pointed directly at us...so we were told we'd only be out of classes for 2-3 days). They told me that I wouldn't pay any more to go to their school than I did to go to school here. What I paid for school here: $0. My scholarship included tuition, room, and board. Then they charged us several thousand dollars for my room and board. Then, as I said, I had to put up with all of the idiots in the city and their spectacular tirades about how everyone in New Orleans got what they deserved, and there were a lot of racists, and I had to spend a lot of time explaining to people that no, we really don't lynch Jewish people in the South....
I'ma stop before I give myself a coronary. But I really didn't find much to do there, and it took so long to get ANYWHERE that it was such a production to do anything that most of the time it wasn't worth it, especially in the cold.
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Chicago is a beautiful city. I grew up in the south suburbs and I still miss the city after 10 years of being away.
As far as stuff to do, there's tons. In the summer you can find some really nice lake beaches (some of the best are on the Indiana side) with dunes, water-skiing and all of that. The city itself is so much fun. Navy Pier is a tourist spot, but it's still one of my favorite places to visit. The art museum is wonderful and there are tons of other smaller museums and things to do during the day. As far as theater and night stuff, it's just as cool as NYC, just a bit smaller. We get all of the Broadway shows...just a bit later than NY gets them.
2 of my favorite places are the Museum of Science and Industry and the Field Museum. Those are two of the most wonderful museums I've seen to this day. The MSI puts all of the others I've seen to shame. Oh, and the Shedd aquarium is not to be missed.
I think some of the best things about Chicago are the same things I love about Portland (where I live now). It's a great city to get out and walk around in. Grab your bicycle and just ride around. The lakeshore is really calm and quite nice when all the trees are green. Lincoln Park is pretty, and downtown is just beautiful. I still maintain that Chicago has the most beautiful skyline in the world.
That said, the weather sucks. The mosquitos will knock you down and steal your wallet in the summer and you'll nearly freeze to death in the winter. I'll never live there again, but it's fantastic in the fall and spring. Best thunderstorms ever, and when the leaves change? Fantastic.
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I've lived in Chicago for a little over a year now, and while it strikes me as a good place to be from, I can't see why anyone who didn't have roots here would ever want to move here.
To a large extent, I judge a place by it's public sector, and the public works in Chicago have a shiny cover, and even an attractive core, but there is a big mantle of poison that festers. Public education is flailing and there is the sense that the city is being run by a well-meaning oligarchy that only puts on the appearance of democracy. It's not a place for outsiders.
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pH: I'm sorry you had such a miserable time here. I have no excuses for how people treated you. All I'll say is that it takes long to get anywhere because the city is HUGE.
Narnia: Chicago does have the most beautiful skyline in the world. But I don't know about your comment about the misquitos. Of course I spent a lot of time in Mississippi as a kid, and those misquitos are like small aircraft. Chicago's seem pretty benign comparatively.
crescentsss: Them's fightin' words. Chicago can kick NY's butt any day.
Irami: Politics in Chicago is definitely one of the downsides. I hate how things have gotten to the point where it's acceptable that a son inherits his father's job. Stroger makes my blood boil.
Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Luet, I know..it's gigantic. Which is actually what frustrates me, since you can't really drive anywhere. I mean, the New Orleans metro area is pretty big, but it takes me 20 minutes to get to the movie theatre, whereas in Chicago it would take sometimes 2 hours. I'm really, really not used to having to budget that much time for a movie.
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Ah, see, I rarely if ever drive anywhere. I'm a CTA girl all the way. It gives me time to read, so I don't mind that it takes an extra hour or two to reach my destination.
Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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I sort of agree with Irami's first statement. I went to school at UIUC so I took a few trips up to Chicago while I was there, and wasn't really that impressed (I'm originally from VA). But for some reason, people who grew up there seemed to think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
It could be me personally, since I generally dislike large cities, but many of the other people I knew who were from elsewhere were just as underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, lots of great stuff to do, just something about the city.
Posts: 609 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Chicago has been undergoing a huge renovation in the last decade or so when it comes to cultural and tourist attractions. We have four or five gorgeous Broadway-level theatres that until the early to mid 90s should have been demolished. The last of those that comes to mind just reopened this past spring after a multimillion dollar revitalization. Grant Park was an overgrown weedpit till recently, and now it's one of the most visited sites downtown. The so-called "Block 37", which had been used for an iceskating rink in winter and sat vacant the rest of the year, is now under development. Rotting empty warehouses and office buildings are being converted to condos and lofts and are selling at premium rates. Half million for a studio?? Even Navy Pier was falling apart horribly until the mid-80s, and now they estimate a half million visitors a day.
So what you hear from someone about Chicago may depend in large part upon when they were here, and possibly how much of a change they've seen.
And yes, I'm deliberately avoiding any commentary on the political atmosphere because I do agree with Irami that it's gotten to be ridiculous. Nepotism to the extreme...
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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The problem with this clannish corruption isn't that the public officials are insufficiently qualified, it's that they are deeply mediocre.
Daley, Madigan, Stroger, Lipinski, Jesse Jackson Jr., and my favorite, Alex "Dude, vote for me because I worked for my Dad's bank" Giannoulias, are all mediocre. Is Todd Stroger really going to do anything about the Juvenile Justice system in Cook County or the waste that is the 3 billion dollar Cook County budget. Is Daley going to do anything about CPS. Does anyone even think that he reads the "One Chicago" book? Black males are graduating high school at around 50 percent, does anyone really think that Jesse Jackson Jr. is going to have something insightful to say about the subject? And the worst part is that so many people have a vested personal interest in keeping things exactly how they are, and everyone has so many skeletons in their own closet, I don't forsee any sort of improvement.
The worst, for me, is watching the ignorant black politicians adopting all of the vices of the white politicians-- thereby selling out their entire community--and patting themselves on the back for it in the name of assimilation and progress.
quote:I'm talking about driving in New Orleans vs. the only method of transportation I had in Chicago, which was the El.
You went to Loyola, right? There's a movie theater less than a six-minute walk away; I can think of at least five more within two hours by the El, and those are just the ones I've been to. Heck, two hours on the El would put you in northwestern Indiana, where theaters are thick on the ground in general.
I think the moral is this: don't try to live in Chicago unless you plan to befriend the people there, because apparently they'll maliciously direct you to movie theaters halfway across the country.
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quote: The worst, for me, is watching the ignorant black politicians adopting all of the vices of the white politicians-- thereby selling out their entire community--and patting themselves on the back for it in the name of assimilation and progress.
Allow me to point out that this is called "politics," and happens in pretty much all the other cities in this country. Once a minority group gets powerful enough that its "representatives" feel the need for mainstream appeal, they'll sell out to the mainstream; this is pretty much incontrovertible fact by now.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Heck, two hours on the El would put you in northwestern Indiana, where theaters are thick on the ground in general.
Depends on if pH was going to a mainstream theater to watch a mass release or to an arty type theater to see some international film that was only playing at that one particular location. Even then, though, two hours sounds extreme. I'm not doubting that it truly took pH that long, but maybe it was partly due to unfamiliarity with the area.
The CTA is working to rehab several lines, and there are more slowzones on the Brown line than there are "normal speed" areas, however Loyola's on the Red/Purple. I don't know if there's work happening on the Red. (looking at CTA website...) Yes there is work starting at roughly Comiskey Park and working to the south end of the line.
The buses, in my limited opinion, are a joke. I ride a particular bus from the Metra station to my office every day. The schedules and the drivers say that this route is supposed to run every 7-10 minutes from Union Station. In reality, it's more like 20-25. The partner route, which goes to Navy Pier instead of Illinois Center, is also supposed to run q 7-10, but it actually shows up q 5-7, and often a bus will leave completely empty... That one runs close enough to my office where I can get away with taking it if I've missed my normal, but it adds a full city block and two flights of stairs to get to street level because it runs on Lower Wacker. So I don't like that one. I've complained to the on-site supervisor and to CTA management for years and they still haven't figured out how to fix that particular problem.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I was in Chicago for a total of six minutes. It involved running from one end of O'Hare to another when, inside the airport, it was like forty degrees below zero. At least I was unconscious on my way to San Francisco...
It'll take a lot to erase that wonderful memory. One day I'll have to give the city a chance.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Allow me to point out that this is called "politics," and happens in pretty much all the other cities in this country. Once a minority group gets powerful enough that its "representatives" feel the need for mainstream appeal, they'll sell out to the mainstream; this is pretty much incontrovertible fact by now.
The problem is that it's not about garnering mainstream appeal, it's about abusing the public trust for private or familial gain.
I've been around, and no where in America have a heard a legislator say, "'Solomon was David's son, the wisest man who ever lived. If it's considered tradition, so be it,' Steele, interim Cook County Board president, said in an interview with ABC-7."
Not to mention the quality of character and intellect that said these words, "I don't want anyone to think that I'm a bandit and I'm taking something and running. That's not me," Steele said. "I didn't make the law, and if I become the beneficiary of it, it's by no doing of my own."
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I've visited a few times, and thought it was alright. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would actively seek to live there, but it does have a certain... windy... charm.
And the Bears still suck.
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quote:The problem is that it's not about garnering mainstream appeal, it's about abusing the public trust for private or familial gain.
Irami, you know that I consider the term "the public trust" to almost be an oxymoron where politics is concerned. The idea that politicians abuse the public trust is practically definitional. It's why anyone who puts his faith in institutions will inevitably be betrayed.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm in South Bend, on the other end of the South Shore Line from Chicago, so I'm able to hop up from time to time. I've enjoyed my visits there. I'm not a metropolis kinda guy so I wouldn't particularly want to live there, but I've had fun visiting.
Posts: 100 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:it takes me 20 minutes to get to the movie theatre, whereas in Chicago it would take sometimes 2 hours
If you're trying to drive in Chicago, you're not a native.
Are you kidding? The city is absolutely crammed full of native Chicagoans driving every day.
I take the CTA to work, but if parking wasn't so obscenely expensive where I work (around the corner from the Sears Tower), I'd definitely drive.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Carrie: And the Bears still suck.
You're just jealous.
I would just like to point out, that in true Chicago fashion, we have just had three or four days in row at around 60 degrees. This is November, and I have to say I'm a liitle worried about the winter. Posts: 511 | Registered: Mar 2006
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suggestions from someone who grew up about 1 hr west of the city:
Take the metro in if there's a line near you, you can get most everywhere reasonably conveniently through some combination of the train and busses or just walking and enjoying the sights.
Things to see/do: General architecture: half the fun of the city is just walking and seeing all the gorgeous buildings. Buckingham Fountain particularly at night Sears Tower Millenium Park Museum Campus: basically all the museums in the city other than Science and Industry all in the same general area, right across from soldier's field on a little peninsula in the lake. Museum of Science and Industry
Restaraunts (only two that I know off-hand that I've always loved) Reza's: I can't remember if it was greek or turkish, but was a great place Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders: situated across the street from the location of the Valentine's day massacre, it has phenomenal meditteranean flatbread as well as fascinatingly created mushroom-like pizzas (kinda hard to describe)
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Chinatown is just south of the city. Little Italy is to the west, and Little Mexico is (if I recall correctly) southwest. There's also Greektown, and the Ukranian village. I've been to a Korean Catholic church. There's a rather high Asian population in the northwest suburbs (Mitsuwa, a fantastic Japanese grocer, is in Arlington Heights). Lots of Middle Eastern folks, too. That's one of the things I really enjoy about the city--the mix of people.
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I also almost NEVER found anything to do.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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