neighborhood history buff

last summer i decided to move out of the ukrainian village on the west side of chicago and try uptown, which is just north of wrigley field. i moved into a hundred-year-old six flat a few blocks from the lake, and i fell in love with the neighborhood (even if it was a little scary sometimes).
i'm not in the old building any more (i decided to strike out on my own and find a studio when my lease ran out in march), but i am still in uptown. i just couldn't bear to leave the neighborhood i adore. so imagine my surprise when the chicago reader (a free weekly newspaper) ran a huge front page article on the history of MY neighborhood.

i thought i knew a lot about chicago and about uptown, but damn, there's a lot to learn. who knew that gloria swanson grew up just a few blocks from where i live? or that montrose harbor used to be a nike missile base?

but what i truly love about uptown is the diversity. the fact that i can walk home past a tiny african grocery next to a starbucks, walk past al capone's old hangout on my way to the post office, or get hit up for change on one corner and given a jesus people tract on the next, well, that just makes me happy to be home.

In Uptown you may look for a migrating warbler and find two guys going at it; you may look for a magnificent historic theater and find a board-up; you may look for a homeless shelter and find Pensacola Place. In Uptown you don’t always get what you expect, or expect what you get.

-Harold Henderson