Albany Park

I've driven over to Albany Park a few times this week. It's a northwest neighborhood in Chicago that I've never spent any time in. I must say, I like it a lot. There are billions of eateries, corner taverns, and little convenience markets catering to loads of separate ethnic groups. In a way it reminds me of Rogers Park in it's diversity except that Albany Park is a bit more tightly packed in. It's in a constant bustle. I bought a big puffy chocolate cookie at a Mexican bakery and a couple of oranges just steps away at a small market with essentials like fruit.

Way back when it was a little countryside get away for people who enjoyed horse races. Yep, there was once one Rusk Race Track and a very profitable brickyard to boot. By the turn of the twentieth century the area had been settled by German and Swedish populations and they were soon to be followed by Russians. Today some of these people remain but new waves of immigrants have washed over since the late 70s bringing Mexican, Korean, Guatemalan, and Filipino families to call Albany Park home.

City Limits

So if you walk out of the front door of our building and head north along the lake, past the cemetery, five or six city blocks or so, this is the first thing you see as you enter the city of Evanston, IL. Normally I take Max walking through Rogers Park here on the Chicago side but sometimes I'm in the mood for beautiful white sand beaches, huge old houses with yards, Starbucks coffee and North Face fleece. It's actually astonishing how noticeably things change when you walk over the city limits, at least along the lake. Our beaches in Chicago are a bit rocky and run down but anyone can come to the beach in Chicago and I like that, you have to pay in Evanston. And don't get me wrong, I like the feeling you get from hundreds of people stacked together in apartments, all the people you meet. And I much prefer the little coffee joints that don't always have normal hours but always have charm. All I'm saying is that sometimes you need a change or a little break from the noise and so you walk north.

The other day in Evanston, I walked past an elementary school where they had the morning announcements over a speaker not only in the school but out through the neighborhood. You could hear tiny voices saying "...one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" and then Ms. Williams congratulated the 3rd grade for their high math scores, and announced that there would be pizza and carrot sticks for lunch. It sure was cute. This was all before I watched a friendly police officer (certainly one exists, but I have yet to meet one of those in Chicago) stop traffic so that a mother and her two kids in their car could safely exit an alley onto the main road. And then he walked over to play with Max and talk to him, in a voice you only use with a dog, about becoming a police dog. Of course this is Evanston, home of the ice cream sunday and the "Happy Birthday" song. Believe it.

Still most of the time, I prefer my walks in Chicago, where "rough-around-the-edges" means never dull. And where, today, a garbage man leaped out of his truck with arms outstretched and a huge smile on his face and said "Well, what do we have here?"

"Female, married, age 29 of English and Irish descent."

"No...I meant-"

"Oh, Max. He's a lab/poodle mix. A mutt really."

And even though he probably didn't want to talk to me anymore, he kindly took the time to discuss the differences between poodles and labs. Both good, both smart, but poodles are particularly fast learners and are loyal if not a little high-hat. Labs, on the other hand, tend to be hyper and have gas but shower people with affection.

The man pointed out that I was probably glad to have a mix of both.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Besides the lake, my favorite thing about Chicago is the neighborhoods. They create a smallish town feeling in the midst of a gigantic city. Let me start with mine. Eric and I live in the far northeast corner of Chicago, between Loyola University and Northwestern, in a place called Rogers Park. It's one of my favorite neighborhoods because of the little city beaches, good coffee, friendly people, cheaper real estate, and it's incredible diversity. It's actually one of the most diverse (both ethnically and economically) locales in the whole country with 63, 000 residents and over 80 languages spoken.

Rogers Park was actually its own little farming village once, independent of Chicago. In the 1800s immigrants made their home here, many to become cucumber farmers. Back then, the price of land was $1.25 an acre. Today, if you want to buy a 4x6 slab of asphalt on which to park your car, it will cost you $40, 000.