Vote with Your Feet

VWYF is on hiatus - come join me at Grid Chicago

2011-06-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Fellow green transportation journalist Steven Vance (stevencanplan.com) and I recently launched Grid Chicago, a new blog about walking, biking and transit in the Windy City and beyond. Please visit us at GridChicago.com, where I'll be posting new articles regularly.

For the time being Vote With Your Feet will be dormant, but feel free to browse the archives for older articles about my Chicago street walks, tips on car-free road trips, guides to bike friendly neighborhoods, interviews with leaders in the local sustainable transportation scene and much more. Thanks for reading!

- John Greenfield

Making strides: the Chicago Pedestrian Plan

2011-06-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

By John Greenfield

[This piece also appears in Newcity.]

This June evening is too pretty for the subway, so I bicycle south to the Pink Line’s California station to meet up with the Active Transportation Alliance’s Tony Giron. He’s leading a march across the largely Mexican-American neighborhood of Little Village to Farragut High School for the first of seven public inputhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif meetings on the Chicago Pedestrian Plan.

Similar to the Bike 2015 Plan, this Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) document will be a roadmap for making the city a safer and easier place to walk. The goal is to reduce pedestrian injuries by half and fatalities by one hundred percent. “Chicago is a great city for walking,” says Giron. “But along with park paths and tree-lined streets, we still have roads that are difficult to cross, dangerous intersections and places that are inaccessible to people walking.”

Fellow green transportation journalist Steven Vance (stevencanplan.com) and I recently launched Grid Chicago, a new blog about walking, biking and transit in Chicago and beyond. Read the rest of this story at gridchicago.com.

The 2012 messenger championships in Chicago

2011-06-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Augie Montes by Christopher Dilts

Interview by John Greenfield

[This piece also runs at momentumplanet.com.]

Every year hundreds of bike couriers from around the globe descend on a different city for the Cycle Messenger World Championships, with races, arts events and parties celebrating one of the toughest, most enjoyable jobs around. This yhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifear the 19th annual worlds take place in Warsaw on July 27-31 (www.warsawcarkillers.org); next year Chicago does the honors (www.chicagocmwc.com).

Augie Montes, an eleven-year veteran of the delivery biz who spearheaded the 2008 North American Cycle Courier Championships [NACCC] in Chicago, talked with me about the recent championships in Tokyo and Panajachel, Guatemala, and filled us in on the Windy City’s plans for hosting the worlds in 2012.

Fellow green transportation journalist Steven Vance (stevencanplan.com) and I recently launched Grid, a new blog about walking, biking and transit in Chicago and beyond. Read the rest of this story at gridchicago.com.

A car-free Exodus to "Little Egypt"

2011-06-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

A loop around Southern Illinois via train and bike reveals the area’s unique culture

by John Greenfield

Most people think of the Land of Lincoln as Chicago plus pancake-flat prairie, but Southern Illinois is completely different. The region, nicknamed “Little Egypt” because it’s located in the delta of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, is blanketed by the lush Shawnee National Forest and roller-coaster hills, which makes it a challenging, beautiful destination for bicycle travel.

Flooding along the Mississippi hit Southern Illinois hard this spring. My buddy Kevin was interested in checking out the aftermath, as well as the area’s unusual geography and historical landmarks. So on Memorial Day weekend we hauled our touring bikes onboard Amtrak’s Saluki Line from Chicago to Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois University, for a three-day cycling adventure.

Fellow green transportation journalist Steven Vance (stevencanplan.com) and I recently launched Grid, a new blog about walking, biking and transit in Chicago and beyond. Read the rest of this story at gridchicago.com.

Gabe Klein meets Chicago's bicycle community

2011-06-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

CDOT bike coordinator Ben Gomberg, CDOT commissioner Gabe Kline, CDOT deputy commissioner Luann Hamilton

By John Greenfield

Today’s Bike to Work Week rally in Daley Plaza was inspiring, a far cry from last year’s lackluster event, thanks to big plans for bicycling from new mayorRahm Emanuel and forward-thinking transportation commissioner Gabe Klein.

In 2010 Chicago’s efforts to become a world-class bike town had stagnated. The city had installed over 100 miles of bike lanes and over 10,000 parking racks, achieved bike access on transit and educated multitudes about safe cycling, but we seemed to be resting on our laurels. Meanwhile other U.S. cities were pioneering car-separated bike lanes, automated bike sharing systems, on-street parking corrals, traffic-calmed “bike boulevard” streets, car-free “ciclovia” events and more.

This week fellow green transportation journalist Steven Vance (stevencanplan.com) and I launched Grid Chicago, a new sustainable transportation blog. Read the rest of this story at gridchicago.com.

Is Kinzie Street on the right (cycle) track?

2011-06-13T07:33:00.001-07:00

Chicagoans sound off about the city's first car-separated bike lanes

By John Greenfield

[This piece also appears on Gapers Block, gapersblock.com.]

Richard M. Daley had a widespread, if somewhat undeserved, reputation as a bicycle-friendly mayor. But with Rahm Emanuel in power, along with progressive new transportation commissioner Gabe Klein, it looks like there’s going to be a sea change in the way the city pushes pedaling.

Emmanuel’s Chicago 2011 Transition Plan includes three bold, possibly unrealistic, bike goals. But it’s refreshing that the city is finally making big plans that have, to paraphrase Daniel Burnham, magic to stir cyclists’ blood.

The mayor’s bike proposal, obviously influenced by transition team member Randy Neufeld, former director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, calls for expanding our anemic automated public bike sharing system from only 100 cycles to thousands of vehicles. The mayor also promises to build the Bloomingdale Trail, a 2.65-mile elevated rails-to-trails conversion on the Northwest Side within his first term, although it’s taken two years just to get the design contract approved and the price tag for the trail is estimated at $50-70 million.

The third goal may be the least realistic but most exciting, and there’s already rubber, nay bike lane paint, on the road. Rahm has pledged to install 100 miles of European-style “cycle tracks,” bike lanes that are physically separated from cars by medians, parked cars and/or posts, within his first four years in office. This would require a lot more money than is currently spent on striping eight miles of conventional bike lanes per year, and it would involve taking away travel lanes and parking spaces from automobiles.

Many bicycle advocates argue that separated bike lanes are the missing link for getting large numbers of people on bikes in North America. By removing some of the dangers of speeding motor traffic and opening car doors, cycle tracks take away the fear factor that prevents average Chicagoans from trying transportation cycling. Separated bike lanes have debuted with much fanfare in Portland, OR, New York and Washington, D.C.

However, cycle tracks can be problematic if they’re not done right. European cities with successful separated bikeway networks like Amsterdam and Copenhagen generally use special bicycle traffic lights to prevent collisions between right-turning cars and bikes emerging from the cycle track to cross an intersection. There will be no such lights on Kinzie, only signs warning turning motorists to stop for bikes and pedestrians.

People love to walk in cycle tracks, and garbage, broken glass and snow will accumulate in the separated lanes unless the city is careful to maintain them. Faster bicyclists may prefer to ride in the regular travel lane, but local laws require cyclists to use separate bike paths when available. As a result, those pedaling outside of the cycle track may be unable to successfully sue if a reckless motorist hits them.

Nonetheless Chicago cyclists, including this one, are getting excited about the cycle track that the Chicago Department of Transportation is currently installing on Kinzie Street between Milwaukee Avenue and Wells Street, connecting two of the city’s best-used bike lane streets. In general, the new separated lanes will be located next to the curb, to the right of the parking lane, and separated from parked cars by a diagonally striped buffer zone and flexible posts.

Though recent rains have delayed the project, the cycle track should be finished by the end of next week. Emanuel is sure to boast about it during his first speech at the Bike to Work Week rally next Friday, June 17, 7:30 – 9:30 am at Daley Plaza.

Last Friday afternoon I stopped by Kinzie to check out the work in progress. The sky was leaden but the air was perfumed by the Blommer Chocolate factory at the five-way intersection of Kinzie, Milwaukee and Desplaines.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the new lanes on Kinzie continue as dashed lines across every intersection between Milwaukee and Wells. Plus, at the five-way a new “bike box” waiting area and a curving, dashed lane across the intersection will make it much easier for southbound cyclists on Milwaukee to make a left turn onto Kinzie.

Right now cars are still parking next to the curbs in the cycle track instead of the new parking lane, but this will stop after the posts are installed and bike symbols are marked on the bike lanes.

I flagged down a few bike commuters to get their reactions to the new cycle track. Abigail Jasper, riding a Trek hybrid, says she’s excited about the separated lanes. “They’re going to protect bicyclists from drivers who may be too busy doing other things to pay attention to cyclists,” she says. She notes that it may take a little while for motorists and bike riders to get used to the new lanes. “There’s going to be a learning curve but we’ll figure it out.”

Scott Lambert, on a Masi single-speed road bike, is looking forward to protection from cars. “It’s great that the city is doing something for bikers,” he says. “I’ve been hit more than twelve times.” However he’s skeptical that the current cycle track layout is going to function well. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen at the intersections. This is a great idea in theory but they’re probably going to have to modify the design before it becomes sufficient.”

Newby bike commuter Patrick Crokin, pedaling a Giant mountain bike, is glad the new lanes will eliminate the risk of bicyclists getting hit by opening car doors. “This is really a great idea,” he says. “I’m just curious to see how they’re going to pay for all the new lanes.”

When I duck into the Blommer factory’s chocolate shop next to the five-way intersection, manager Kevin Schultz tells me the cycle track is pointless. “They should be spending money to improve the traffic and pedestrian flow here instead of wasting money on these bike lanes,” he says. “This is one of the worst intersections in the city. We stand here all day and watch people almost get hit when they cross Desplaines to the Jewel.” He says the city should instead be spending money for a turn signal to keep westbound vehicles turning left from Kinzie to Desplaines from hitting these pedestrians. “One of these days some lady with a kid or someone walking their dog is going to get killed.”

But Michael Bordenaro, waiting for the traffic light outside Blommer on his Raleigh mountain bike, thinks the city’s plan for 25 miles of cycle tracks per year is too conservative. “Citizens should go out with white paint and stripe 25 miles of bike lanes themselves this weekend and say, ‘Mayor Emanuel, thank you for your leadership. Now keep up with us.”

The Spaces Between nighttime bike tour

2011-06-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Mary Bartelme Park in the West Loop

By John Greenfield

[This article also appears in Time Out Chicago magazine, timeoutchicago.com.]

Time Out recently invited me to test ride the following bike tour which you can ride in later this month:

GUIDE Martin Hazard
LENGTH 12 miles, 2.5 hours
STARTS Billy Goat Tavern (430 N. Michigan Ave.)
TOC EXCLUSIVE TOUR June 18 at 8:30 pm; free. Bring your own bicycle, helmet and lights. Future tours TBD. (Call Hazard at 773-885-0900 to sign up, or just show up.)

“We’re going on a tour of places that are all around us but are two steps off the beaten path,” says Martin Hazard with a Marlboro clenched in his teeth as we unlock our steeds outside the subterranean Billy Goat Tavern (430 N. Michigan) on a Tuesday night. He’s president of the Midnight Marauders, a nighttime cycling group that does saucy late-night excursions on the third Saturday of every month, including the notorious Porn Ride tour of strip clubs, sex shops and S & M dungeons.

Soon Hazard is leading me through the labyrinth of the Loop’s multi-leveled streets including Michigan, Wacker and Randolph. We whiz up and down ramps, around steel pillars, past ragged homeless people and lonely security guards outside loading docks. After a brief jaunt on a path along the Chicago River, we’re at a pretty little green space at the center of the new Lakeshore East development (430 E. Waterside Dr). “I love this park because you can’t see it from most of the surface streets so nobody knows it’s here,” Hazard says.

Climbing a hill past the development’s gateway, a pair of stainless-steel sails, we cruise across the eerily calm Central Business District to Mary Bartelme Park (115 S. Sangamon), opened last year in the West Loop. It boasts an undulating landscape and huge gateways that look like tilted silver picture frames. “They spray mist during the summer so it’s a great place to cool off,” says my guide.

Returning east, as we wait for a red among the neon signs of Greektown someone asks us for spare change. “I’ve never been panhandled on a bike before,” I note. We head down Wells street past Bertrand Goldberg’s curvy River City condo building (800 S. Wells) and peek through a fence underneath arching Roosevelt Road. Just beyond it is a large piece of barren earth bordering the river which Hazard calls the Brownlands – a popular spot for bonfires.

We make our way under the half-moon to Roosevelt and Michigan and the creepy 9’ trunk-less legs of Magdalena Abakanowicz’s “Agora” installation. We take the pedestrian bridge at 11th Street and a series of curving paths under Columbus and Lakeshore Drive to the Shedd Aquarium and then over to the Children’s Garden (1330 S. Museum Campus Drive) in the shadow of Soldier Field, featuring a geodesic climbing net and a large stone sphere that you can you can spin slowly with your hands. “I like that this park is hidden by the surrounding dirt embankments,” says Hazard.

As we roll down Solidarity Drive to Northerly Island Park, a coyote crosses our path(fear not: The animals roaming the city help control our rat population). We take a lap on the paved paths circling the former Meigs Field which will forever symbolize Richard M. Daley’s love of parks and autocratic governing style. “There’s no better place to check out the skyline at night,” Hazard says.

Soon we’re zooming back up the Lakefront Trail with a tailwind and cutting west on the riverside bike path back to the cozy confines of the tavern. With mugs of Billy Goat Dark we toast the end of an awesome urban assault.

A bike tour of Humboldt & Logan Square history

2011-06-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

by John Greenfield

[This piece also appears in Time Out Chicago magazine, www.timeoutchicago.com.]

Time Out recently invited me to test ride the following bike tour which you can ride in later this month:

GUIDE Chicago Architecture Foundation
LENGTH 3.5 miles, 2 hours
STARTS AT Humboldt Park Boathouse (1401 N. Humboldt Dr.)
NEXT TOUR June 18 at 11am; $15, free for CAF members. Bring your own bicycle and helmet. Future tours TBD.

“We’re going to point out little details you’ve never noticed in buildings you probably go by all the time,” promises Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) docent Tom Drebenstedt, straddling an old-school Fuji Sandblaster mountain bike by the stately Humboldt Park Boathouse (1401 N. Humboldt). For years he’s led the CAF’s Bike the Lakefront tour (caf.architecture.org) showcasing the history of Chicago’s shoreline. On this gorgeous spring morning he’s leading me on a new route highlighting Humboldt Park and Logan Square’s architectural gems.

Nearby stands an 1892 statue of Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt with an adorable bronze lizard crawling on a manuscript by his feet. Crossing von Humboldt’s namesake boulevard to the west side of the park, Drebenstedt points out the man-made river created by Danish immigrant Jens Jensen, who quickly rose up the Chicago Park District’s ranks to become its foremost landscape architect. Recently the park district installed solar- and wind-powered pumps to create a current and prevent stagnation.

Two blocks south is the circular rose garden Jensen designed, flanked by bronze bison and Japanese-inspired light fixtures. I suspect that two men in hoodies lurking beneath the trellis on the far side of the garden are doing a drug deal. We roll across Division Street to the 1895 Humboldt Park Stables (1150 N. Humboldt), with Hansel-and-Gretel-esque gables and half timbers, slated to re-open as the Institute for Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.

Humboldt Park Stables - Jens Jensen's office was in corner turret

Rolling north along the park’s perimeter trails, we startle a pair of young women sashaying down the path, then catch a whiff of roast pork from La Esquina del Sabor food truck (1500 N. Humboldt). Drebenstedt pulls over at North/Humboldt by a kiosk outlining the development of the Boulevard System. In 1870 the West Park District hired architect William Le Baron Jenney to design the major western parks, including Humboldt, and tree-lined thoroughfares to connect them.

As we pedal north up the quiet service drive along Humboldt Boulevard Drebenstedt points out the occasional mid-1800s wood-frame house. “If you ignore all the other buildings around them you get a sense of what it was like then – farm houses in the middle of a prairie.” Bicycle magnate Ignaz Schwinn’s mansion used to stand at the southwest corner of Humboldt and Palmer, and bike racers competed on the oval-shaped roadways around Palmer Square Park (2100 N. Humboldt).

The traffic circle at Logan/Milwaukee features Henry Bacon’s eagle-topped Illinois Centennial Monument, dedicated in 1918. We spin east to the John Rath House (2703 W. Logan), designed by George Maher in 1907. Drebenstedt tells me it’s one of the best Prairie-style homes in the neighborhood, incorporating the long, narrow “Roman bricks” favored by Frank Lloyd Wright, gracefully curved “barrel vaults” and leaded glass with floral motifs.

Making our way south to Humboldt Park we check out twin mansions at 3069 and 3071 W. Palmer, built at the turn of the century for two men who co-owned a tannery. One house is drab beige brick but the other is now painted with cheerful scarlet and green accents.

Back in the park Drebenstedt points out a 1901 bronze sculpture of Viking explorer Leif Erikson (1400 N. Humboldt), sculpted by Sigvald Asbjornsen, and bankrolled by the local Norwegian community. At the boathouse, old men fish off a pier at the north side of the building with the Sears Tower looming in the distance. Although I’ve lived in Logan for years, I feel like I’ve just seen the neighborhood in a whole new way.

Chicago gets its first on-street bike corral

2011-06-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

On-street racks in Portland (photo courtesy of City of Portland)

By John Greenfield

[This article also appears in Time Out Chicago, www.timeoutchicago.com.]

Chicago has over 72,000 on-street car parking spaces occupying a total area of over 3.6 square miles, more than twice the size of Hyde Park. This summer the city will help even the score for bicyclists by dedicating 140 square feet of roadway in Wicker Park for Chicago’s first on-street bike corral.

The Chicago Department of Transportation plans to install six “inverted U” bike racks protected by curb stops in a 20’ X 7’ swath of street next to a Bank of America branch at 1585 N. Milwaukee, just south of the buzzing North/Damen intersection. The Wicker Park and Bucktown Chamber of Commerce is donating the racks, curbs and installation, at a cost of under $5,000, according to the chamber’s Eleanor Mayer.

“On-street bike parking offers an opportunity to provide a lot of bike parking at locations attractive to bicyclists, while keeping sidewalks clear for pedestrians,” explains CDOT bicycle program coordinator Ben Gomberg.

Replacing automobile parking spaces with on-street bike racks is already common in bike-friendly West Coast towns like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. Since 2008, Portland has removed 107 car spaces and put in 64 on-street bike corrals at a cost of about $2,500 each, accommodating 1,140 bikes.

Chicago bike activist Payton Chung, a former board member of the Wicker Park chamber, first proposed the on-street bike rack concept to the neighborhood, leading to its inclusion in the chamber’s 2008 master plan. The chamber began discussing the idea with the Chicago Department of Transportation shortly after the plan came out, Chung says.

The Wicker Park racks will park twelve bikes in the same amount of space required for just one automobile. However, the corral will not actually displace any car parking since the space is currently a loading zone, which will be relocated 30’ north to what is now a no-parking zone.

The future location of the Wicker Park bike corral

“Milwaukee Avenue is a great place to test this out,” says Ethan Spotts of the advocacy group Active Transportation Alliance. “We hope to see CDOT, local businesses and chambers of commerce embrace bike corrals around the city.”

Todd Gee from Break the Gridlock, a grassroots that promotes alternative transportation, is also excited about the on-street racks but says his group would have preferred to have car parking removed as part of the pilot, as has been done in other towns. “We’d like to see driving become less convenient, especially in areas like Wicker Park that are easy to access by transit.”

On a recent, sultry Monday evening, a steady flow of two-wheeled traffic rolls up Milwaukee towards the six-way intersection. “An on-street bike rack will be awesome,” says Kimberly Norris, straddling a baby blue, single-speed Mercier road bike.

Sure, cyclists dig it, but will motorists revolt if sections of roadway are occupied by bicycle parking, especially if it means removing car spaces? “When we propose a corral sometimes there’s a little bit of pushback from neighbors,” says Sarah Figliozzi, who manages Portland’s on-street bike rack program. “Our response is, let’s see how it works for six months.” She says her city hasn’t removed a single corral and there are roughly seventy businesses on a waiting list to get one.

If Chicago motorist Brian Keigher is typical, there won’t be a major backlash here. Stopped at a red by the Flat Iron Building in his silver Subaru he responds, “There’s too many f---ing cars in this city, so it’s great they’re dedicating a little bit of space for the bikers.”

Keigher’s not the only one dropping F-bombs in his enthusiasm for new bike inittiatives. In March, 1st Ward Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno, whose ward includes Wicker Park, visited Seville, Spain, for the Velo-City bicycle conference. Joining him were fellow bike-friendly, Spanish-speaking Northwest Side politicians, 30th Ward alderman Ariel Reyboras and 35th Ward alderman Rey Colon.

“Six years ago Chicago was ahead of Seville in terms of biking,” says Moreno. “Now Seville has physically-separated bike lanes and a bike sharing system, and they’ve closed down their center city to cars. It’s so easy to bike there everybody’s doing it: old people on adult tricycles, young men in suits and women in heels.”

The aldermen presented their findings last month during an Active Transportation Alliance gathering at Logan Square’s Boiler Room pizzeria. Moreno discussed the Wicker Park bike corral and other innovative ideas to push pedaling in the neighborhood. Since recent CDOT counts show bikes make up 22% of daytime traffic on parts of Milwaukee, Moreno is exploring the possibility of removing one lane of car parking on Milwaukee from California to Division to make room for a Seville-style separated bike lane. Asked how meter lessee LAZ Parking would react to the loss of revenue if car spaces were removed, Moreno responded, “F--- ‘em.” The crowd of cyclists went wild.

“What I meant was, this is 2011. I’ve talked to Rahm Emmanuel and he’s on board with moving forward in a bold direction so I’m not going to stop,” Moreno later explained. The alderman says he might be willing to swap LAZ’s lost parking spaces for a high-density garage on Milwaukee. “I say to them, if you want to be part of the solution, great. If not, feel free to sue the city.”

Forty: an epic walk from Logan Square to Aurora

2011-06-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

By John Greenfield

[This article also appears in New City, www.newcity.com.]

It’s a Sunday night in Aurora and a fiberglass dinosaur wearing the #34 jersey of Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton smiles down at my friend Eric and me as we clink glasses of Sweetness Stout, toasting the end of another epic walk. We’re at America’s Brewpub at the Roundhouse Complex, formerly co-owned by the late running back. The massive circular limestone structure was built in 1856 as a railroad maintenance workshop.

The dark beer helps kill the pain in my weary shoulders and blistered feet. I’ve just finished a forty-mile-plus hike from Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood across the entire width of the western suburbs. For two-and-a-half days I’ve traversed a landscape of cul-de-sacs, strip malls, parking lots and freeways, mitigated by miles on the lush Illinois Prairie Path trail system and multiple stops at brewpubs and tiki bars. In a half hour I’ll catch a Metra commuter train home from the station next door—I’m eager to return to the city and its dense, pedestrian-friendly grid.

Why did I subject myself to this death march across DuPage County? I love to walk. It’s a form of transportation that shows me details of my surroundings that I’d never notice on a bicycle, my usual travel mode, let alone in an automobile. So after my fortieth birthday this spring I decided to mark the occasion with a forty-mile pilgrimage to the Fox River, the western boundary of the Chicago metropolitan region. I hoped walking across the suburbs would reveal the redeeming qualities of a land built around cars.

After work on a Friday in late April a group of friends showed up to walk out of the city with me from my apartment in Logan Square. I live on the Albany Home Zone at the 2400 block of North Albany Avenue, a block where the needs of residents trump drivers’ desire to speed. My activist neighbors recently lobbied the city to create the home zone by reconfiguring the street with diagonal parking and large, landscaped bump-outs. This slows down traffic and provides additional green space, making the block a nicer place to walk, bike and hang out.

I’d stuffed aloha shirts, a raincoat, toiletries, snacks, water and more into a two-strap backpack. I’d learned my lesson from other long treks when I carried an overloaded single-strap messenger bag which threatened to cut off all feeling in my left arm. For a few blocks my entourage includes Kevin, my boss at a nearby bike shop, his wife Karen, and their little daughters Louisa, in a stroller, and Hazel, pedaling along with training wheels.

After Kevin takes the kids home, the rest of us continue west on Fullerton Avenue out of Logan Square, passing by taquerias, carnicerias, panaderias and paleterias. Outside a dive bar called the Levee, 4035 West Fullerton, a large shrub has been trimmed into the shape of a longneck bottle. “Do they serve Busch beer?” asks my buddy Jonathan.

At 6500 West, Fullerton merges with Grand Avenue; the Radio Flyer Company office stands at this juncture, with a twenty-seven-foot-long red “Coaster Boy” wagon out front. At Harlem Avenue, 7200 West, we leave the city limits and enter Elmwood Park, stopping at Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market, a giant Italian grocery store, to pick up cannoli and cassatina, an incredibly sweet Sicilian confection made with sheep’s milk ricotta.

When we reach the Des Plaines River, the April showers have flooded the riverbanks, and nearby trees look ghostly in the moonlight with their trunks submerged in a few feet of water. Yellow lights reflecting off the river draw us to Gene and Jude’s, a River Grove hotdog stand in business since 1946. A long line of patrons waits to buy their minimalist take on the Chicago-style dog—mustard, relish, onions and sport peppers only—wrapped up with fresh-cut fries on top.

Ketchup on a hotdog is taboo in Chicago and Gene and Jude’s refuse to even stock the condiment. So in the parking lot I pull out the bottle of Heinz I brought for the occasion—for my fries only, I swear. A beefy guy with a camo-print doo-rag witnesses my transgression. “Hey, this guy brought his own ketchup,” he says to his buddies. “Gene must be rolling in his grave.”

Just north of the stand is our evening’s destination, a multi-room tiki lounge complex called Hala Kahiki, which means “House of Pineapple.” I trace my obsession with Polynesian pop culture back to my childhood when my family used to visit my dad’s cousin Leo’s tiki-themed motel, the Hawaiian Isle, in Miami Beach, Florida. Using the guidebook “Tiki Road Trip,” by local writer James Teitelbaum, I’ve visited all nine of the remaining tiki bars and restaurants in the region—a great way to beat the Chicago winter blues.

Opened in 1963 by Rose & Stanley Sacharski, Hala Kahiki is the granddaddy of them all, with what Teitelbaum calls a high TiPSY (Tikis Per Square Yard) factor. The place is packed with the carved wooden idols, fishing nets and puffer-fish lamps. There’s an outdoor garden with large Easter Island heads and a gift shop in back. My group is seated by a tinkling fountain with palm trees and a carved wooden heron.

Hala Kahiki doesn’t serve food but when a friend pulls out a bag of leftover fries, the sarong-clad hostess runs over scolding, “Guys, no Gene and Jude’s here.” We’ve walked almost eight miles and after tipping back multiple rounds of Mai Tais, Suffering Bastards and Fog Cutters, most of my entourage is starting to nod off. They hitch rides home with other friends who’ve driven to the bar—all except for Eric, who staggers with me four more blocks north along the river to crash at a Super 8 motel.

The next morning we walk southwest under a cobalt sky, following walking directions I’ve printed out from Google Maps. We cross the blue-collar, inner-ring suburbs of Franklin Park and Melrose Park, passing by modest homes, factories and churches offering services in English, Spanish and Polish.

The cue sheet takes us on a stairstep route mostly on quiet streets but the sidewalks often disappear, forcing us to walk on the left side of the road with gravel and crabapples crunching under our feet. It seems the city planners never considered that someone might want to travel these towns by foot and, in fact, we don’t cross paths with any pedestrians for the first hour and a half.

Walking conditions get downright dangerous when we head down North Avenue beneath the spaghetti-bowl interchange of the Tri-State Tollway and the Eisenhower Expressway. There are no sidewalks so we walk on the highway facing high-speed traffic, darting Frogger-style across several freeway off-ramps. Google Maps has let us down, although in fairness the site warns, “Walking directions are in beta. Use caution—This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.”

Things improve as we head into Elmhurst, an upscale village that poet Carl Sandburg and labor leader Eugene Debs once called home. We grab lunch at Jim’s Hamburger Heaven, in business since 1948, a neon-lit shack that looks straight out of “Happy Days.” The lady behind the counter tells me that McDonald’s, based in nearby Oak Brook, stole the idea for the Big Mac from Jim’s tasty little double-decker burgers.

We continue down residential streets lined with stately homes and lovely pink magnolia trees. Eric stops at a drugstore to buy Dr. Scholl’s shoe inserts for his already-aching feet—his green suede boots don’t seem to be working out. “I wish I’d done this earlier,” he says. “It’s like laying your head on a pillow after someone’s been whacking it repeatedly with a fraternity paddle. It feels better but it still hurts.”

Our next destination is Villa Park, originally built as a factory town for Ovaltine, now home to another beverage producer, Lunar Brewing Company. This small brewpub looks like a typical neighborhood tap except that moons and stars dangle from the ceiling and signs for craft breweries from around the country hang on the walls.

As planned, three of my cycling buddies show up sweaty on bikes to meet us for a cold one, having pedaled out from Logan Square via the Prairie Path. I order a Jumping Cow cream ale but the barmaid mishears me and pours me a Lunar Raspberry cream ale, which tastes like dry, fruity soda. A regular smirks at me, saying, “That stuff’s strictly for the strippers.”

After saying goodbye to my pals, Eric and I detour a couple miles south to another tiki venue, a Chinese and Polynesian restaurant in a strip mall called Tong’s Tiki Hut. While the TiPSY factor here is lower than at Hala Kahiki, Tong’s has plenty of fun “exotic” décor: murals of beach scenes, monkeys carved out of coconuts, a Buddha statue and a nearly six-foot-tall carved idol.

Hawaiian music plays softly in the nearly empty restaurant as the middle-aged ladies who run the place converse in Mandarin. Co-owner Diane Yung tells me the place opened in 1981 and she took over in 1990. Eric and I order a pu-pu platter, the classic tiki-Chinese appetizer with deep-fried and barbecued tidbits arranged around a small bowl of fire. We wash these down with potent Zombies in mugs featuring voluptuous, grass-skirted maidens.

Our directions tell us to walk west from here on Roosevelt Road, but it’s a nasty highway lined with big-box stores and no sidewalks, so we detour north onto residential streets. We get confused by the non-contiguous street pattern and have to navigate with Eric’s smart phone.

As we walk past silent ranch houses Eric says, “Notice how even on a nice day there are no people outside doing anything.” “Yeah,” I say. “It’s kind of creepy here. You can see why so many of Chicagoland’s famous mass murders happened in the suburbs, like the John Wayne Gacy killings, the Tylenol poisonings and the Brown’s Chicken massacre.”

We stairstep northwest into ritzy Glen Ellyn, formerly home to performance artist Laurie Anderson and Weathermen co-founder Bill Ayers. As we pass big, beautiful old homes on Park Boulevard, we see yard signs reading “Save our neighborhood / Say no / vote for the referendum.” An older couple out gardening explains that neighbors started a campaign to block the conversion of a small church nearby into a Montessori elementary school. “It’s a classic case of NIMBY-ism.”

After dinner at a Thai restaurant in downtown Glen Ellyn, we walk a bit further west to Wheaton, where we’re hosted by my boss’ mother-in-law, Margaret. Exhausted after walking twenty miles, Eric and I flop down on her couch with Fat Tire beers and watch “Saturday Night Live.” By coincidence, the opening sketch is Mike Myers and Dana Carvey reprising their roles as Wayne and Garth, two metalheads from Aurora, our final destination.

Sunday is another beautiful morning and I’m raring to go, but Eric decides he can’t walk much further. Since he’s taller and brawnier than me, his feet have been taking more of a beating. “Every step is agony,” he complains. “My feet are swollen and puffy, pretty much everywhere they’re in contact with my shoes.” He decides to catch Metra back to the Loop, then ride another Metra line out to meet me in Aurora.

Wheaton College

Wheaton is nicknamed “The Button of the Bible Belt” since it’s home to dozens of religious organizations. On the other hand, the very profane John Belushi attended Wheaten Central High School. The largest religious school here is Wheaton College and evangelist Billy Graham is its most famous graduate. The preacher, now 92, has met with every U.S. president from Truman to Obama. I stop by the Billy Graham Center Museum but it isn’t open yet. I’ve read that the exhibit focuses on Graham’s humanitarian work and skips over his fire-and-brimstone rhetoric.

In downtown Wheaton, I pick up the Aurora branch of the Illinois Prairie Path, the sixty-one-mile network of trails that fans across the western suburbs. I come to a boulder with a plaque honoring May Theilgaard Watts, a Morton Arboretum naturalist who first proposed converting abandoned railroad right-of-ways into the trails system in a 1963 letter to the Tribune. The villages of Wheaton and Glen Ellyn wanted to turn the land into parking lots, and in the letter Watts cautioned that “bulldozers are drooling.” The plaque includes a quote from Watts, “Footpaths are defended with spirit by their users.”

The Prairie Path soon becomes a green tunnel of budding maple and walnut trees and the crushed limestone surface of the trail crunches pleasantly under my sneakers. Birds are singing, the air smells like pollen and the sunshine feels good on my face as I walk southwest. There’s a steady stream of joggers and bicyclists in DayGlo Lycra. I stop and chat with an older man with a large backpack who’s training for a long hike in the Swiss Alps.

The trail passes by the Warrenville Grove Forest Preserve, an appealing green space with a large sledding hill and a lagoon where families fish for trout on this lovely afternoon. I soon encounter three horseback riders and have to step carefully to avoid the fresh manure they leave in their wake.

Detouring off the trail in Warrenville I arrive at Two Brothers Tap House, located in a bleak industrial zone. The brewery has little in the way of decor besides posters for house beers like Domaine DuPage French Country Ale and Prairie Path Golden Ale, but the brew and the food are tasty and the place is packed with young suburbanites. I belly up to the bar for a pint of Bitter End Pale Ale and a plate of bacon-wrapped meatloaf.

Next to me are Mary and Richard from Glen Ellyn, hardcore beer geeks. Mary receives a text that Three Floyds brewery in Munster, Indiana still has a few bottles of Dark Lord Russian Imperial stout left over from yesterday’s Dark Lord Day release party. The couple immediately get in their car and drive fifty-five miles to claim their prize.

Back on the trail for the final leg of my suburban safari, I pass a small pond where frogs are croaking, a flock of red-winged blackbirds perch on nearby branches and a beaver scurries by. It’s a treat to encounter wildlife you don’t normally find in Chicago, but I’m getting really sick of walking. I sit down on a bench, take off my socks and massage my throbbing feet, dotted with multiple blisters.

As I trudge the last few miles, I think about my journey so far. While the Chicago suburbs are not the cultural wasteland that city dwellers make them out to be, the interesting places are few and far between, it’s hard to live there without a car, and the lack of human interaction on the streets is alienating.

If I ever get married and have kids in Chicago I’ll face a dilemma that has confronted many of my friends with children. Unless Jean-Claude Brizard, the newly appointed CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, is able to fix our city’s educational system, it will be tempting to leave the city for the better public schools and cheaper, bigger houses of the suburbs. Will I sell out, abandoning the diverse, social, walkable streets of Chicago for what Oak Park native Ernest Hemingway called the “broad lawns and narrow minds” of the auto-centric western ‘burbs?

I hope not, having experienced suburban isolation firsthand on this walk. My friends with kids provide good role models for me—almost all of them have chosen to stay, proving that it’s possible to build a rich family life in the city. Most of them don’t even own cars. Instead they take advantage of Chicago’s many green transportation options, traveling with their children via the CTA, Metra, I-GO Car Sharing, taxis, bicycles and on foot.

Now I’m descending bluffs to the Fox River, a broad waterway where Canada geese swim against the current. I turn south down the Fox River Trail, a paved path that runs fifty miles from Aurora to McHenry, Illinois, at the northwest corner of the metro region. McHenry is the hometown of Alkaline Trio singer and guitarist Matt Skiba, a bike-messenger colleague of mine from the late nineties whose band went on to become one of Chicago’s most successful punk acts.

After rounding a bend in the path I catch sight of downtown Aurora, the Hollywood Casino and Walter Payton’s roundhouse. The suburb is nicknamed the “City of Lights” because it was one of the first U.S. municipalities with electric streetlamps. As I march triumphantly towards my finish line, one of Skiba’s anthemic songs plays in my head:

And all your lonely nights in the City of Lights are much like
All these crowded bars I so often find my stupid self stumbling through…
Fuck you Aurora, you took my only friend.
You won’t catch me behind the wheel of a Chrysler ever again.

DuPage Dossier
Suburban milestones and diversions

America’s Brewpub at the Roundhouse Complex
205 North Broadway, Aurora, (630)892-0034, www.rh34.com/content/2.html

Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market
2400 North Harlem, Elmwood Park, (708)453-0155, caputomarkets.com

Billy Graham Center Museum
Wheaton College, 500 East College, Wheaton, (630)752-5909, billygrahamcenter.com

Gene and Jude’s
2720 River Road, River Grove, (708)452-7634

Hala Kahiki
2834 River Road, River Grove, (708)456-3222, hala-kahiki.com

Jim’s Hamburger Heaven
281 North York, Elmurst, (630)832-3535

Lunar Brewing Company
54 East St. Charles, Villa Park, (630)530-2077, myspace.com/lunarbrewingco

Tong’s Tiki Hut
100 East Roosevelt, Villa Park, (630)834-7464

Two Brothers Tap House
30w315 Calumet, Warrenville, (630)393-2337, twobrotherstaphouse.com

Transit authorities discuss ways to fix the CTA

2011-06-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

L-R: Schlickman, Renn, Wisniewski, Robling, Bey

A debate on the future of Chicago public transit is an “El” of a good time

By John Greenfield

It’s a Tuesday night and Cactus Bar and Grill, 404 S. Wells, usually packed with stockbrokers from the Chicago Board of Trade, is instead filled with transportation geeks and urban planning wonks. They’re here for “Chicago Public Transit: On Track or Derailed,” organized by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Participants will discuss the good, bad and ugly aspects of our local bus and train service, and propose ways to drag our outdated transit system kicking and screaming into the future.

The distinguished panel of experts includes Aaron Renn, who blogs about city planning at www.urbanophile.com; Lee Bey, ex-Sun Times architecture critic and deputy chief of staff for Mayor Daley, now head of the Chicago Central Committee, which brainstorms ways to improve the Loop; Christopher Robling, principal of the P.R. firm Jayne Thompson & Associates; Stephen Schlickman, director of the UIC’s Urban Transportation Center; and formerhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Sun Times transportation reporhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifter Mary Wisniewski, now working for Reuters. Cultural critic and blogger (www.planetizen.com) Edward Lifson is moderating. Dressed in dark suits and skirt they look a bit out of place among the bar’s surfboards, stuffed swordfish and mural advertising a tiki hotel, but they’re sharing a pitcher of beer.

Ed Zotti, who writes the Chicago Reader column “The Straight Dope” under the nom de plume Cecil Adams, introduces the debate. Zotti’s recent Reader cover story (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/ArticleArchives?author=863819) examines the upcoming $4 billion-plus renovation of the northern segments of the Red and Purple lines.

He argues that adding more stops and transfer points to the Purple Line north of Belmont and less south of Belmont, as well as re-routing the line to enter the Loop via the State Street subway as part of this rehab would improve the frequency and speed of service and alleviate crowding. However, it appears the CTA views the project strictly as a rehab of the existing infrastructure north of Belmont and is unwilling to consider major route changes or changes south of Belmont as part of the project. Zotti argues this is a missed opportunity.

“There’s four things we all can agree on,” continues Zotti. The first is the increasing importance of transit in Chicago – ridership on the Red Line recently surpassed its 1927 peak. Second, he says this is a city of disparate transportation needs – South Siders don’t have to worry about crowding on their end of the Red Line, but while trains serve the entire length of the North Side, the line terminates at 95th, five miles north of the city’s southern border. Third, there needs to be a more comprehensive approach to transit planning to allow for ambitious projects like creating a Circle Line to allow transfers between the various train lines a couple of miles outside the Loop. Fourth, there needs to be more transparency and openness in how these decisions are made, Zotti says.

Renn begins the discussion by asking the audience to “Imagine a public transit system that was a source of pride for residents.” Bey notes “Transit is this city is seen as the transportation of last resort.”

But Wisniewski says she is proud of Chicago transit. “Maybe it’s because I’m a transit geek but I take people from out of town to check out the CTA. I rode to every station in town for the Sun Times.”

Robling argues that “Service, service, service” should be the CTA’s priority, although he acknowledges, “In Chicago there’s a mandate for design because we’re the origin of modern design.”

Bey argues that design is key and South Side stations are sorely lacking in amenities. “At a nicely designed station you can buy a cup of coffee and drop off your dry cleaning and these businesses can be a revenue source for the CTA,” he says. “It would be great to put in something to make the Dan Ryan stations less bleak.”

Wisniewski agrees that making stations attractive and welcoming is important. “The 18th Street station in Pilsen has beautiful murals of Mexican life. This kind of thing isn’t very expensive and it gives you something to look at while you wait for the train.”

Next they discuss the merits of the CTA’s bus shelters. Schlickman says he was impressed to see J.C. Decaux, the street furniture company that maintains the shelters, shoveling them out the day after this winter’s snowpocalypse. “I find the shelters are OK, which in some cases is OK,” says Bey. But Renn finds the design of the shelters to be outdated and dull and argues, “The idea that they’re better than what we had before is a pernicious one. Mayor Daley understands we’re competing on a global level.”

To improve service on public transit, “We need to look into making it more difficult for cars to get into the city,” says Wisniewski. Schlickman proposes turning lanes of the Kennedy into “hot lanes” that would be reserved for buses as well as cars that pay a special toll.

Bey argues that bus rapid transit is an incomplete solution to the city’s transit woes. “If I’m at 120th and Indiana what does that do for me?” Wisniewski replies, “It doesn’t fix the entire system but it would help solve the problem of all our rapid transit being in a hub-and-spokes configuration instead of a grid. We were offered over $100 million in federal funding to test four bus rapid transit routes, but the city didn’t quite get its ducks in a row in time to take advantage.”

Robling calls for combining the CTA with the Pace suburban bus system and the Metra regional rail system and creating a unified fare structure. “We haven’t done this yet because we have nutso cognitive thinking in this city.”

Wisniewski says that improving transit is going to require bold, sometimes unpopular actions from politicians. “Mayor Daley has sometimes been good at making bold decisions like when he carved up Miegs Field to create Northerly Island.”

Lifson reads a question from the audience, “Is it possible to fix transit without fixing neighborhoods?” “Good question,” responds Bey. “Parts of the South Side have been depopulated.” But Schlickman notes that the RTA has studied the possibility of extending the Red Line to the far South Side and has determined that it would be the most worthwhile expansion of the CTA.

Another question form the crowd is, “Any advice for Rahm Emmanuel?” Bey responds, “The mayor of Chicago has to ride the CTA to really experience it. Daley didn’t do this.” Wisniewski says, “I would encourage him to think small and pay attention to details that affect the everyday transit rider’s experience, but also look at the big picture and think about everything that transit can be.”

Walking Lawrence Avenue

2011-06-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

A stroll down Chicago’s most international street reveals delicious diversity

By John Greenfield

[This article also runs on the website Gapers Block, www.gapersblock.com.]

I’ve hiked the lengths of many Chicago streets over the years: Milwaukee, Western, Halsted, Archer, Grand, 63rd, Kedzie, Belmont, 79th and King. So it’s surprising that it never occurred to me to hike Lawrence, with its wildly varied strips of shops and restaurants, representing countries from all over the world.

But recently, on my way back from staying in a shack by the Wisconsin border, I took Metra south to the Ravenswood stop and then bicycled west on Lawrence at night. I needed to visit Flo’s Algiers Lounge, a dive at 5436 W. Montrose with a flashing Vegas-style sign and support pillars disguised as palm trees, for a magazine blurb. On the way I was dazzled by the neon along Lawrence in Albany Park, with signs in Spanish, Arabic, Korean and maybe a dozen other languages. The street definitely deserved a closer look.

Lawrence runs 10.5 miles across the city from Lake Michigan to Chevalier Woods, by the Des Plaines River. According to the book Streetwise Chicago by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee, real estate developer Lazarus Silverman was walking with his friend Bradford A. Lawrence through Silverman’s new Montrose subdivision when the developer reportedly said, “Let’s call this Lawrence Avenue.”

I get up painfully early on a Wednesday in early November to catch the 7:26 am sunrise at the lake at Lawrence. As I’m riding the Red Line north to the Lawrence stop the sky is striped cobalt, magenta and gold.

I walk east from the station to the lakefront and dip my fingers in the icy water at Montrose Beach as the fiery ball rises over the horizon. Seagulls, mallard ducks and crows chatter around me. Aside from the dull roar of traffic on Lake Shore Drive and the Hancock faintly visible to the south, this could be Cape Cod.

Heading back west, I come to an odd little house at 915 W. Lawrence with a sign that says “Hana To.” There are wavy, Asian-style shingles on the roof, boulders and a lion statue in front and a Buddha in the window. When I Google the address later it comes up as Hana to Yoko, a florist specializing in ikebana, Japanese flower arrangements.

The day has turned gray and chilly as I approach the Aragon Theater, 1106 W., where I notice architectural details I’ve never noticed before – colorful, mosaic-like designs on the windows and carved heads of maidens and jesters. On the west side of the adjacent el tracks there’s a colorful, surreal mural I’ve also never really looked at. My favorite element of the painting is a guy in a yachting cap with a pipe fishing at the lake.

The intersection of Lawrence and Broadway, 1200 W., filled with neon lights and theater marquees, is one of my favorites in Chicago. It’s surrounded by venues like the Aragon, the Kinetic Playground, the Green Mill, the Riviera and the shuttered Uptown Theater. Back in the 1920s when Charlie Chaplin was making films at nearby Essanay Studios the neighborhood must have been even more exciting.

I stop for a breakfast of potato pancakes with applesauce and sour cream at the Golden House, 4744 N. Broadway, a cozy greasy spoon with red vinyl booths and mirrors on the walls with swirls printed on them. Next to me a thirty-something guy with graying hair and a hoodie strikes up a conversation, telling me his name is Binh and he’s from Vietnam.

I can barely understand him but I follow that he’s been in Chicago since 1989 and has also lived in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. He seems to have a mild mental disability. “I don’t eat here,” he says. “I just only drink coffee. “I eat at home – fried steak, noodles and rice. My grandfather says, ‘Eat rice, stay long.’”

A light rain begins as I continue west down Lawrence, past St. Bonifacius Cemetery, stopping to check out St. John’s Assyrian Church, 1421 W., and Manigua Academy of Dance and Music, 1756 W. offering classes in djembe, guiro and talking drum, Brazilian, Puerto Rican and Cuban dance. I stop into Sears, 1900 W., to take a break from the rain.

As I’m looking at boots, a guy with a Spanish accent says, “Oh, so you’re shopping for boots for the winter?” At first I think he’s an employee but then I turn around and see he’s a tall young man in a knit cap wearing Kelly-green running shorts. “Are you Jewish?” he asks. “Uh, why do you want to know?” I reply. “Well, I attended services at a synagogue recently and you look like the Jewish people I saw there,” he says. “Say, my apartment’s right behind the store – do you party?” “No I don’t, but thanks anyway,” I respond, walking away towards the jeans section. “Come on, fifteen minutes,” he calls after me.

The guy follows me to the stacks of Levis and explains, “I walked up to you because I’m gay and you were the handsomest guy in the store.” At 10:15 am I’m pretty much the only other guy in the store. “Look,” I say. “I’m flattered but I’m not interested.” “OK,” he says. “You know, I went to that synagogue because I wanted to learn about Kabala. They believe you can use spirituality to control God. You see, I’m a Satanist. I’ve seen Satan four times.” “OK, well, I think I’m going to shop for jeans now,” I say and he finally walks away.

Next I stop into George’s Deli, 1964 W., a Serbian place that sells roasted lamb and piglets, big jars of pickled peppers and fig jam, thick Bosnian sausages and slabs of dry bacon that look like spareribs. I duck into Farmers Garden Market, 2242 W., hoping to find a functioning farm stand but the shelves are almost bare except for a few seed packets. The old couple speaking to each other in another language at the counter tells me the growing season is over, but I later read that the place has been shut down for code violations.

I pass by the gateway to Lincoln Square’s semi-pedestrianized shopping area on Lincoln south of Lawrence, and stop at Avard Fairbanks’ 1956 statue of Honest Abe standing at Western, 2400 W. He’s standing at a podium with top hat in hand, gazing down his namesake avenue.

Isla Filipino restaurant, 2501 W. Lawrence, features some interesting sounding dishes like Kare-Kare: oxtails, tripe and green beans in peanut sauce with a side of shrimp paste brine; and Inihaw na Pusit: grilled squid stuffed with tomato and onions. Spaghetti Delight - ground beef, pork, hot dog, and Parmesan cheese in tomato sauce over noodles, served with fried chicken – seems to reflect the American influence on the archipelago, a former U.S. territory.

The incredible mix of ethnic eateries and shops has begun. TBS Restaurant, 2541 W. offers a buffet of Nigerian rice dishes and stews, plus American soul food. It’s just after the mid-term elections and the Olympic Club, 2615 W., a café catering to Greek immigrants, still has a sign for failed senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias in the window.

I duck into Nhu Lan, a Vietnamese baker and sandwich shop at 2612 W., and munch a shrimp and pork roll while watching Obama discuss the recent election on TV. The shop also offers a wide selection of Banh Mi, sandwiches on French bread with pickled daikon and carrots, jalapenos and fillings pate and cold cuts, shrimp cake and meatballs. A big, yellow Buddha grins from atop a pastry case.

It’s just after Halloween, and there’s a sign up on the field house of Cross Park, 2700 W., “The supervisor has gone to Peterson Park to take down the Trail of Terror.” I continue past Sarajevo Restaurant, 2701 W., a Bosnian place specializing in Cevapcici, ground beef mini sausages served on fluffy bread with onions and melted cream cheese. Aden Live Poultry, 2731 W., slaughters chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, pigeons and quails in the Zabiha / Halal way, according to Muslim dietary laws.

Just east of the Chicago River, the headquarters of the Cambodian Association of Illinois, 2831 W., features intricate bas-relief designs and images of deities on the façade. Since 1976 the nonprofit has assisted refugees from the Khmer Rouge genocide. The museum is closed at the moment, but two non-Cambodian women filming a documentary outside the building tell me an exhibit about survivors’ journeys from healing to productivity just closed.

As I cross the river I see old, half-sunken boats tied to the banks, and a Brown Line train passes on a bridge a block south. North of Lawrence on the river, the North Branch Sewage Pumping Station is a remarkably nice “Industrial Gothic” structure, when you consider its humble function.

The sun’s out again, lifting my spirits as I head into Albany Park. There’s a nice muffler man sculpture at 3 Stars Auto Body, 3011 W. Huaraches Restaurant, 3021 W., is one of many Michoacan-style Mexican restaurants along this stretch, offering a torta Cubana whose long ingredient list doesn’t have much in common with a traditional Cuban sandwich. Cuscaleco, 3125 W., is a Salvadorian and Guatemalan restaurant specializing in pupusas, thick discs of corn dough stuffed with various combinations of pork skin, beans, cheese and pumpkin.

As I approach Kedzie I start seeing business with signs in Arabic – Kedzie south of Lawrence is one of the areas major Middle Eastern business districts. Iraqi-owned Baghdad Kebab offers a $3.99 chicken shewarma or kefta kebab lunch special.

I duck into Novidades Latinas, a shop selling Ecuadorian products and other Latin American goods: groceries, soccer jerseys, wrestling masks and mini flags of many nations. Andean music plays on the sound system as I check out a DVD of a gangsta flick called “Cholo Americano.”

I come to the Brown Line’s Kimball stop, the end of the line, its awning supported by pillars shaped like giant femurs. Kids are sparring playfully outside the station – a girl picks a boy up by the wrists at spins him around. “Elise, what are you doing?” asks a woman who walks by, possibly their teacher.

Intrigued by a sign advertising Middle Eastern and Mexican baked goods, I drop into the Pita House, 3441 W., but find that so far the shop only stocks the former, although the clerk, a tall, soft-spoken African man with dreads, tells me they’re trying to hire a Mexican baker. I tell him about my project and asks him what he thinks makes Lawrence special. “It’s a melting pot,” he says. “You see the diversity, you see all different nationalities going to the train. On Kedzie it’s more Middle Eastern but here it’s a mixture of every race.” I buy some hand-shaped cookies from him.

A lingerie store at 3546 W. has the charmingly ESL name Sexy Girls of the Hollywood. Across the street Golden Linens, 3601 W., has a giant pink tapestry with the Playboy logo hanging outside. The name of a store at 3647 W., selling toys, handbags and adult DVDs, catches my eye: Chicago John Imports.

I stop into Dok-Il Korean bakery, 3844 W. Lawrence, and pick up a white bean doughnut and a piece of goroke bread, a croquette stuffed with egg, carrot, cabbage, onions and potato. When I ask the Latina clerk what’s inside, she has trouble recalling all the English words for the ingredients, so she tells me in Spanish instead.

The Admiral Theater, 3940 W., which opened in 1927 as a vaudeville venue, has operated as an adult movie house and gentleman’s club since the early ‘70s. It recently hosted a “Night of the Stripping Dead,” with dancers made up to look like zombies. Just a couple storefronts west, El-Jeeb Hajib and gifts, 3944 W., sells the head coverings traditionally worn by Islamic women.

Continuing west past Pulaski, 4000 W., pillars with Prairie-style ornamentation alert me I’m in the Mayfair neighborhood. Ssyal Korean Ginseng House, 4201 W. specializes in ginseng-infused chicken soup that’s supposed to be good for everything from high blood pressure to impotence. I make a note to come back next time I have a cold.

Across the street Kim’s International Music, 4200 W., sells pianos and orchestra instruments and offers lessons. I go inside and chat a bit with a well-dressed young man behind a desk there who tells me he’s been suffering from vertigo lately, dizziness due to inner ear problems. There’s an interesting display of the complex mechanism that leads from a piano key to the hammer that hits the string. An ad on the wall for Yamaha band instruments shows a blonde boy playing clarinet, his eyes aglow.

I stop into the Mayfair Public Library, 4400 W. Lawrence, to use the restroom. School is out by now and there are plenty of people there, including half a dozen girls and women in Muslim headscarves.

The Dog House 2, a trailer at 4501 W., sells Chicago classics like hotdogs, Italian beefs, Polishes, gravy bread and tamales on a bun. There’s a nice folk-art rendition of a Chicago Dog on the side of the trailer.

I’m just north of the 90/94 split at Wilson, so at about 4800 W. I cross the Edens Expressway and then the Kennedy four blocks later. Entering the Jefferson Park neighborhood, I pass by the Copernicus Foundation, 5216 W., a Polish cultural center with an onion-domed clock tower, then come to Sportif Importers, 5225 W., home of the second-grumpiest bike shop owner in Chicago.

Years ago on a cold winter afternoon I dropped in and asked if they stock fleece skullcaps to wear under your helmet. “No,” replied the owner, and proceeded to ignore me, even though there was no one else in the shop. I grew more sympathetic to him in 2004 when the local alderman Patrick Levar tried to seize the property via eminent domain so that one of his developer friends could build condos on it.

Song’s Martial Arts, 4800 N. Milwaukee has a cool logo of a praying mantis superimposed on a yin-yang painted on the window. Inside I see Korean and American flags and lots of shiny armaments: dagger-like sais, spears, battle-axes and nunchucks.

There are a lot of Polish businesses along Lawrence now, and I also notice the headquarters for the Independent Order of Svithiod, 5518 W. Lawrence, a Scandinavian fraternal society founded in 1880.

The street soon becomes largely residential, with occasional businesses popping up like Brigadoon Tavern, 5748 W., with the slogan “A place like this … happens once every hundred years,” a reference to the eponymous Broadway musical in which a magical Scottish village appear only once a century. Muzyka and Sons funeral home, 5776 W., has a nice Grecian statue next to the parking lot.

There’s a cluster of diverse shops and restaurants near Austin Avenue. I stop into Sandy’s, a Serbian bakery and deli at 5857 W., to buy a slice of burek, a chewy, savory cheese pastry. Inside a display case a fried pig’s head grins up at me. A middle-aged guy is talking to the clerk in Serbian. When she invites him to sample some pork cracklings in a bowl by the counter he says, “I don’t eat that stuff,” but I try a chunk and enjoy its salty greasiness.

Sicilia Bakery, 5939 W., specializes in cannoli, Sicilian fried, tube-shaped pastries filled with sweet ricotta cheese. Displayed on the counter there’s a giant cannoli shell the size of a sewer pipe. The shop’s version of the sweet features chunks of dried fruit and it’s absolutely delicious.

At Austin, Lawrence jogs half a block north and is temporarily called Gunnison. The sun is now setting rosily over the simple, postwar two-story houses that line the street. I stop for a quick MGD at the Friendly Tavern, 6124 W. Gunnison, where beefy contractors in work boots and hoodies sit around the horseshoe-shaped bar, debating the merits of doing a paving job in concrete or brick.

Crossing Nagle, 6400 W., I’m in Harwood Height a village that, along with Norridge, is one of two suburbs that are almost completely surrounded by Chicago communities. I’ll have to cross these on my way to Schorsch Forest View, a Chicago neighborhood next to the forest preserve marking the terminus of Lawrence in the city.

By now it’s dark, the street is poorly lit and there’s no retail as I pass by the ½ mile-long Ridgemoor Country Club. The street jogs south again at Harlem where it becomes Lawrence once more. I stop for dinner at Old Warsaw, 4750 N. Harlem, a Polish buffet in a glitzy dining room where schmaltzy oldies like “Moonlight in Vermont” play soothingly on the sound system.

Pleasantly stuffed with pierogi, roast chicken, stuffed cabbage and hunter’s stew, I continue west on the dark suburban street. There’s almost nobody else out on the sidewalk, but when I overtake three middle-aged woman strolling together, they switch their conversation from English to Polish.

It’s a pretty dull walk at this point, enlivened only by the sign for Lazer Knights bar and grill, 8540 W., featuring a guy in a suit of armor firing a ray gun. When I duck my head inside the bar doesn’t look like anything special, so I keep walking.

A couple blocks later I reach the forest preserve at 9200 W. and the end of my walk. After a pit stop in the woods I head east again, then sprint to catch a CTA bus at Cumberland, 8800 W.

As I’m relaxing on the ride back to the Jefferson Park Blue Line stop, I think about all the different cultures represented on my walk along Lawrence: Japanese, Serbian, German, Filipino, Nigerian, Greek, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Cambodian, Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Iraqi, Ecuadorian, Mexican, Korean, Polish, Scandinavian, Sicilian and more. It’s a mix that makes our city, and our nation, a great place to be.

Participatory budgeting in Rogers Park

2011-06-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

By John Greenfield
Photos by Mulubwa Munkanta

[This article also appears in Newcity magazine, www.newcity.com.]

49th Ward alderman Joe Moore is famous for his crusades against big box stores and foie gras, but lately he’s been having more success with a new initiative called participatory budgeting. In this process, regular folks recommend projects for public funding and vote on how the cash is spent. First pioneered in Porto Alegre, Brazil, participatory budgeting is gaining popularity as a way to engage citizens and make government spending decisions more democratic.

Moore is the first politician to bring participatory budgeting to the U.S. Each of Chicago’s 50 alderman has an annual budget called “Menu Money” to pay for physical improvements to their wards, like replacing streetlights and fixing streets and sidewalks. Normally aldermen dictate how the money is spent but in 2010 Moore, whose ward is comprised mostly of left-leaning Rogers Park, decided to let his constituents have their say.

Last year, instead of just the usual meat-and-potatoes projects, residents voted to fund a community garden, a dog-friendly park, solar-powered garbage cans, historical marker signs, and murals under CTA and Metra viaducts. Transportation improvements will include a pedestrian signal, shelters at El platforms, new bicycle lanes and bike racks that will double as public art.

Now it’s time to decide how to spend the 2011 menu budget, once again $1.3 million, although this year Moore is setting aside $300,000 of that for cost overruns and ward emergencies. Volunteers have been researching ideas and drafting proposals, and everyone 16 and over, regardless of citizenship status, is eligible to vote for their favorite projects on May 7th. To prepare for this election, the ward has held several neighborhood assemblies to discuss the proposals.

At one of these meetings on a Thursday evening at Pottawattomie Park Fieldhouse, 7340 N. Rogers, about a hundred people fill the room. Sarah Lisy, who’s helping to lead budgeting process, addresses the crowd with updates on last year’s projects. Several are behind schedule for various reasons, including a worldwide shortage of thermoplastic for striping bike lanes. “Even though some of these projects haven’t moved as quickly as we’d like, we have to give the city a break because many of them were things they’d never dealt with before,” she says.

Representatives of the various committees make pitches for pet projects, ranging from repainting all the light poles along Sheridan Road, to installing wheelchair ramps at several beaches. Other proposals include reconfiguring intersections to make them more ped-friendly, installing a new playground at Touhy Park, and adding more police cameras throughout the neighborhood. The Transportation committee wants to add innovative bikeway designs, like “contra-flow” lanes that would allow bicyclists to safely ride against traffic on one-way streets, and “bike boxes,” colored pavement rectangles at the front of intersections where cyclists could wait for the light.

Sue Bibber from the Streets committee stands before the audience with a large “80” taped on her shirt. “We’re asking for eighty percent of the menu money to go to street resurfacing,” she explains. But Mike from the Traffic Safety committee, wearing a t-shirt featuring a rainbow-colored bike, begs to differ. “We want to put in a pedestrian signal at Ashland and Greenleaf, and that would cost over $300,000,” he says. “So no ‘eighty.’”

Ron Burke, new director of Active Trans

2011-06-02T14:00:00.001-07:00

By John Greenfield

[This interview also runs at www.timeoutchicago.com.]

On August 17 Ron Burke took the reigns of Active Transportation Alliance (formerly Chicagoland Bicycle Federation), the nonprofit that advocates for better conditions for walking, bicycling and transit. He’s filling the shoes of Rob Sadowsky, who left ATA in June to lead Bicycle Transportation Alliance in bike-crazy Portland, Oregon. Burke, an expert in environmental policy, comes to Active Trans, the region’s advocate for better walking, biking and transit, from a job with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Before that he worked for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

I caught up with Burke on his second week at ATA to discuss his background in promoting healthy travel options, his qualifications for leading one of the Chicago region’s key advocacy organizations, and the challenges of promoting green transportation in a sprawling, car-dependent metropolis, and why he thinks six-dollar-a-gallon gas may be the push it takes to bring about a revolution in transportation policy.

Tell me about your background promoting green transportation.

Let me give you my quick bio. Before Active Trans I was the Midwest office director with the Union of Concerned Scientists [a nonprofit which uses scientific research to lobby for policy changes to address pressing environmental and social problems]. Prior to that I was associate director with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to that I was deputy director at the American Lung Association of metropolitan Chicago. And before that I was with the United States EPA.

I have primarily worked on environmental policy throughout my career, although that overlaps quite a bit with transportation policy. And in the 1990s in particular I worked very closely with Chicagoland Bicycle Federation while I was at the American Lung Association on a number of initiatives. [ATA co-founder and longtime executive director] Randy Neufeld and I spent a lot of time at CATS [Chicago Area Transportation Study, now Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, an agency which helps select local transportation projects to receive federal grant money] working on implementation of the first ISTEA [Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act] bill in 1991, which included for the first time federal CMAQ [Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality] grant dollars.

As you might imagine, Randy and I thought it was very important to spend that CMAQ money on transportation options that might enable people to get around without a car – bicycling, walking and transit. The CMAQ committee at CATS had a different perspective for the most part. They were more inclined to put the lion’s share of that money into highway projects that they argued would relieve traffic congestion and therefore reduce air pollution.

So Randy and I spend a lot of time educating them and advocating for the merits of non-motorized modes for mitigating congestion and reducing emissions. Those were the main criteria for CMAQ dollars so we had to make the argument in that context. We talked about how when you build a road you eventually just get more traffic so you wind up with the same level of congestion that you had before, just on more lane miles – not really good for air quality.

We were successful in helping to steer millions and millions of dollars into non-motorized transportation projects. One of the first CMAQ-funded projects was the installation of many, many bike parking racks in Chicago. That really set the precedent for spending CMAQ dollars largely on non-motorized transportation projects, a precedent that’s held up to this day.

Why did you apply for this job?

I have always been passionate about bicycling, walking and transit, at least since I came to Chicago in 1990, and the benefits of those modes. My wife [former ATA Near West Suburban Coordinator Pamela Brookstein] worked at CBF/Active Trans for 12 years, so I was very familiar with the organization in that respect. She left just recently, coincidentally, to take a new job [at a new Cook County Department of Health anti-obesity initiative called Communities Putting Prevention to Work]. I’ve had a lot of respect for the organization for many years, so I’m very committed to the mission.

I’m also excited to see that the public has come around, more and more, to the Active Trans mission. There’s far more support nowadays for livable communities that are bike-able, walk-able and transit-friendly. There’s more awareness of the value of having communities like that, and the importance of those options for the regional economy. It’s become increasingly clear to the public and to the business community that we cannot continue sprawling, car-dependent development. It’s not efficient, it’s not good for the economy, and it’s especially problematic when you’ve got five- or six-dollar-a-gallon gasoline just over the horizon.

Active Trans members have realized for a long time that bicycling, walking and transit have many, many benefits to communities and the regional economy, but I think you’re seeing more and more converts to our way of thinking. People have seen road projects that were supposed to relieve congestion not succeed, and businesses find it increasingly difficult to get the workers they need in some cases because they can’t get to work, because there often aren’t safe, affordable options for people who don’t own cars.

In 2008 vehicle miles traveled in this country went down for the first time since 1984, when the FHWA [Federal Highway Administration] first started keeping track, in large part because of four-dollar gasoline and the economic downturn. But I think we got a taste of what’s on the horizon back then. The business community woke up to the reality that we just cannot be as car dependent as we are today and still have a thriving economy. We need to be ready for six-dollar-a-gallon gasoline.

You and I see the value of these transportation options, for a lot of different reasons, but sometimes dollars-and-cents arguments are what it takes for some people to wake up and see the reality, and I think that’s what happened back in ’08. Six-dollar gasoline is going to drive a lot of people out of their cars and looking for options, options that unfortunately don’t exist in a convenient and affordable way for a lot of people. So it’s a good time to be taking over the leadership of Active Trans.

What strengths do you bring to the executive director position?

I have a good deal of senior-level management experience including at the not-for-profit level. The programs at Active Trans are very similar to the types of programs that I’ve managed over the years. We do policy and advocacy, community education, transportation planning – those are all types of projects I’ve done over the years. Advocacy and education, and outreach and organization, are what I’ve done for the most part. I have a bit of a learning curve when it comes to learning some of the programmatic content, since I haven’t worked on transportation planning as much as I have on environmental issues. But I’m certainly not starting from square one, due to my own personal experience with Active Trans and transportation planning.

What are the greatest challenges for Active Trans in the next few years?

We continue to be challenged by the fact that our region is still overly sprawling and car dependent, and there are still too many obstacles to using bicycling, walking and transit. Often those options are not safe, or affordable or convenient. The good news is we’re seeing some progress for sure. But we have a long ways to go. Land use and infrastructure is not as conducive to bicycling, walking and transit as it needs to be, and obviously the long-term goal of changing that is at the heart of Active Trans’ mission.

Another obstacle is that government funding is in short supply because of the economic downturn, especially at the state and local level. There’s just not as much money around to fund some of the projects we’d like to see implemented. Those are a couple of big challenges.

What upcoming Active Trans projects excite you the most?

To be honest I’m still getting up to speed – this is my second week on the job. I’m still evaluating what’s on our plate. Having said that, I’m not coming across any program that we’re doing that I’m not excited about. The staff’s really amazing, doing a ton of good work. I’m excited about some of the legislative successes that happened this past session to make our roadways safer for all users and not just drivers, like a new law requiring drivers to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.

I’m really excited about strengthening our base, which is of course bicycling and pedestrian projects through advocacy and education. Bicycle use is growing significantly and that’s exciting. I’m excited to continuing growing in that area, since bicycling has been the heart and soul of our organization for a long time. I’m also excited about branching into a new area, which is transit. When the organization broadened its mission a couple of years ago and changed the name, that mission expansion included transit. The challenge I have from the board is to figure out how we can be most effective in representing transit riders and ensuring that transit is safe, affordable and convenient for as many people in the Chicago area as possible.

What kind of transportation mix does your family use?

We live in Oak Park and we walk and bicycle a lot around town. We do have a car we use primarily for carpooling and longer family trips and vacations. I bike to a Green Line station and take the train to the Loop for work. Pamela’s new office is only a few blocks from our house in Oak Park so she walks. We walk and bike to go the park, go to the grocery store, go to a restaurant, things like that. You name it we use it.

Start making sense: David Byrne talks bikes

2011-06-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

David Byrne, Luann Hamilton, Jacky Grimshaw, Randy Neufeld

by John Greenfield

[This piece also appears in this week's Newcity, www.newcity.com.]

It’s the last day of Bike to Work week but gale-force winds and buckets of rain make the evening commute feel like life during wartime. Still, a crowd has pedaled to the Chicago Cultural Center to hear ex-Talking Head David Byrne discuss cycling at the forum Cities, Bicycles and the Future of Getting Around.

The lanky singer’s recent work to push pedaling includes championing New York’s Summer Streets “ciclovia,” which shuts down roadways to cars to create safe space for non-motorized play; designing artistic bike racks; and his new book the The Bicycle Diaries, reflections on his two-wheeled explorations of cities all over the world.

Local green transportation bigwigs have joined him for the Chicago stop on his national speaking tour. Luann Hamilton heads the Chicago Department of Transportation division responsible for promoting cycling. Jacky Grimshaw represents the Center for Neighborhood Technology, working for eco-friendly development and transit. And Randy Neufeld, co-founder of Active Transportation Alliance, now serves as director of the SRAM Cycling fund, which is donating millions to encourage cycling worldwide.

At 58, Byrne is soft-spoken and dignified with a shock of silver hair, a far-cry from his hyperactive, uber-nerdy stage persona in his band’s 1984 concert movie, “Stop Making Sense.” Noting that he often stays in hotels while touring, the singer shows a slide of typical view of auto-centric development from a hotel window: highways, garages and parking lots. “It’s really depressing,” he says. “There’s no life there whatsoever.”

But Byrne’s optimistic that civilization is doing a U-turn these days, evidenced by vibrant street life in Ferrari, Italy. “Everybody bikes there,” he says. “Old, young, grandmas and fashion models.” He discusses the ciclovia, concept, popular in Latin America for years, now gaining ground in U.S. cities.

The singer shows various bicycle parking facilities from around the world, like a crazy tower of bikes in Shanghai and bike racks installed in car parking spaces in Portland, OR. “The bike station in Millennium Park is pretty impressive,” he says. “You can shower there. You can even shower with you bike if you feel really close to your bike.”

Hamilton outlines the City’s efforts to promote cycling, including $100 million spent on bike facilities and programs since the early ‘90s. “We’ve met a lot of our goals but we’ve still got a long way to go,” she says.

The audience cheers when Hamilton announces the City will be testing automated bicycle rental, a system that’s wildly popular in Paris, with 20,000 rental bikes. Chicago’s program will start small, with 100 bikes at six downtown locations.

Grimshaw says Chicago’s widespread train and bus lines and bike- and ped-friendly street grid make it easy to get around town without a car. She scorns expressways as “the sewer pipes of our transportation system.”

“Bicycling in Chicago has certainly succeeded as far the ‘brave hipster’ demographic is concerned,” says Neufeld. “But making streets safe for kids of eight and seniors of eighty should be the goal for urban cycling infrastructure.”

He lists ten ideas for improving cycling, including schemes to slow down cars; bike lanes that are separated from auto traffic by barriers; and closing a major street to cars on a regular basis, ala New York’s Broadway. Showing a slide of 35th Ward alderman Rey Colon in less-than-stylish bike garb, Neufeld says, “Talk to your alderman about bicycling – and better fashion.”

An audience member asks if cycling has inspired any music from Byrne. “Not exactly,” the singer responds. “But it is like performing one of those quasi-mindless tasks like driving or doing dishes. You find that all of the sudden, from who knows where, you have a solution to a problem that had seemed unsolvable.”

Asked whether he’s optimistic that American troglodytes can be coaxed out of their dens and onto bicycles, Byrne says, “In New York cycling is not as un-cool as it used to be. People realize they can go out to dinner and a show on a bike, and business owners are realizing that bikes are good for business. I think we’ve reached a tipping point.”

Stalled on the Bloomingdale Line

2011-06-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

Sixteen months after choosing a firm to design the Bloomingdale Trail, the city still hasn't awarded the contract

by John Greenfield

[This article also runs in the Chicago Reader, www.chicagoreader.com.]

On a weekday morning in October, in gorgeous Indian summer weather, I rode my bicycle on top of the Bloomingdale line, the dormant railroad right-of-way that runs 2.7 miles across the northwest side from Logan Square and Humboldt Park to Wicker Park and Bucktown. I hauled my cruiser up the elevated rail line's embankment, accessing it from the south side of the parking lot of the McCormick Tribune YMCA, at 1834 N. Lawndale, near the western end of the line. Heading east, trying not to think about all the broken glass under my tires, I came to one of the new signs posted at another easy access point at Albany Avenue. In English and Spanish it read:

DANGER
PRIVATE PROPERTY
NO TRESPASSING
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Since 2004 the City of Chicago has been planning to convert the line, currently owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, into a multiuse trail and "linear park," similar in concept to Manhattan's wildly popular High Line, which opened in June 2009. The Chicago Department of Transportation has secured $3.1 million in state and federal funds to pay for the preliminary design and engineering of the Bloomingdale Trail, and in July 2009 the city announced its choice of Arup, a London-based multinational firm, to do this work, which is expected to take 18 months.

At that time, CDOT spokesman Brian Steele told me that his department hoped to officially award the contract to Arup by the end of the year. "Once the contract is awarded, the contractor can start work right away," he said.

But more than sixteen months have elapsed since then, and the contract still hasn't been approved.

In summer 2009, for a Reader story, I spoke with Bucktown residents whose houses abut the line; they complained that trespassing on the tracks had soared since the city and advocacy groups began publicizing the trail conversion concept. This illegal traffic included daytime use by bicyclists, joggers, and dog walkers, but the line was also attracting squatters and vandals at night. Neighbors said their buildings had been tagged with graffiti, rocks had been thrown through their windows, and that there had been several break-ins.

Alderman Scott Waguespack of the 32nd Ward held a closed-door meeting that July about the crime issue with reps from other affected wards, Canadian Pacific, the 14th District police, CDOT, and trail advocacy groups. Later that month most of the same entities showed up for a public meeting with about 60 residents who demanded that the line be secured. Shortly afterward the city fenced off vacant lots by the line at Kimball and at Milwaukee and Leavitt. Canadian Pacific promised to install the no-trespassing signs and agreed to let residents install fences and shrubs along the right-of-way to protect their homes—though it didn't offer to pay for them.

A path up the embankment at Milwaukee and Leavitt used to be one of the most convenient access points. But on my recent ride I encountered new iron fencing here on the south side of the tracks.

It's still possible to climb around the east side of these bars, over a rickety guardrail, albeit with the risk of a 15-foot fall to the street below if the railing were to break loose. At the line's eastern end, at Ashland and the Kennedy Expressway, chain-link fencing has been installed on the north, east, and south sides of the right-of-way—but door-size holes have been cut in all three sides. It's fairly easy to scramble up to the line here from the sidewalk on the east side of Ashland.

The area under the expressway seems to be a combination shooting gallery and art gallery, littered with needles, bottles, and food containers, and lined with an impressive array of colorful graffiti.

There are images of R2D2 and a walrus in a fedora, plus messages like "R.I.P. King of Pop" and "Squatrs show some respect! — our spot." Next to a Magic Marker sketch of a 40-ouncer and a spilled beer can someone has written "Smoke crack all the time, rain or shine."

Canadian Pacific is eager to get rid of the property, which has become a liability that brings in no income—it has offered to sell it to the city for a dollar. But the city doesn't want to take responsibility for the line yet: CDOT's Steele says the right-of-way probably won't change hands until after the preliminary design work is done and the city has a better sense of the condition of the embankment and its 37 overpasses, so it can more accurately estimate the cost of building the trail. Most of the concerned parties agree the right-of-way will continue to be a haven for illegal activities until then.

Which will be when? Steele says his department completed its negotiations with Arup in March, after which the contract was sent to the city's Department of Procurement Services. Since then procurement has been gathering and reviewing supporting paperwork from the contractor. Shannon Andrews, spokeswoman for Procurement, says the contract "is in the final stages of being awarded."

Steele says it's not unusual for the finalizing of the contract to be taking this long, given its complexity and the fact that Arup hasn't worked with the city before, which meant more time was needed to prepare the paperwork. Asked about his earlier forecast that the contract would be awarded by the end of last year, Steele says, "Like all estimates, it was just that—an estimate."

Other city contracts seem to also be moving slowly these days, says John LaPlante, director of traffic engineering at T.Y. Lin, a firm that has worked on other Chicago multiuse path projects. LaPlante says several of his company's recent city contracts have taken as long as a year to process.

Progress has been made on the conversion in the meantime. In June the Park District approved a $450,000 grant to the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit, to coordinate the Bloomingdale Trail Civic Engagement and Stewardship Project, which will help raise public funding and private donations for the trail project and coordinate community participation over the next two years. The Trust for Public Land now estimates the trail will cost $60 million.

And the development of parks at future access points is under way. "We think of the trail as both the line and the access points, so from our perspective things are moving forward," says Ben Helphand, board president of Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, which has been advocating for the project since 2003.

After the Trust for Public Land helped arrange for the $1.2 million purchase of four parcels of land for access points, in 2008 the city razed buildings at Leavitt and Milwaukee and at Albany. That fall a park opened between Albany and Whipple as a simple, sodded green space. This month the Park District began construction on a $500,000 project to relandscape it and install playground equipment, public art, benches, and lighting. The work should be done by summer 2011. In September the Logan Square Neighborhood Association unveiled a colorful new mural on the retaining wall on the other side of the embankment from the park, featuring a map of the Bloomingdale with images of people walking, running, and biking on the line.

Besides the park between Albany and Whipple, there will eventually be seven other Bloomingdale access points: at the McCormick Tribune Y; between Kimball and Spaulding; at Mozart; at Maplewood; at Milwaukee and Leavitt; at Churchill Field Park, on Damen; and at Walsh Park, on Ashland.

The new iron fencing at Milwaukee and Leavitt is a reminder that some neighbors are still worried about security. This year Don Perini, owner of metal fabricator and erector Perini Ironworks, installed the bars at his own expense as well as the chain-link fences at Ashland, which he says were cut two days later. Perini, who lives next to the line in Bucktown, says he's had two of his window screens broken. "There are vagrants walking up there and people throwing things and lighting bonfires," he says. He'd like to see the line patrolled more often, but says the situation is better than it was last year: "The alderman [Waguespack] is doing a good job of monitoring it and getting the word out that it's private property."

Kerri Stojack, special assistant to Waguespack, credits the new fencing with reducing crime on the line. She says the ward office got about ten complaints last year about vandalism along the trail and has gotten fewer than five so far this year.

With the weather still unseasonably warm, I took another spin down the Bloomingdale at twilight earlier this month. Just west of California, on the middle of the rail bed, someone had set up a living room scene: ragged armchair, straight-back wooden chair, bookcase, and VCR atop a cabinet, all on an area rug.

Further east, near Marshfield—above Walsh Park—I came across a couple of tents sheltered by a tarp tied to trees. Two long-haired bearded men were leaving the tents. They said they'd been hanging out on the line for years. "A lot of people know we're here and we don't cause no trouble," the taller man said.

The style council: Chicagoans talk bike fashion

2011-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

(Photo by Serge Lubomudrov)

By John Greenfield

It’s a balmy November Tuesday evening and about 25 cyclists, dressed in either smart street clothes or garish Lycra bike gear, have packed the conference room at Active Transportation Alliance’s downtown offices. They’re here for the Bike Fashion Panel, sponsored by the Chicago Cycling Club, an exploration of how to get around the city on two wheels without sacrificing your personal style, with a focus on women’s fashion.

The panel includes a who’s who of movers and shakers promoting chic cycling in Chicago. Emily Taylor and Maria Bousted from PoCampo (pocampo.com), design and market stylish, waterproof handlebar and rack bags and other accessories for female cyclists. Dottie Brackett, co-author of the blog Lets Go Ride A Bike (letsgorideabike.com) writes about her daily biking and fashion adventures and provides tips and product reviews. Alexis Finch produces and does photo styling for the Thought You Knew pin-up calendars (thoughtyouknew.us) which raise money for the Chicago Women’s Health Center.

Taylor, Brackett, Bousted and Finch with PoCampo bags

Moderator Steve Kramer, a former president of the Chicago Cycling Club, is wearing a gaudy Coors Light / Ford cycling jersey, Spandex shorts, Sponge Bob socks, racing shoes and a doo-rag. “When they asked me to lead this discussion I figured I already know about bike fashion,” he says. “It’s all about Lycra and bright-colored jackets that keep the wind off you, right? My personal bike style can be summed up in four syllables: Po-ly-es-ter.”

(Photo by Serge Lubomudrov)

He asks the panelists to define “bike fashion” and all four women give similar answers to Taylor. “Bike fashion is about being able to live my life as I would otherwise and still be able to get around on my bike,” she says.

Asked if she does any recreational cycling outside of commuting, Bousted answers, “For me it’s mostly commuting, sometimes a ride on the lakefront path, but I have done a little bit of touring, so I do own some Spandex shorts.” Brackett, who usually commutes on a 50-pound Dutch city bike, says, “Sometimes when I’m out on the Lakefront Path and I’ve got a good tailwind I think I should race, that I’d probably be pretty good, but I guess that’s all in my head.”

On choosing clothes for riding, Taylor says, “I bike in just about any shoe except shiny ones I don’t want to scuff. High heels actually work better for cycling than walking because you’re only using the balls of your feet.” Finch is the only panelist who regularly rides in bike shoes, citing her need for speed. “I want to be the first one off the line at the green light,” she says. Instead, she keeps a pile of dress shoes under her desk at work to change into.

If you’re going to bike in your work clothes, the panelists recommend wearing quick-drying clothes that don’t rumple easily. “When I visited Costa Rica, I noticed that people don’t hide out from the rain but instead they wear fabrics that dry really quickly so that 15 minutes later they’re dry,” says Taylor.

While men’s street clothing is usually a bit easier to bike in than women’s dresses and skirts, Finch says during the winter women have an edge because they can get away with biking in a skirt and tights and wear it to the office rather than having to change into a suit when they arrive. “This is one place where we have a little bit of a ‘presto change-o’ advantage over the guys,” she says.”

The women agree that their bikes are their favorite fashion accessories. Taylor rides a mixte she had custom powder-coated, with upright bars, cork handle grips, a rack, fenders and a sprung Brooks leather saddle. Brackett’s Oma bike from Dutch Bikes Chicago includes a fully-enclosed chain and brakes, skirt guard and integrated generator lights, making it a low-maintenance, weatherproof ride, but its heavy weight means it’s not suitable for a third-floor walk-up or triathlon racing.

Bousted says when she had drop bars on her road bike she used to be careful not to wear scoop-neck tops. “I didn’t want people to be able to look down my shirt,” she says. “That never happens – that’s a myth,” says Kramer. Upright bars have solved that problem. Finch had her fixed-gear road bike powder-coated six different colors at UV Metal Arts in Bridgeport and she plans to get the frame drilled for a rear rack at Blue City Cycles, also located in Bridgeport.

(Photo by Martha Williams)

Next Kramer screens some images from Martha Williams’ Chicago cycle chic photography blog Bike Fancy (bikefancy.com) and asks the panelists for their impression. In one picture Bracket stands with her ride by the lake with bright-colored, floral-print Basil panniers from Copenhagen Cyclery, “I’m in heels and I’m wearing an A-frame dress,” she says. “It’s not constricting but it won’t fly up, and it’s wool, which is nice in case it gets chilly.” Finch says, “Guys are always flummoxed to see women riding in high heels. They say, ‘How are you going to ride in those? You’re going to die.’”

Another image shows another woman on an Oma wearing a black-and-white hound’s-tooth jacket. “I love that she’s wearing tight pants and knee-high boots,” says Finch. “If you bike you’re going to have great legs so you might as well show them off.” Taylor says, “The sprung saddle is nice for some extra comfort when you’re not wearing performance clothing.”

(Photo by Martha Williams)

A photo of a guy in a suit racing by a CTA bus on a fixie is about the only reference to men’s cycling fashion during the forum. “If you’re going to ride in a suit it’s nice not to be too hunched over,” says Bracket. “It’s a good idea to tuck your tie in and have a chain guard on your bike.”

Asked if they ever shop for bike-specific attire, the women recommend a number of clothing and gear companies. Finch likes bike-friendly Nau jackets from Portland, featuring long sleeves and a long back, “to avoid the dreaded cold spot,” she says. Ryoko arm warmers, Sheila Moon knickers, Nutcase helmets and Chicago-made Kozie Prery cycling caps also get a shout-out. But Brackett says she buys most of her elegant, bike-able clothing at thrift stores.

Marie Snyder in the Thought You Knew Calendar (photo by Kimberly Capriotti)

At the end of the session, Brackett announces the Autumn Cocktail Cruise Let’s Go Ride a Bike is co-hosting with this blog, on Sunday, November 13, leaving from the Wicker Park Fountain, 1425 N. Damen, at 3 pm. Finch announces the Thought You Knew Calendar launch party, Friday November 19, 5-10 pm at the Coop, 845 W. Fulton. She also puts in a plug for an appearance by the women of Thought You Knew on Thursday, November 11, from 6:30-7:30 pm at the Craftsman Experience workshop, 233 W. Huron. “Google ‘Craftsman’ and ‘pin-ups’ and you’ll find it,” she says.

Walking the length of Chicago's King Drive

2011-06-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

Strolling the length of Chicago’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive provides a lesson in the city's African-American history

By John Greenfield

[This piece also runs in Gapers Block, www.gapersblock.com.]

“For many whites, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are lost. For many blacks, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are found.” So writes Jonathan Tilove in his book Along Martin Luther King: Travel’s on Black America’s Main Street (Random House, 2003), about his two-year project to document many of the more than 650 streets across the country named after the civil rights hero.

Our town played an important role in Dr. King’s career. In 1965 he joined the battle to integrate Chicago’s public schools and in 1966 he moved his family into a run-down apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin in Lawndale to draw attention to the city’s segregated slums. That summer King lead marches through all-white Chicago neighborhoods to demonstrate for open-housing laws.

During an August 5th march through Marquette Park, whites showered the marchers with rocks, bottles and fireworks. A rock struck the reverend on the neck and he stumbled to the ground, but got up and kept walking. He later commented, “The people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.” By the end of the month Mayor Richard J. Daley announced that the city leaders would support fair-housing laws in exchange for an end to the marches.

Chicago’s King Drive, renamed from South Park Way less than four months after the reverend’s assassination, was probably the first roadway in the nation to be dedicated to the martyred leader. But when Daley and city council voted for the name change, many people noticed an irony: the street they picked to honor the champion of racial integration ran only ran through the South Side, almost exclusively in African-American neighborhoods, as it still does today.

This history’s in the back of my mind as I ride the Red Line south from the North Side to start my walk down the length of King Drive on a crisp September morning. It’s the latest in my series of strolls down entire Chicago streets, including Milwaukee, Western, Halsted, Archer, Grand, 63rd, Kedzie, Belmont and 79th in search of memorable sights and experiences.

I detrain at the Cermak/Chinatown platform, where a breathtaking view of the Loop is visible to the north and I can see the Chinatown Gate and the pagoda-topped On Leong Merchants Association building to the south. After strolling a few blocks east on Cermak Road, I arrive at the R.R. Donnelly Printing Plant, a looming, redbrick “Industrial Gothic” building at Calumet Avenue, 400 E., where Cermak curves south and King Drive begins.

Howard Van Doren Shaw and Charles S. Klauder designed the plant in the early 1900s. Ornamental details on the building depict the history of printing and colorful terra cotta coats of arms at eye level include a scroll wrapped around a large key and a phoenix holding an axe and a book, perhaps a reference to Chicago rising from the ashes after the Great Fire. As I’m photographing a bas-relief of a Native American chief on horseback outside the entrance, a security guard notifies me I’m private property and photos are prohibited.

Heading south, I stop to use the bathroom at McCormick Place, 2301 S. King, a massive concrete-and-glass structure with a rainbow-shaped fountain in front. One of six solar-powered kiosks for Chicago’s new B-cycle automated bicycle rental system is located here, with about twenty chunky-looking, gray cruisers. Based on highly popular bike share systems in Europe, the aim of B-cycle is to provide a sort of bicycle public transportation network. But since our city’s bike sharing system received zero public funding it’s more expensive to use than other cities’ systems, and it’s starting small with only 100 bikes, compared to 1,000 in Minneapolis and 20,000 in Paris.

As I’m leaving the convention center I see a middle-aged Asian couple in evening wear gracefully waltzing in the lobby. A guard tells me they’re practicing for a ballroom dance competition next week at the adjacent Hyatt.

The I-55 Overpass at 24th Street has been turned into a gateway to the Bronzeville neighborhood, emblazoned with the name of the community and a picture of a doughboy with a bayonet. The image is from the nearby "Victory Monument" to the African-American 8th Regiment of the Illinois State Guard, which fought in WWI.

Once called the “Black Metropolis,” Bronzeville became a center for African-American culture and nightlife in the early 1900s when thousands arrived in Chicago from the south, fleeing Jim Crow oppression and seeking jobs. Under I-55 at street level, red ornamental fencing includes symbols of black achievements in science, law, sports, aviation, music and other fields.

Just south of the viaduct at 24th I come upon a statue of a large, waving figure made up of worn-out shoe soles, carrying a battered suitcase, the "Monument to the Great Northern Migration" by Alison Saar. At 25th I find the first of many bronze plaques set into the sidewalk as part of Geraldine McCullough's "Walk of Fame," celebrating Bronzeville’s famous black residents. This one’s for Daniel Hale Williams, who performed the world’s first successful open-heart surgery in 1893, repairing the torn pericardium (the double-walled sac around the heart) of a knife wound victim at Chicago’s Provident Hospital.

I soon come across plaques for Johnson Publications founder John Johnson, choreographer Katherine Dunham, Robert Taylor, the first African-American chair of the Chicago Housing Authority, and Maudelle Bousefield, the first black principal in the Chicago Public Schools. There’s Carter Woodson, who started “Negro History Week,” track star Jesse Owens and heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis, AKA the “Brown Bomber.

At the King/35th intersection I check out Gregg LeFevre's 14-foot bronze map of the neighborhood, with images highlighting many of the areas claims to fame: Gospel sheet music, the Negro League baseball association, cosmetics from the Overton Hygienic company, newspapers like The Chicago Bee and The Chicago Defender, books by Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, and a blues record by Muddy Waters.

Just south is the doughboy monument, a stout column with the statue of the courageous soldier on top. Around the column are bas-relief figures seemingly inspired by Roman artwork with African features, including a brawny, shirtless man with a sword and shield, and a bald eagle seated at his feet.

The Supreme Life Building, 3501 S. King, housed the first black-owned insurance company, which was one of the few local businesses to make it through the Great Depression. Next door Rick’s Munchies is a new café with some interesting-sounding offerings like salmon salad and Mississippi hot links and colorful murals of couples dancing to a blues band.

At 35th King becomes a boulevard with quiet side roads separated from the main drag by grassy medians, and here begins a long stretch of historic gray- and brownstone homes, many with conical turrets and famous former residents. Anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells lived at 3624 S., a beautiful graystone whose turret is now painted red and white.

After I pass a block-long vacant lot at 38th, I encounter an old lady in a straw hat with a gold tooth. She asks me if I need directions, and tells me the lot is where the Ida B. Wells housing project stood until it was recently demolished. As I continue south, it seems like an unusually large number of other people I encounter smile and say hello.

Chicago’s Home of Chicken and Waffles stands at 3949 S. Originally called Rosscoe’s Chicken and Waffles with two Ss, the restaurant changed its name after receiving a cease-and-desist order from the legendary Roscoe’s (one S) Chicken and Waffles in Los Angeles.

Just south at 40th is a mural of an Egyptian goddess with yellow skin. Across the street is “Have a Dream,” a 1995 mural by C. Siddha Sila featuring Christian images of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and quotations from Dr. King. One of several images of the reverend in the mural shows him as a saint with a halo and stigmata.

A Chicago Landmarks sign marks a graystone at 4512 S. where the Marx Brothers lived in the 1910s, back when the neighborhood was largely Jewish and the troupe was known as the Six Musical Mascots. At 4536 S., another sign marks the former home of Oscar Stanton De Priest, Chicago’s first African-American alderman, and the first black congressman to be elected from a northern state. De Priest made headlines in 1929 when he fought successfully for the right of his wife Jesse Williams De Priest to attend a tea for congressional wives with First Lady Lou Hoover.

47th and King the center of recently designated Chicago Blues District, marked with statues of an electric guitarist, singer, sax player and trumpeter. The Harold Washington Cultural Center, 4701 S., is a new venue for jazz, blues, theater and movies. A statue of Chicago’s first black mayor stands guard outside, clutching a document and pointing to the ground as if to hammer home a political point.

Parishioners are leaving a memorial service at Corpus Christi Catholic Church, 4920 S. An elderly Caucasian nun sees me peering through the front window and offers to give me a tour. She tells me her name is Sister Marilyn, “Like Marilyn Monroe,” and the church was built between 1914 and 1921. Originally the congregation was Irish-American, switching to mostly African-American during the 1930s.

Sister Marilyn points out some of the architectural features of the ornate cathedral: an altar made of Italian marble, mosaics of the Last Supper and St. Francis preaching to the birds, and recently-added red, green and black trim around the perimeter of the ceiling, the colors of the Pan-African flag. She says she was assigned to work at this church as a young woman in 1963 arriving two days before Dr. King’s March on Washington. “Can you imagine what it was like little farm girl from Iowa moving here?” she says.

Statue of St. Francis in the church's courtyard

I continue south to 51st, where King Drive splits to make room for Daniel Chester French’s statue of George Washington on horseback with sword upraised. An old homeless man with a cane sits on the base of the monument. When I ask him “How’s it going?” he replies, “Real slow.”

We’re at the northwest corner of mile-long Washington Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, which would have hosted many of the of the 2016 Olympics events had we not lost the games to Rio. Highlights of the park include the DuSable museum of African American History and Laredo Taft’s spooky Fountain of Time sculpture, which shows the parade of human history, presided over by the grim, shrouded figure of Time.

Continuing south along Washington Park, I pass a couple of young men walking down the street practicing synchronized hip hop dance moves to music on shared earbuds. By now King has ceased being a boulevard and has become a regular four-lane street.

By Garfield Boulevard, 5500 S., my feet are getting tired, so I pick up a Polish at a combination convenience store and hotdog stand across the street from the Garfield Green Line stop, just west of King. As I’m leaving I have to walk around two guys yelling at each other in front of the store – it looks like a fight is brewing.

I munch my lunch on a bench in the Washington Park, buffeted by high winds, then walk over to the park’s lagoon and gaze at Bynum Island, a bit of wilderness in the middle of the city. Continuing on King, I pass a water park, tennis and basketball courts, then arrive at 61st Street and Phat Boy Grocery, with a mural of a tubby guy in a backwards ball cap munching a candy bar.

At South Park Terrace apartments, 6120 S., young men hanging out inside the entrance arch are shooting dice and shouting. I’m running out of time before I have to return to the North Side to meet up with friends for the maiden voyage of a rubber raft on the north branch of the Chicago River, so I decide to catch the Green Line at 63rd and King and finish the walk another time.

A few days later on Labor Day I walk south from the station, passing by low-rise housing projects to the west and the offices of the Chicago Crusader newspaper at 6429 S. Sandstone-like rocks on a building façade at 65th have “Rest In Peace” messages written in Sharpie, dedicated to someone called Q-Steezy.

The white wall of a railroad embankment at the five-way intersection at King, 67th and South Shore Drive, is covered with spray-painted guerilla advertisements for a dance school (“Learn to Step, Learn to Slide”) and a tattoo parlor called (“$10 Names!! Nuthin over $50”). A more official-looking mural advertise John’s Hardware and Bicycle Store, 7350 S. Halsted (“If we don’t have it you don’t need it.”)

71st Street is Honorary Emmett Till Way, named after the 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago who was brutally murdered by white men in 1955 after he reportedly whistled at a white woman at a Mississippi grocery store. When an all-white jury acquitted the killers, the resulting outrage helped fuel the civil rights movement.

A friend had recommended Roy’s Soul Food, 403 E. 71st. “I ate there many times in the months leading up to the Obama victory and the air was electric,” he said. Unfortunately the restaurant is closed, but the small, neat diner with a jukebox looks appealing as does the breakfast special painted on the window: two salmon croquettes, grits, rice or hash browns, two eggs, biscuits and toast for $4.50. A smiling fish in a chef’s hat points a fin at the bounteous plate.

Instead, I duck into the Park Manor Lounge, 7109 S. King, for a beer. The place is deserted except for barmaid Debra Nelson. Although the tavern is black-owned, a Chinese-American family operates a tiny kitchen in back called King’s Chop Suey, providing food for takeout and for hungry bar patrons.

The décor is classic South Side dive spiced up with a few Chinese lanterns, dragons, poi dogs and folding fans. Photo portraits of former owners hang above the bar: a black-and-white image of an elegantly dressed, middle-aged man and a full-color photo of the late Lois Whitehead, an attractive lady with silver hair and a low-cut red ball gown. A former model, she’s also featured in a Jack Daniels ad on the wall.

I sip a High Life, tell Nelson about my project and ask her what she thinks makes King Drive special. “It has a lot of landmark buildings,” she says. “It’s a nice, clean street without a lot of riffraff. It’s very seldom you hear about anything bad happening on King Drive.”

Since the kitchen isn’t open yet, I cross the street to Sunny Sub, 380 E. 71st, and buy a huge sandwich called a Jim Shoe with roast beef, corned beef and gyro meat. I eat half of it in a nearby park where young men are playing basketball, watched by two little girls in braids and matching pink jumpers. A couple blocks later I offer the other half to a guy pushing a shopping cart who says “Thank you brother.”

At 75th I arrive at one of the South Side’s excellent dining and nightlife districts. I stop by Army and Lou’s, 422 E. 75th, one of the Midwest’s oldest black-owned restaurants. The place is closed for the holiday but the specials sign advertises peach-glazed pork chops and jambalaya. A block east is the famous jazz dive the New Apartment Lounge, 504 E. 75th, where 87-year-old tenor sax legend Von Freeman holds court at Tuesday night jam sessions. A neon sign in the window invites passers-by to “Please drop in.” Down the street from King is Soul Vegetarian, 203 E. 75th, a restaurant run by members of the African Hebrew Israelite religious group, serving vegan food in a tranquil setting.

Lem’s, a barbecue Mecca, is located in a boat-shaped building at 317 E. 75th. A huge aquarium smoker is visible through the window and customers are lined up out the door. A Labor Day party is going on in a nearby parking lot with house music and funk on the sound system. A guy straddling his motorcycle on the sidewalk explains that local AA clubs sponsor this alcohol-free gathering. A middle-aged woman in red high heels with big gold hoop earrings is dancing with an older guy in a white fedora and Hawaiian shirt to R. Kelly’s “Step in the Name of Love.”

After 79th, King changes again to become a narrow two-lane street with extra-wide 30-foot tree strips. As I’m photographing the old-fashioned neon at Jiffy Taxi Cabs, 8008 S., an employee steps outside. When I tell her how much I dig the sign she says, “Are you kidding? It’s horrible. We’re trying to get it fixed.” Next door the defunct King Bowl, 8010 S., also sports cool retro signage.

At 83rd Street I come upon a Kentucky Fried Chicken where I arranged to have a black “inverted U” bike parking rack installed when I was working for the city’s bike program. It has since been painted red to match the restaurant. Outside of Cove Park, 8500 S., a memorial to a crash victim has been set up with flowers, candles, an American flag, a crucifix and a teddy bear. Inside the park a family is barbecuing by a house-shaped tent and a guy is shadow boxing a tree.

At 87th Street a sign with a flying mallard duck welcomes me to the Chesterfield community, “A beautiful and united community.” It’s a tidy neighborhood with cute bungalows, manicured lawns and immaculate topiary like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. But the deserted streets and security bars over doors and windows are a little unsettling.

I pass under railroad tracks at 91st and, as is common in Chicago, the neighborhood changes abruptly. The neat bungalows change to shabby two-flats with untrimmed hedges. It’s more lively too – I soon hear smooth R & B coming from a backyard barbecue.

A house at 9308 S. has a large photo of a G.I. in desert fatigues hanging from the balcony, framed with Christmas lights. In the front yard there are two dozen plastic swan planters filled with silk flowers and little butterfly, bee, fish and flamingo ornaments.

The road climbs a small hill up to 95th and a white pillar marking the Chicago State University campus, where Kanye West’s mother Donda West served as chair of the English department. There are pleasant bungalows on the other side of King, many featuring the same configuration of three glass blocks in a column. Just after 99th I cross the Bishop Ford Freeway, named after Bishop Louis Henry Ford, the former leader of the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination with five million members.

I continue on past more bungalows. The houses at 10551 and 10555 S. have a “C” and a “T” on the awnings, respectively. At 108th a little white Benji-type dog runs up to me. “Hey doggie,” I say. “Listen Elmo,” says the dog’s owner, a 50-ish woman, to the pooch. “You think you know everybody but you don’t.”

At 111th I detour east a couple of blocks to Cottage Grove and the Pullman Historic district. In the late 1800s George Pullman, owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company, built the community as a utopian factory town with quality housing stock, clean water and good schools. But when revenue fell during a recession, the owner slashed wages for his employees without lowering rents. In May of 1894 workers went on strike in protest. President Grover Cleveland sent in 12,000 troops to break up the strike, resulting in the deaths of 13 workers.

Today Pullman is a pleasant place to visit, with much of the company housing and other historic buildings, many in the same red and green color scheme as the company’s sleeper cars, still intact. I check out the old clock tower from the company’s administrative building at 111th and Cottage Grove, and then head over to the elegant Hotel Florence, 11111 S. Forestville.

A band of middle-aged Anglo and Latino guys is playing classic rock songs from the hotel’s porch for residents picnicking on the lawn. They bust out “All Right Now” by Free, “I Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” by Bad Company and a sloppy rendition of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” From there I head south to visit the Pullman Pub, 611 E. 113th, featured in the The Fugitive. In the movie Harrison Ford, trying to track down the villainous one-armed man, stops into the bar to use the pay phone.

Unfortunately, the tavern is permanently closed, but when I duck my head into the storefront next door, headquarters for the local chapter of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, the folks inside invite me in to join their Labor Day celebration. One of the guys is a local landlord and he stuffs my hands with neighborhood maps and pamphlets and tries to persuade me to move here. I drink a couple of Budweisers with the group, and they joke about work at the nearby Sherman Williams plant.

It’s after sunset, time to finish my walk and catch Metra home from the 115th / Kensington station. The union folks, a mix of Mexican-Americans and Anglos of various ages, warn me to be careful when I walk through the low-income, solidly African-American section on the other side of the tracks.

I head back up to 111th and under the tracks and pass by the Excalibur Club, 451 E. 111th, its retro-cool sign featuring Olde English lettering and a martini glass. Then I head south on King for the last four blocks of the journey. Lots of people are hanging out in front of their houses. When I make eye contact with a young man in a Sox cap and say “How’s it going?” he gives me a solemn nod.

I pass by the steeple of the New Alpha Progressive Baptist Church, 11357 S. and then King terminates at 115th St. On the other side of the “T” intersection is Stewart Roofing, 401 E. 115th, with old-fashioned, yellow-and red signage. As I’m snapping photos of it a squad car shines its light on the sign.

As I walk east to the station, the police cruiser catches up with me. “What were you taking pictures of,” asks one of the two female officers. “Oh, just the sign,” I said. “It’s kind of an interesting old sign.” “Alright,” she replies and drives away. Soon I’m on the train, heading back to the North Side. My dream of walking Dr. King’s street has come true.

Why is the Red Grand stop rehab taking so long?

2011-06-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

By John Greenfield

[This piece also runs in Time Out Chicago magazine, www.timeoutchicago.com.]

Q: It seems like the CTA Red Line’s Grand station reconstruction is taking forever. What’s the holdup?

A: While the on-train announcement for this stop used to cheerfully declare, “This is Grand,” things have has not been so rosy for this rehab, coordinated by the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Work started in early 2008 and was supposed to be finished last year, but CDOT has pushed the target back to late 2011, says spokesman Brian Steele. At just under four years, that would be about twice as long as the recent rehab of the Red Line’s Jackson station, and about the same duration as the reconstruction of the Red Line’s Chicago stop, but Steele says those were much simpler jobs. “The Grand/State project is the most complex and challenging station reconstruction project the department has tackled in the last decade,” he explains.

The location, directly below the Grand/State intersection and flanked on all sides by the foundations of buildings like the Rock Bottom Brewery, complicated matters, and there have been unforeseen hassles. Old blueprints for the site didn’t show the location of some utility lines, last year striking construction workers delayed the project about a month, and several times during the last two winters, work has slowed or stopped because of harsh weather.

On the bright side, Steele says the job is still within budget and the station will feature a much bigger mezzanine; more turnstiles, escalators and elevators; a large indoor bicycle rack; and a bike ramp to make it easy to roll your ride from the street to the station.

A Brief Introduction to Bicycling in Chicago

2011-06-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

By John Greenfield
Photos by Don Sorsa, T.C. O'Rourke and John Greenfield

[This piece also ran in Momentum Magazine, http://momentumplanet.com/.]

Chicago is a chessboard, its vast, flat grid a playing field for pedalers who plot their moves across the plane.

Though situated beside ocean-like Lake Michigan, the town’s “Windy City” nickname refers to blustery politicians, not weather. Still, winters in this municipality of nearly 3 million (9.7 million metro) are often long and brutal. Despite this, or perhaps because of the camaraderie bred by the cold, a vibrant bike culture has emerged.

The metropolis of the Midwest has a long been a cycling Mecca. By the late 1800s it boasted 54 wheelman’s clubs with over 10,000 members. In 1897 Carter H. Harrison II rode the bicycle craze to the mayor’s office with the slogan “Not the Champion Cyclist; But the Cyclist’s Champion.”

By the next year about 2/3 of U.S. bikes were manufactured within a 150-mile radius of Chicago, making it the “bicycle-building capital of America.” Schwinn, founded here in 1895 by a German immigrant, dominated the domestic market for most of the 20th Century.

Mayor Richard J. Daley, father of the current mayor, brought Chicago cycling into the modern era, designating 34 miles of routes and expanding the Lakefront Trail, which now stretches 18.5 miles along the waterfront. In 1972, the 70-year-old mayor inaugurated the city’s first bike lane on Clark Street, riding a tandem with Schwinn’s Keith Kingbay.

Advocates started the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation (www.biketraffic.org) in 1985 and soon found a powerful ally in Richard M. Daley, the current “mayor-for-life.” In 1992 his Mayor’s Bike Advisory Council released the Bike 2000 Plan, a small document that has had a big impact.

The City’s new Bicycle Program, staffed largely by consultants from the bike federation and bankrolled by federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grants, pursued the goals mandated by the bike plan. Over the next 15 years they striped more than 100 miles of bike lanes, signed hundreds of miles of routes and installed over 10,000 parking racks, more than any other U.S. city [the author managed the parking program].

The bike program published the excellent Chicago Bicycle Map and Safe Cycling in Chicago booklet, distributed free at bike shops. Outreach specialists from Safe Routes to School, After School Matters and Mayor Daley’s Bicycling Ambassadors educated multitudes about how to get around on two wheels.

Bicycles gained access to Chicago Transit Authority elevated cars and Metra commuter trains, and carrying racks were added to all buses. In 2004 a $3 million cycle center, with indoor parking for 300 bikes, showers, lockers, repair services and more, was built as part of Daley’s new downtown showpiece, Millennium Park.

The Bike 2015 Plan, released in 2006, is a weightier tome than it’s predecessor with 150 strategies to improve cycling. Recently implemented ideas include the installation of 21 miles of “shared-lane markings” on streets too narrow for bike lanes; adding short stretches of solid-green lanes at problem intersections; and a program to train taxi drivers on sharing the road.

In March, as recommended by the new plan, City Council approved Mayor Daley’s proposal to fine drivers $150 for fouls against bicyclists; $500 if the driver’s action results in a crash. The new ordinance covers five dangerous moves: opening a door on a cyclist; parking or driving in a bike lane; passing within three feet of a bike; and turning left or right into the path of a cyclist, AKA the “left hook” and “right hook.”

On a trip to Paris, Daley was impressed by the Velib automated bike rental service, credited with doubling ridership overnight. Chicago is currently negotiating with JCDecaux to bring the system to the city’s central business district, the Loop. Although the contract would provide 1,000 bikes rather than Paris’ 20,000, the rental service would be among the first in North America.

Daley is also considering Sunday Parkways, a Latin American-style ciclovía in which a network of streets would be closed to driving and opened to bicycling and other forms of non-motorized play. The bike federation has raised much of the $400,000 needed to run three to five trials on a 7.5-mile route along the city’s historic boulevard system, mostly through low-income areas. Churches and neighborhood groups have embraced the proposal as a way to promote fitness in their communities. Pending final approval from the Mayor’s Office it’s likely to kick off this summer.

Recently, the City agreed to convert the Bloomingdale Line, a 3-mile long abandoned elevated railway on the Northwest Side, into an above-ground “linear park.” The project, championed by Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail (www.bloomingdaletrail.org) requires rebuilding several viaducts and will take years to complete, but the rugged rail bed is already a favorite with “urban assault” riders.

Aside from the bike federation and the bike program, a number of grassroots organizations push pedaling in Chicago. Bike Winter (http://www.bikewinter.org/) promotes all-season cycling with how-to workshops; a Winter Bike to Work Day breakfast; a bicycle-themed art show; spontaneous Snow Rides and more.

Other groups focus on particular demographics. Cycling Sisters (http://www.cyclingsisters.org/) strives to narrow the gender gap among local cyclists with women-only repair classes, recreational rides and get-togethers.

The Major Taylor Bike Society (www.chicagomajortaylor.org), named for the Black racing legend, raises awareness of bike issues and events in Chicago’s South Side and African-American communities.

Chicago Cruisers is a family-oriented club from Humboldt Park, the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood. Dozens of members on classic Schwinns and low-rider bikes ride in procession each Sunday to a soundtrack of merengue and salsa.

Community bicycle centers are spread across the city. West Town Bikes (http://www.westtownbikes.org/) in Humboldt Park runs earn-a-bike programs and safe cycling classes for at-risk youth. Adults can attend Tinker Town Tuesday open shop nights and mechanics classes like Build Your Own Bike.

Blackstone Bicycle Works (www.experimentalstation.org/blackstone), located in the South Side’s Woodlawn community, operates from a multi-use space that houses several environmental and artistic endeavors. The shop runs maintenance classes for neighborhood kids and offers used bikes, accessories and repairs at a discount to low-income residents.

Volunteers from Working Bikes Cooperative (http://www.workingbikes.org/) salvage old cycles from basements and scrap yards and refurbish them in a jam-packed West Side warehouse. They sell the road bikes and cruisers at a nearby storefront; proceeds are used to ship containers of mountain bikes, spare parts and other items to sister organizations in Africa and Latin America.

Chicagoans are also served by a variety of for-profit shops; the Chicago Bike Shop Database (http://www.chicagobikeshops.info/) is a detailed directory. Commuters should check out Uptown Bikes; Boulevard Bikes (http://www.boulevardbikeshop.com/) in Logan Square; and Wicker Park’s Rapid Transit (http://www.rapidtransitcycles/), which specializes in city bikes, folders, recumbents and trailers.

Track enthusiasts will want to visit Yojimbo’s Garage (yojimbosgarage.com), located in a former church near the Cabrini Green housing project. Proprietor Marcus Moore is the go-to mechanic for messengers and the fashionable fixed-gear set. Yojimbo’s is also home to XXX Racing (http://www.racing.org/), a team founded by couriers that now has over 100 members from all walks of life.

Hyde Park’s Tati Cycles (http://www.taticycles.com/) is another unique shop that will appeal to fixie fans. Crammed into a tiny basement, the store has an old-fashioned aesthetic favoring lugged steel frames, lacquered bar tape, leather saddles and wool clothing. Owner Jay Han serves tea daily at 3 pm and loves to chat about cycling history.

Currently, Bike Chicago (http://www.bikechicago.com/) is the most convenient outlet for rentals, available year-round at Millennium Park’s unfortunately-named McDonald’s Cycle Center and at several lakefront locations during summer months.

Visitors who want to meet some of Chicago’s 300-plus bike couriers can go to the cylindrical Jim Thompson Center, nicknamed the “Tom Tom,” 100 W. Randolph St., where messengers standby. After work they can be found at Cal’s Liquors (http://www.drinkatcalsbar.com/), a South Loop dive that stages punk shows.

Wicker Park’s Handlebar (http://www.handlebarchicago.com/) hosts Messengers Mondays with drink specials and free fries for couriers. Riders from the Critical Mass bike parade opened this mostly-vegetarian bar and grill with bike racks in the beer garden and barstools made of old rims and inner tubes.

Until recently messenger-style “alleycat” races were common, but following the death of a rider during the Tour da Chicago series in March there seems to be a moratorium. Members of the Chicago Couriers Union are bringing this year’s North American Cycle Courier Championships (www.chicagonaccc.com) to town as a sanctioned, closed-course event in Garfield Park on Labor Day Weekend.

Out-of-towners will definitely want to take a spin on the Lakefront Trail for breathtaking views of the lake and skyline. In summer the path gets congested and hectic on the North Side, so it’s best to pedal south from the Loop for a serene or speedy ride.

Almost as scenic is the North Branch Trail which traces the Chicago River for 18 miles from the Northwest Side through suburban forest preserves, ending at the Chicago Botanic Garden. After completing the round trip it’s de rigueur to dine across the street from the trailhead at Superdawg, a 1948 drive-in topped by winking fiberglass wieners.

As for large group rides, Chicago’s huge, friendly Critical Mass (http://www.criticalmass.org/) is a must. The parade assembles on the last Friday of every month under the giant Picasso sculpture in (of course) Daley Plaza, drawing up to 4,000 participants in the summer.

There was a minor debacle last fall in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Daley Plaza rides. A few long-time massers decided that Critical Mass had gotten too big for its britches and issued a press release deadpanning that the September ride would be the “Grand Finale.” The Chicago Sun Times reported this as fact.

Needless to say, the ride is still going strong but a byproduct of the Grand Finale fiasco was the rise of small, community bike parades. Most of these “mini masses” take place on the first Friday of the month, in Wicker Park, Pilsen, Hyde Park and the suburbs of Evanston and Oak Park.

Apparently the bike federation was inspired by Critical Mass’ frequent forays onto Lake Shore Drive, the 8-lane expressway which separates the city from its beaches, as well as the visionary “Depave LSD” campaign (http://www.foreverfreeandclear.org/). A few years ago the federation launched Bike the Drive (http://www.bikethedrive.org/) an annual event where 15 miles of the superhighway are closed to motor traffic, drawing 20,000-plus cyclists. The result - fresh air, tranquility and a lakefront filled with people rather than steel boxes - offers a preview of what Chicago could be like in the future with less cars and more bikes.

ALEX WILSON

Alex Wilson, an early booster of Chicago Critical Mass, edited the CM zine The Derailleur and made thousands of t-shirts, flags, stickers and other schwag items to distribute free at the ride. He now runs West Town Bikes.

Why is Chicago a great city for biking?

Chicago is poised to become the most bike-friendly, major North America city in terms of utilitarian transportation. It’s easy to ride here because the city’s flat and it’s on a grid. There’s a pretty supportive city government and a very supportive bike community. My own opportunities to improve biking make Chicago a great city for me.

What are the challenges of riding a bike in Chicago?

The biggest problem is there’s too many cars – they’re a huge threat. When people drive inconsiderately they endanger the health and well-being of cyclists and pedestrians. I think most motorists don’t really understand this.

How would you improve cycling here?

If I could wave a magic wand and change things I would get people out of their cars and onto bikes. When you take cars out of the equation things are so much more civilized. Bicycling or walking is friendly and non-threatening and you’re able to take in your environment.

What rides would you recommend to visitors?

They should definitely go on Critical Mass - that’s a fantastic, fun time and you’ll usually get a great tour of the city. For recreational rides after work or on weekends you could meet up with the Chicago Cycling Club (http://www.chicagocyclingclub.org/). If you want a more adventurous experience, the Midnight Marauders (www.sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/midnight_marauders) do kind of an urban mountain biking ride. Whatever your niche of riding is, you can find it in Chicago.

“CHOPPER” CARL HARRIS

“Chopper” Carl Harris is a bicycle courier and church organist. As his nickname suggests, he “chops” his own freak bikes and rolls with the Rat Patrol bike gang (www.geocities.com/ratpatrolhq). He’s also a Critical Mass regular, towing a sound system blasting R & B and funk.

How did you get involved in bicycling?

I always rode bikes but when met other people who love bikes the way I do, that made me more energetic. I found out when I was younger that you can use a bike to leave your neighborhood and see new things, so bikes were like my automobile.

What’s the hardest thing about riding a bike in Chicago?

The motorists, for one thing, and certain neighborhoods. The motorists, they’re in a bigger vehicle, they go faster and they think that you’re in their way. The neighborhoods you go in, depending on your ethnicity, people are gonna pick on you, bother you, whatever. Knock on wood, I haven’t had any problems.

What would you do improve biking here?

I would build more greenways that connect to each other. All the abandoned railroad lines go downtown, so it would be nice if we could build some more bike paths on them.

What bike rides or hangouts would you recommend to out-of-towners?

It depends on your style of biking. I like to ride on the lakefront – it’s peaceful and quiet. If you’re a messenger I would go to the Tom Tom. If you’re a commuter or bike activist, go to West Town. If you’re into freak bikes, the Rat Patrol is hard to track down ‘cause they don’t do nothin’ on time.

CHICAGO CYCLING LINKS:

http://www.biketraffic.org/
Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s site featuring news on local bike issues and events plus links to cycling resources.

http://www.chicagobikes.org/
Info about the City of Chicago’s bike initiatives and the interactive Chicago Bike Map.

http://www.bikewinter.org/
Tips on riding in challenging weather and an events calendar loaded with fun all-season bike events.

http://www.cyclingsisters.org/
Practical ideas for female riders and an on-line forum that discusses ways to get more women on bikes.

http://www.askmrbike.com/
An advice column by Chicago’s Dave “Mr. Bike” Glowacz, author of the commuter’s bible: Urban Bikers’ Tips and Tricks.

http://www.chicagocuttincrew.com/
A shadowy cabal of messenger-racers holds court on the local and national alleycat, cyclocross, road and track scenes.

http://www.chicagofreakbike.org/
Documents strange human-powered vehicles on the streets of Chicago: choppers, tallbikes, cargo bikes and weirder creations.

Pulaski Daze: Walking Chicago's Pulaski Road

2011-06-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

By John Greenfield

[This piece also runs at Gapers block, www.gapersblock.com.]

When I was choosing the next roadway to tackle as part of my project to walk the lengths of all of Chicago’s major thoroughfares, Pulaski Road sprang to mind as one the city’s iconic streets. So far I’d hiked Milwaukee, Western, Halsted, Archer, Grand, 63rd, Kedzie, Belmont, 79th, King and Lawrence, discovering a wealth of tasty eats, historic sights and friendly folks.

Named after Casimir S. Pulaski, the Polish-American hero of the Revolutionary War, known as “the father of the American Calvary,” Pulaski Road stretches 21.7 miles across this city, said to have more Poles than any town but Warsaw. But the street was originally named Crawford Avenue for early Chicago pioneer Peter Crawford, and the name change created a controversy that lasted almost two decades.

In 1933 Mayor Ed Kelly, wishing to gain favor with the city’s largest ethnic voting block, agreed to a request from a Polish group to honor their countryman, and the City Council approved the change. But Crawford’s descendents objected, and businesses along Crawford didn’t want to have to change their addresses on signage and advertising. Legal battles continued for years, Pulaski Road signs were frequently stolen, and a streetcar conductor who announced a stop as Crawford was punched out by a Polish passenger. After much back and forth, the Illinois Supreme Court decided the case for once and for all in 1952 and the name Pulaski has stuck ever since.

After deciding to observe my own private Pulaski Day, I wake up early on a bitter cold Wednesday morning in early January and catch a couple of CTA buses from Logan Square to 115th and Springfield, a block east of Pulaski. My friend Kristen Ostberg, a fellow freelancer who writes the Bridgeport blog the Hardscrabbler (thehardscrabbler.blogspot.com), is joining me for the walk and we’re meeting for breakfast at George’s Diner, 11750 S. Pulaski in suburban Alsip. As I head south on Springfield into Alsip there are small houses but no sidewalk - it feels like I’m in a small town.

Kristin’s waiting for me at the diner, a small Wild West-style building, and there’s a free amuse-bouche of mini doughnuts sitting on the table. It’s just after New Year’s and the place is still packed with tinsel and Santa cutouts, plus numerous baskets of multicolored silk flowers. On the way to the restroom there’s a shelf filled with ceramic and soft sculpture chickens; a sign above it featuring three hens says, “STUFFED WITH GRATITUDE.”

Stuffed with my Caribbean omelet (tomato, mozzarella, avocado and fake crab) I begin my march north with Kristen. At 116th we see looks like an abandoned drive-in with cool old signs for “char-co burgers” and root beer. An Internet search shows this is the Frosty Mug Drive In, which was once featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” but the main sign is missing. Hopefully it’s just closed for the season.

So far, Pulaski is a busy four-lane. At 115th we enter the city’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood and come to the Chicago Agricultural High School, located on 72 acres where the city’s last traditional farm once stood. The school teaches agricultural skills to city kids and includes a functioning farm and golf course. We walk across the frozen, furrowed fields and visit a livestock pen next to the school building with horses, sheep, cattle and goats.

At 111th, Ranch Manor shopping center flies the U.S., Illinois and Irish flags and there’s a sign for Quigley’s Irish Pub featuring a fiddle and a pint of Guiness. North of here there are modest homes with sloping, lopsided saltbox roofs, and soon we start seeing banners for St. Xavier University.

A postwar apartment building at 10216 S. features a huge, Piet Modrian-inspired abstract design in terra cotta brick on its side. At 99th we temporarily leave the city – we’ll be walking past Evergreen Park, Oak Lawn and Hometown for 1.5 miles.

We’re surprised to see Wojo’s, 9851 S., a fast food joint advertising “bison dogs from Wrigley Field,” turkey, ostrich and elk burgers. Ken Wojcicki, who’s owned the place for 30 years, tells us he started serving exotic proteins during the Atkins craze. “These meats are lower in fat and cholesterol than beef or chicken,” he says. “Bodybuilders love the ostrich – it’s all protein.” He asks if we know why Wrigley Field serves bison dogs. “This is not a joke,” he says. “It’s because Mr. Rickets owns a buffalo farm.”

We pass the Shibui condo complex, 9720 S., which has Japanese-looking wooden pavilions, then come to Trinity Evangelical Covenant Church at 93rd, which looks a bit like an Alpine lodge. After walking by St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery at 91st, we arrive at the Hometown Veterans Memorial, a small circular plaza with artillery guns ringed with flag. A box of TNT Pop-Its noisemakers lies on the ground nearby.

Crossing 87th back into the city we come to Rosario’s Sausage, 8611 S., in business since the ‘50s. The shop is notorious for its neon sign, featuring pigs happily jumping into a meat grinder and coming out the other side as encased meat links, spelling out the word “sausage.” The store also sells a nice selection of Italian groceries, plus Chicago-made Tom Tom Tamales. I laugh at the vintage cartoon on the tamale wrappers, with a little girl begging a boy, “Oh, give me a bite.”

At 81st Pulaski is bigger than ever with four travel lanes and continuous turn lanes. A fire station at 78th has its flags at half-mast in honor of Edward Stringer and Corey Ankum, two firefighters who recently died battling a blaze in a South Shore warehouse when the roof collapsed. At 76th we come to the bleak campus of Richard J. Daley College, which seems difficult to access unless you park your car on the south side of the street and take a skyway to the classroom buildings on the north side.

At 74th we pass by an Army Reserve center with trailers parked outside, ominously labeled “Hazmat Recon.” The road rises to clear some railroad tracks and a young man on a BMX bike speeds down the hill on the sidewalk towards us. The weather has grown gray and murky but we get a ghostly view of the Loop from the summit. To our left is the sinister-looking industrial complex of Grace Davidson, 4099 W. 71st, a chemical company with the slogan, “Enriching lives, everywhere.”

Richard Tan, a foodie with a seemingly photographic memory who joined my on my Kedzie walk, sent me a long list of recommended eats along Pulaski. This included the torta ahogada, a “drowned sandwich” that’s a specialty of Guadalajara, Mexico, and a popular snack at soccer stadiums. So when Kristen and I see them advertised at La Picosas, 6430 S., we stop for lunch. I get a jolt of happiness when the sandwiches arrive, shredded pork and pickled onions on a bolillo roll, drenched in devil-red chili de arbol sauce, delicious but so spicy I can barely finish mine.

Afterwards we stop at Andy’s Bowling Pro Shop. 6358 S., selling balls emblazoned with Chicago sports teams and Harley logos. A clear ball with a skull inside seems inspired by Jeanine Garofalo’s superheroine the Bowler from the 1999 flick “Mystery Men.” An old man wearing a “Black Bowling Association” jacket is buying a ball for his grandson as a birthday present.

At 63rd the legendary Eyecare Indian greets us, and Pulaski is a six-lane road. We soon pass by a real estate office wear a woman is hanging signs on the window for bungalows for sale as low as $30,000. “This is probably the foreclosure belt,” says Kirsten. Sure enough, we soon encounter several more offices shilling cheap homes. At 55th, Mi Casa Real Estate has a big LCD sign reading, “Interest rates are at an all-time low. Don’t pass up this opportunity.”

El Portero Western Wear, 5312 S., sells alligator boots with fake eyes, making your foot look like the head of the gator. Boots made of stingray skin are for sale for $500.

We’re in the largely Mexican- and Polish-American West Elsdon neighborhood, and at Archer, 5100 S., we pass Marie Sklodowska Curie High, named for the Polish-French scientist who discovered the elements radium and polonium, named for her homeland.

Korona Lounge, 4710 S., has signs posted on the window, covering recently inflicted scratches and congratulating the vandal: “Certificate of Upgrade to Complete Asshole – just be yourself.” When we sit down at the bar, a drunk old man leaves the gambling machine to yell at me for taking his seat, but the attractive Polish barmaid scolds him, pointing out he left his jacket on a different stool.

At the corner of the bar a bunch of blue-collar guys in flannel and baseball caps are discussing snowmobiling and a recent proposal to privatize the Taste of Chicago. I tell them about our project and ask Rich Szkarlat to characterize Pulaski Road for me. “It’s an awesome north-south throughway,” he says. “From 59th to 43rd, the last residential stretch, it’s peaceful but once you get closer to 26th, watch out for the gangbangers.”

As we continue, the ped-friendly retail is replaced with strip malls and big box stores after 43rd, and soon we’re crossing the Stevenson and approaching red brick Crawford Station, a coal-fired power plant, which environmental activists are trying to shut down. We walk several blocks past industrial areas and vacant lots until Pulaski becomes residential again at 31st with a series of modest brick “one-flats” that seem to have garden apartments below. We’ve entered largely-Mexican Little Village, and most of the businesses have signs in Spanish.

It’s getting dark, and we decide to stop walking for the day at the Pink Line, a few blocks north. First we walk a couple blocks west on 26th to check out businesses on Chicago’s busiest neighborhood retail strip. We hit up Delicias Mexicanas, 4148 W. 26th, for a Acapulco-style hotdog con tocino (“with bacon”), wrapped in the smoked meat and topped with grilled onions, stewed and roasted jalapenos, mustard, mayo and – gasp! – ketchup. Very tasty.

Continuing north on Pulaski we cross under Metra tracks at 23rd, after which we’re in Lawndale and the neighborhood changes abruptly from predominantly Mexican to African-American. The Goodie Shop, 2100 S., sells custom-printed t-shirts and other hip-hop gear. Owner Willie Porter, who runs the shop with his son Willie II, tells us the space used to be a bar called the Texas Lady, popular with transplants from the South. “When I first opened here it was really rough,” he says. “Guys would be sitting in chairs in front of my store and challenge me, but I got to know them and now we get along fine.”

The recently rehabbed Pulaski Pink Line station has futuristic stainless-steel canopies above the platform and mosaic-ed quote from Muhammad Ali downstairs: “The man who has no imagination has no wings.”

Kristen and I meet back at the station the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. to resume our walk as flurries flutter in the air. At 1859 S. we come to a series of brightly-colored murals by students from the city’s after School Matters program showing families from the community with encouraging slogans like “Building Wisdom,” “Love Your Neighborhood” and “An Hour a Day [of helping your child with her homework] Keeps the Streets Away.”

We stop at the New Original Pine Valley Family Restaurant, 1600 S., a lunch counter with images of King, Obama and the Clintons on the walls, for cups of coffee and a slice of sweet potato pie. Grillman James Johnson, 61, tells us the restaurant has been here 57 years and has served musicians from funk bass pioneer Larry Graham to R. Kelly.

Johnson moved here from near Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1963, initially working as a paperboy. He lived down the street from King when the reverend moved into an apartment at 15th and Homan to call attention to conditions in northern slums. “He was like the new guy on the block,” Johnson recalls. “Quiet and laid back.”

Continuing, we come to an abandoned luncheonette at 1442 S. with signs advertising catfish and raccoon. Really? The Chicago West Side Christian School, 1241 S., has a mosaic featuring Billy Holiday, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman and Barack Obama, and images of youth dodging drugs and violence to get their diplomas and move towards careers.

Richard Tan recommended Mary’s Bar B Q, 606 S., with the motto “Where the sauce is boss and every bone is well worth eating,” as being the most atmosphere BBQ shack in town, but it’s not open yet. We cross over the Ike and Blue Line into Garfield Park. The Mirador, a castle-like building at Jackson, is boarded up, and there’s a cool old sign at a shuttered restaurant called “The Place to Eat,” 140 S.

There’s a bustling shopping district along Madison that’s home to many stores selling hip hop fashions. When we stop to check out some colorful old row houses east of Pulaski on Ontario Street, a car pulls up and the driver is curious about what we’re up to. He says he grew up around here and went to the army, then got into the construction business. He says his wife doesn’t like him coming around to the old neighborhood. “It’s gotten pretty bad here, but the young men know me,” he says. “A lot of these kids, their mom is out drinking and smoking crack, but I was blessed – I had a father and a mother.”

Orr High, 800 N., has a big, colorful mural titled “Urban World at the Crossroads” on the side of the gym. The work features images of hands typing at a keyboard, playing chess, gardening and other performing other constructive activities.

We duck into the 939 Club, 939 N., intrigued by a sign that says, “No gym shoes, no Timberlands, no white Ts, no sagging pants.” Inside there’s a big, horseshoe-shaped bar, the walls are paneled with mirrors, and a photo of a man in a white, furry pimp outfit hangs above the bar. It’s Dwayne “Doc” Anderson, the owners’ son. He tells us the club has been open for 40 years and has hosted celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Crucial Conflict and Bishop Don “Magic” Juan, and that part of the film “Dr. Detroit,” was filmed here. “So you like walking Pulaski?” Anderson says, “After you cross Division Street you’re going have to run.”

The neighborhood does change after a few blocks, and Spanish signs appear again. We stop into El Sitio, 1253 N., one of the city’s few Dominican Republic-style restaurants. “We opened right after Sammy Sosa left town,” says owner Peter Jimenez, holding his young daughter Ana. He says on weekends the place turns into a nightclub with merengue, bachata and reggaeton music. Paco Arez, the cook, offers us a sample of Bandera (“flag”), the national dish of stewed chicken with beans and rice. When I ask about a typical Dominican drink, Arez pours us shots of Brugal Rum.

Continuing north we duck into Jimmy’s Red Hots, 4000 W. Grand (1400 N.), with an elegantly simple menu of red hots, Polish sausage, fries and Supreme tamales. An old sign on the wall shows a bottle of ketchup in a circle with a line through it reading, “No ketchup, never ever. Don’t even think about it.” I pick up one of the calorie-dense Chicago-made tamales to eat as we stroll.

Mosaicos Jaliscos, 1513 N. Pulaski, sells the colorful decorative tiles you often see at Mexican restaurants. Photos of Zapatistas and mariachis hang on the walls. The old Pioneer Trust Savings Banks building, 4000 W. North, features bold bas-relief images of miners, construction crews and steel workers. There's a nice mural under the viaduct at 1800 N., including the image of a beautiful female guitarist.

North of Fullerton is a building supply district, including Green Depot, 2500 N., “Your source for environmentally friendly living and building. The mural outside of El Cubanito, 2555 N., features a young man staring at the ample backside of a lady who’s eating one of the shop’s signature Cuban sandwiches. “Mmm… Que rico!” (“How rich!”) he says, licking his lips.

At Diversey we come to the former site of the Olson Waterfall and Park, at the northwest corner of the intersection. The owner of the Olson Rug Company opened the 22-acre green space next to his mill in 1935. With its 35-foot waterfall, modeled after one in the U.P., duck pond, flowers, teepees and statue of a Native chief, it was a picnic hotspot. But after Marshal Field bought the factory, in 1978 they paved this paradise to put up a parking lot. Macy’s now owns the building.

We stop to warm up at the Belford Tavern, 3200 N., the name an amalgamation of its former cross streets, Belmont and Crawford. Nowadays it’s a liquor store / taproom, but the bartender, a Greek immigrant, brings out a yellowed menu from the 1940s, back when a steak was fifty cents. “That guy used to fight in the Greek resistance,” jokes Ed Gale, a veteran of the Marines sitting to my right. An Anglo, he says used to run with Puerto Rican gangs when attended nearby Schurz High and got kicked out for fighting. “My old man said, ‘If you ain’t gonna go to school you’re gonna go to work,’” Gale tells me. “I got sick of stirring mortar so I joined the service.”

Continuing up Pulaski, we stop at La Humita, 3466 N., another Richard Tan-recommended eatery that serves Ecuadorian food in a slightly upscale setting, and we pick up the restaurant’s eponymous specialty, yet another style of tamale, incorporating cheese and whole corn kernels. The sign outside is shaped like a giant ear of corn.

I want to give Kristen a quick look inside La Villa, 3638 N., an old-school Italian place with some of the best deep-dish pizza in town. When the extremely friendly, Sicilian-born owner Christina Petrancosta hears what we’re up to she insists on giving us a full tour of the place including the giant kitchen where cooks are shaping ground beef into massive meatballs. Petrancosta invites us to come back on Friday for a free dinner with longtime customers to watch a new “Check Please” episode featuring the restaurant.

We’re in the Old Irving Park community and we detour west on Grace Street, 3800 N., to check out some of the neighborhood’s famous Victorian architecture. We pass under a Metra viaduct with a colorful mural of neighbors raking leaves, barbecuing and shoveling snow with the legend, “A country home within 15 miles of the city.”

The intersection of Pulaski and Elston, 4300 N., is home to a number of North African businesses. We stop into Pomera, an Algerian bakery at 4304 N., to sample chabakia, a cookie that is fried in olive oil and dipped in honey and sesame seeds, traditionally served during Ramadan. Nearby Tassili, 4342 N. Elston, a restaurant named after a Saharan mountain range, is known for its tagines - slow-cooked Moroccan stews.

Tres Américas Books, 4336, is Mecca for Chicago’s Latino intelligentsia, a cozy, Barbara’s Bookstore-like space with hundreds of volumes of fiction and poetry in Spanish, plus all kinds of other books, from children’s literature to cookbooks to manuals like Sexo: La Mejor Guía de los Amantes.

Kristen needs to finish some writing that evening, so she begs off and backtracks to the Blue Line. I continue north towards multiethnic Lawrence Avenue – I notice the first sign in Korean sign at 4539 N. I duck into El Jeeb Grocery, 4805 N., a small store with a good selection of Middle Eastern staples: rice, chickpeas, spices, nuts and pickles. The freezer holds bags of okra, green fava beans and Jew’s mallow.

It’s been dark for a while now and snow-covered Gompers Park, 5100 N., honoring American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers, looks ghostly under lamplight.

I cross the north branch of the Chicago River and head past the castle-like gateway of Bohemian National Cemetery, located between Bryn Mawr and Foster. The graveyard, founded by Czechs in 1877, holds many of the victims of the Eastland disaster as well as assassinated Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who took a bullet for FDR in Miami in 1933.

In 2009 the cemetery added a monument for Cubs fans. It’s a brick wall, a replica of the ivy-covered wall at Wrigley, with niches for 288 urns of funereal ashes, featuring a stained glass image of the scoreboard. Stadium seats and a bench from the team’s bullpen are installed nearby. Says Dennis Mascari, who spearheaded the project, “I've helped give die-hard Cubs fans a way to forever support their team.”

I trudge through four inches of snow past North Park Village Nature Center, 5801 N. Though it’s only three blocks long, the 46-acre center seems much larger. Its hiking trail is a great place to escape the city as it climbs a man-made hill, circles a pond and provides views of the tame deer that live in the preserve.

St. Odisho Church of the East, 6201 N., flies the Assyrian flag, representing an ethnic group from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey that traces its origins back to the early Fertile Crescent civilization. Across the street from the church is a small store which sells Assyrian-themed gifts, like ostrich eggs painted with the image of an ancient winged lion sculpture, reproductions of cuneiform tablets, statuettes and “Hug me I’m Assyrian” t-shirts.

After Devon, 6400 N., Pulaski becomes Crawford as it enters the suburb of Lincolnwood at the Bryn Mawr Country Club. Before heading home, exhausted but satisfied, I retreat to the Backyard Grill snack shop, 6355 N. to refuel with a pulled pork sandwich and thaw out my wet, frozen feet.

Wheel dreams: the Chicago Velo Campus proposal

2011-06-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Emanuele Bianchi

By John Greenfield

[A version of this piece also runs in New City magazine, www.newcity.com.]

Imagine yourself watching, or better yet competing in, a breakneck “Madison” team bicycle race on a gleaming indoor track at the Chicago Velo Campus sports district. It’s a freezing winter night outside but sweat pours off the chiseled, Lycra-clad riders as they whiz by on sleek fixed-gear bikes and the crowd goes wild.

Emanuele Bianchi, businessman, racer and president of the low-profit limited liability corporation Chicago Velo Campus L3C, is working hard to make this vision a reality. The sports district would include a stadium nearly as large as the United Center housing the velodrome (bike racing arena) and many other sports facilities, plus outdoor BMX, mountain bike and cyclocross tracks, at an estimated total cost of $40 - 45 million.

Bianchi, no relation to the Bianchi bicycle company, and his partners want to build the velo campus on the former site of U. S. Steel’s South Works mill, a hump of land on the lakefront between 79th and 92nd. They hope it will be the centerpiece of Lakeside, an ambitious new 500-acre community proposed for the site by real estate developer McCaffrey Interests in partnership with the steel company, which still owns the land.

Our goal isn`t just to build the best velodrome in the Midwest or in the country but in the world,” says Bianchi an energetic, bright-eyed man, over cappuccino at a Michigan Avenue café. In addition to the 250-meter velodrome, the stadium would boast a dazzling array of amenities including an Olympic-sized swimming pool, 400-meter running track, fitness center, restaurants, a cycling museum, and even a wind tunnel. The L3C has announced that the campus will be completed in 2013, and this Daniel Burnham-esque plan seems to have the magic to stir cyclists’ blood: the Chicago Velo Campus has over 1,800 followers on Facebook.

Before you get too excited about the velodrome, visualize another circular structure. The 76-foot-deep hole in Streeterville where the 2,000-foot-tall Chicago Spire skyscraper was supposed to stand is a sobering reminder of the challenges facing bold development schemes in this dismal real estate market.

Bianchi and his colleagues haven’t secured the location yet and they’ve only lined up a fraction of the money. And, since they plan on funding ongoing operation of the sports district through user fees, they’re betting on an influx of some 20,000 affluent new residents to the low-income Southeast Side via Lakeside, which became much less likely after the real estate crash. These X factors mean that a 2013 opening for the Chicago Velo Campus is about as certain as the Cubs winning the World Series.

But can Bianchi beat the odds and emerge victorious? While local cyclists are stoked about the possibility of a top-notch, year-round velodrome complex, some key figures in the racing community have expressed serious doubts, although most wouldn’t go on record saying so. “This would be the cherry on the top of an already vibrant racing scene here in Chicago,” says Stacy Appelwick, a national-level competitor who trains outdoors at Northbrook’s Ed Rudolph Velodrome, the region’s only track. "But I'd be extremely surprised to see this actually built.”

"Frankly, many of the world experts in track racing say, ‘Man, that thing sounds to good to be true,’” admits Bianchi, “They say, ‘Is anybody there really doing anything to make this happen?’ But our architect, RTKL Associates, has six people working on this.”

Chicago has a rich bike racing heritage - at the turn of the 20th Century events at eight velodromes from Humboldt Park to Pullman drew thousands of spectators - and Bianchi is keen to accelerate the current track revival. He emigrated here from Italy in 2006 to run his company PetEgo LLC, which produces “luxury, stylish Italian goods” for cats and dogs. A Category 4 (advanced beginner) track racer, in 2010 he directed the junior development program at the large local team XXX Racing.

Bianchi got the idea for the velo campus after reading books about coaching young racers. “They all said your juniors need to train for a number of hours on a fixed-gear bike on a track,” he says. “They can’t coast, so this forces them to develop a good cadence.” He says he loves the Northbrook velodrome but it’s no good for serious training and competition because it’s longer than the regulation 250 meters and its banking is too relaxed. “It was originally designed for roller skating because one of Ed Rudolph’s kids was a speed skater,” he says. “It has 14-degree banking. You need 42-degree banking on the turns – otherwise your bike would come out from under you at 50 miles-per-hour.”

While there are dozens of regulation-size indoor bike arenas in Europe and eight in Australia alone, there’s only one in the United States, the Home Depot Center Velodrome in Los Angeles. Built for the 1984 Olympics at a cost of $15 million, it has few amenities and no indoor bathrooms. Bianchi was inspired fill this void with a world-class facility that would allow racers to keep training through the long Chicago winter.

He registered Chicago Velo Campus as an L3C in early 2010, assembling an impressive team of business, planning and racing experts like Christos Komissopoulous, principal of Aspire Capital; Michael Quintos, president of DigitalAdAgency.com; Nik Rokop, Managing Director of the Jules F. Knapp Entrepreneurship Center at IIT; and John Vande Velde, an Olympic racer and creator of the Vandedrome, a portable cycling track.

Bianchi and his colleagues spent twelve months researching existing velodromes on four continents and began fundraising. As for the location, the LLC considered centrally-located Northerly Island, but decided that building on public parkland near the Loop would be too costly and complicated. “Obviously, having a central, downtown location would be ideal but it triples the price,” says Quintos, who’s handling PR for the effort. “And organizing public meetings for community input is suicidal. Everyone has an opinion. Once you obtain the rights to private land it’s yours – you build.”

Although most Chicagoland racers live on the North Side or in the northern suburbs, Bianchi doesn’t think the South Works location would be a problem. “When we ask out biker friends if they’d come down they say, ‘Are you kidding? The best Velodrome in the world? I’d bike down from Wrigleyville [about 18 miles] to get there.’”

The L3C is currently in talks with U.S. Steel, and Bianchi says it’s very likely within a few weeks the steel company will commit to donating land for the sports district, as well as leasing land for interim facilities that would open this year, although there’s nothing in writing yet.

Asked why U.S. Steel would give away this potentially valuable real estate, Bianchi points to Lakeside. The current proposal calls for extending Lake Shore Drive to the site and zoning for 13,575 housing units, 17,500,000 square feet of retail, 125 acres of green space, a new high school and a 1,500 boat marina. The developers project that construction on the first phase of the development, a 76-acre parcel at the northwest corner of the South Works site called Market Common, will start in 2012.

"If you create an exceptional sports district that generates international attention, your site becomes an attractive location for Walmart or Target or any retailer, “ Bianchi says. “Without the velo campus it would be a lot harder to convince people to buy houses in what would otherwise be just another development.”

The interim facilities would include the Lakeside Veloworks, a community bicycle shop offering repair, maintenance and bike safety classes for at-risk youth. A preliminary map on the velo campus’ Facebook page locates the shop near 87th and Burley, one block from a Metra station. There would also be a temporary, outdoor velodrome, and a dirt track built around a ½-mile-long, four-story-high wall formerly used for storing iron ore at the steel mill. “The interim facilities will help get the community involved and get people interested in the sport of track racing,” says Quintos.

Bianchi says Southeast Siders are already jazzed about the possibility of the sports district. “[10th Ward alderman] John Pope brought together all the community leaders for our presentation and the best question was, ‘Where do we sign up? Let’s get this done as fast as possible.’” Pope and 7th Ward alderman Sandi Jackson, who share jurisdiction over the South Works site, have both written letters of support for the project. “I am immensely excited about the engagement of area children at a nominal cost and the job creation component for the community,” Jackson writes.

Not surprisingly, various wings of local bike advocacy have also endorsed the velo campus. "A facility like this would be a nice complement to the bicycling infrastructure and programs the City has put in place over the last 20 years, and another example of Chicago's status as a bike-friendly city," says Brian Steele, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation.

"The Chicago Velo Campus will be a wonderful boost for bicycling,” Ron Burke, director of Active Transportation Alliance, a nonprofit which advocates for walking, biking and transit. “It raises the profile not only of the racing community, but the entire local biking community. We’re excited their approach includes opportunities for youth with a bicycle education center similar to West Town Bikes, the Recyclery and Blackstone Bicycle Works.”

Tyjuan Edwards, who teaches at Blackstone, located a few miles up the lakefront from the South Works site in Woodlawn, says the velo campus would make an excellent fieldtrip destination for his students. “It would be a great place to go with the kids on Saturdays, especially during the winter,” he says. “Maybe we could form a racing team. We really need to give kids something to do because we don’t have a lot of that on the South Side.”

Val Brostrom, a Category 1 (advanced) track racer who co-directs Northbrook’s Thursday night summer race series, says she’s thrilled about the possibility of being able to train year-round. “A world-class facility such as the Chicago Velo Campus could bring international racing to our backyard,” she says. “The prospect of having the U.S. national team train here as well as having World Cups or even the World Championships would do wonders for the sport as a whole.”

One feature that could draw interest from around the world is the wind tunnel, used for developing aerodynamic bike components and helping competitors find the perfect riding posture for slicing through the air. “Professional racers go to a wind tunnel and get fitted to their bikes and then they have to fly somewhere else to test the fit on the track, which is more like reality,” Bianchi says. “We would be the first to build a wind tunnel inside a velodrome complex.” He expects the facility would get frequent use by SRAM, a Chicago-based component company, and Trek, located three hours away in Waterloo, WI.

Bianchi says another key audience for the velo campus would be the multisport crowd. "If you talk to other racers about triathletes they say, ‘They don’t have handling skills,’” he says. “But they’re cyclists and they swim and run, and I want them involved.” He says this growing, well-heeled demographic would be an important revenue stream for the sports district. “What if they had a velodrome where they could train, plus a swimming pool, a running track and a fitness center? It`s a dream for a triathlete.”

The Chicago Velo Campus project may have competition. In January Mayor Martin Moylan of Des Plaines announced a private developer wants to build a 250-meter indoor velodrome in his city at an estimated cost of $15 - $20 million.

But while Des Plaines proposal seems to be a recent development, the Chicago Velo Campus already has legs. On February 7 the L3C presented their plan at City Hall to representatives from a dozen departments, asking for a zoning change to the land where the interim facilities would be built, and the City has agreed to move forward with the request. Assuming U.S. Steele allows them to build on the land, Bianchi is confident Lakeside Veloworks, the outdoor velodrome and dirt track will be open in May.

But the question remains, where will the L3C get $45 million to build the sports district? That’s roughly 15 times the cost of the Millennium Park bike station, the city’s most expensive piece of cycling infrastructure. The Chicago Department of Transportation built the commuter hub, with parking for 300 bikes, showers and lockers, using federal and state money in 2004, before the economy tanked.

Since the city, state and federal governments are now deep in debt, the L3C realizes they will need to rely on grants from corporations and private donations. Bianchi says they’ve lined up pledges for about 30 percent of the construction costs. “None of the donors are talking yet,” he says. “The fact that the whole political world in Chicago is changing is a big deal, so we are holding back on fundraising until after the election.”

So will the velo campus be the next jewel in the city’s sports crown, or will it be the Chicago Spire of bicycling? Some of its supporters are cautiously optimistic.“Active Trans has a high level of confidence that Chicago Velo Campus will be built,” says Burke. “Their commitment, research and energy produced a great plan that can be flexible in some aspects by swapping elements in and out if their dream financial support doesn’t come through.”

"I was skeptical because there are probably a dozen proposed tracks in the U.S. and nothing seems to be happening on many of those projects,” says racer Val Brostrom. "Some have been in the works for years. But I think the Chicago Velo Campus has a good chance of being built. Emanuele Bianchi has assembled a great team of people who are working very hard to make everyone's dream a reality.”

"I don’t think the idea is bullshit, but it boils down to whether they’re going to be able to come up with the money,” says Lee Diamond, co-owner of Big Shoulders Realty and owner of Chicago Velo, a bike tour company. Bianchi approached him unsuccessfully to buy the chicagovelo.com web address. “There couldn’t be a worse time for development,” Diamond adds. “But it takes the guys with vision and the guts to fail, to succeed.”

Mayor Daley says as much in McCaffree Interests’ promotional video for Lakeside, the development that could make or break the Chicago Velo Campus. “You have to be able to dream,” says the mayor. “You don’t stop because of the economy. If you stop you fail.”

Just like in track racing.

Bianchi will give a presentation to cyclists about the Chicago Velo Campus at 11:45 am at the Chicago Cycle Swap organized by Active Transportation Alliance and Chicago Bike Winter, Saturday, February 26, 10 am to 6 pm at Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, 1419 W. Blackhawk. On June 2-3 Russian trumpet virtuoso Evgeniy Guryev will play benefit concerts in Chicago for the velodrome at the Shedd Aquarium.

A prime walk down 79th

2011-06-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

Chicago’s 79th Street offers tastes of the Black Diaspora

By John Greenfield

[This article also appears in Gapers Block, www.gapersblock.com.]

Over the years I’ve enjoyed strolling the entire length of major Chicago streets as a way to take in the scenery at a fraction of my usual bicycling speed. In fall of 1994 I walked Milwaukee Avenue, and a few years later I hiked Western, the city’s longest street at 23.5 miles. In recent years I’ve gotten back in the habit, strolling Halsted, Archer, Grand, 63rd, Kedzie and Belmont. The legwork pays off since I always discover good places to eat, interesting sights, cozy dive bars and friendly folks along the way.

Recently my bike buddy and sometime-Reader contributor Kristen Ostberg asked about joining me for the next excursion. After discussing the relative merits of 47th, King and Pulaski we settle on 79th, an east-west street with plenty of retail, running ten miles across the heart of Chicago’s South Side.

Early in the morning on a gorgeous summer day, I take the O’Hare Line downtown from my home in Logan Square, transfer to the Orange Line and ride to Midway, catch a Pace bus to Ford City Mall and walk a couple blocks south to meet Kristen at Mabenka Polish restaurant, 7844 S. Cicero, near where 79th crosses the border into the suburb of Burbank.

Mabenka is decorated with carved wooden knickknacks, fake fruit hanging from the ceiling, and an odd assortment of Polish, Mexican and Native American dolls, and stuffed animals. The attractive, middle-aged waitresses are wearing black peasant dresses with red and white embroidery. A sign advertises country singer Cal Starr will be performing here a few days later.

“We be the youngest people to have been here for a long time,” whispers Kristen. We load up on cheap, hearty breakfasts – I get a Polish sausage omelet and potatoes for $1.99. I notice the huge guy at the next table is eating Kugelis, a Lithuanian dish of massive slabs of potato and bacon pudding, fried.

After checking out a “The city of Burbank welcomes you” sign at 79th and Cicero, 4800 W, featuring the town seal with its motto “Beauty, loyalty, honor and pride,” we start our journey at 10:10 am under the cobalt sky. Crossing east we enter the Chicago neighborhood of Scottsdale, and pass by its eponymous shopping mall to the south.

Here 79th is a multi-lane road divided by lushly planted medians with 20-foot-tall trees. At Kostner, 4400 W., we pass by a house where girls are playing on a swing set and 12-foot-high stalks of corn are growing in the garden, then check out long, narrow Rainey Park, with a small man-made sledding hill in the middle.

All of the people we’ve seen so far seem to be Latino, until we pass a stout lady near Pulaski, 4000 W., in a Muslim headscarf, wearing a long black skirt and a red leopard-print top. We pass Bogan High School, 3939 W., with images of the school’s Bengal tiger mascot in bronze relief on a low brick wall on the perimeter of the property. We’re in the Ashburn community now, which got its name because the city used to dump its ashes there.

79th has become more pedestrian-oriented now, with fewer travel lanes and more mom-and-pop businesses like Hyun’s Hapkido, 3792 W. The school’s signage sternly insists the self-defense technique is a “Martial art … not sport.” After we pass diagonal Columbus Avenue and under the viaduct for Metra’s Southwest Service line at Kedzie, 3200 W., the neighborhood becomes solidly African-American.

As we continue past a mile-long industrial area to our left, I hear a string of explicatives when a car rolls by us with the windows rolled down. At first I think the woman in the passenger seat is yelling at us but actually she’s arguing with the driver.

As we stroll we try to identify the street trees. Kristen tells me how she recently chatted with a handsome but drunk man from Streets and San’s Bureau of Forestry at Kaplan’s Liquors in Bridgeport. “It breaks my heart when I have to cut down a beautiful ash,” he said. “How do you feel about sycamores,” Kristen said. “I hate sycamores,” he fired back. “Why?” she asked. “You know why or you wouldn’t have asked,” he snarled.

Soon after California, 2800 W., ped-friendly retail returns on the south side of the street. The Covenant Café, 2749 W., an old diner converted into a white-tablecloth restaurant has a mural inside promising, “All things are possible to them that believe.”

We pass Exotic Trenz hair salon, 2605 W., and a painting of a well-muscled man and woman in the window of Urban Fitness, 2559 W., part of a complex that also includes Element Martial Arts and New Hope Community Service Center, offering domestic violence and substance abuse counseling. Dan’s Soul Food, 2523 W., has an elegant dining room with a crystal chandelier and a mirrored back wall. Across the street is St. Rita High School with its huge football field.

James Porter, an old friend who writes about music and DJs soul music, calls on my cell. He grew up and lives nearby at 83rd and Dorchester, and he offers to meet up with us for the rest of the walk.

At 2459 W., Sir D’s Chicken has folk art-style signage of a chicken in a top hat with pad and pencil ready to take your order. Two wings are $2; one hundred wings are $75. At 7829 N. Western, just north of a CTA bus terminal, Nicky’s Family Restaurant offers salmon croquettes, biscuits and gravy, and ham off the bone. Photos of Marley, the Beatles, King, JFK, Marilyn Monroe and the Rat Pack hang on the walls.

The windows of Liberty Temple Full Gospel Church, 2233 W. 79th feature a huge, mosaic-style mural of Jesus, looking a bit like Snoop Dogg. An archway above the parking lot for Golden Gate Funeral Home, 2036 W., is a complex affair made of lacey-looking wrought iron. Damen, 2000 W., south of 79th is the first street we encounter with bicycle lanes, while Ocho Rios Jerk Hut, 1759 W. 79th, is the first of many Jamaican restaurants we will pass on our trek.

At Paulina, 1700 W., we see James walking towards us, having just gotten off the 79th Street bus. I ask him about his recent doings as we walk past Rothschild’s Liquors, 1615 W. 79th, where a small crowd is hanging out on the sidewalk.

The business strip has recently been streetscaped and placards hanging from old-fashioned lampposts tell us we’re in the Auburn Gresham community. Large West African adinkra symbols are imprinted into sidewalk squares with messages like “Power of Love” and “Humility and Strength.”

We stop into Lagniappe, 1525 W., a New Orleans-style restaurant I’ve heard good things about. The name is a Creole term for “a little something extra,” i.e. a bonus that a merchant gives to a customer, like the 13th doughnut in a baker’s dozen. The place is decorated with Mardi Gras masks and baubles, and airbrushed murals of an alligator and Billy Holiday.

The jambalaya, etouffee, gumbo and po’ boys sound great but Kristen and I are still pretty full from breakfast, so I just order some beignets to go. As we sit waiting for the fritters, James tells me that an old blues bandleader of mine recently got divorced from his wife who forced him to move out to the suburbs and give up playing music. “I’d have to admit, that’s one divorce I approve of,” James says.

Conversation turns towards James’ own love life and the fact that he just had a birthday. “Will we see you hanging out at the Viagra Triangle?” I kid, referring the fancy nightlife district at Rush, State and Bellevue, where well-heeled older men take their younger dates. But James says he prefers cougar hunting at roots music venues. “The Hideout, the Old Town School and Buddy Guy’s, that’s my Viagra Triangle,” he quips. “I’m into older women who still have it together. As long as you don’t look like Bea Arthur, I’m good.”

It’s been over a half hour and the beignets still aren’t ready. The poor guy who’s staffing the place by himself pulls me aside and confesses that he had to mix up the dough from scratch and the batch didn’t turn out. He insists on giving us a “four wangs and waffle” for free. These turns out to be four fried chicken wings wrapped up with a fluffy, round waffle. The three of us share it outside the restaurant on a bench.

Our next stop is Renaissance Park at 79th and Throop, 1300 W. This new park features the Black History Fountain by Jerzy S. Kenar, which includes a pyramid of large black boulders bearing the names of luminaries like Du Sable, Langston Hughes, Ella Fitzgerald, Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou and Mae Jemison.

We head north a bit to check out the looming Gothic tower of St. Sabina Church, 1210 W. 78th, led by the fiery Father Michael Pfleger. A Caucasian priest leading a largely African-American congregation, he was censured by Cardinal George after a sermon during the last presidential election. Pfleger had said Hillary Clinton felt she was entitled to the presidency because she was Bill Clinton’s wife and white.

As we return to 79th we pass an old lady with a walker. “Hello,” I say. “How you doin’ young people,” she replies. James, middle-aged like myself, says, “It’s nice to be called a young person,” “Well, I guess anybody under 60 is young to her,” I say.

Nearby is Cookie’s Cocktail Lounge, 1024 W. 79th, with a laminated copy of the post-election cover of the Sun Times with Obama’s portrait in the window next to a neon Miller Lite sign featuring the Chicago Bears mascot. A note on the door says, “You must be at least 30 to be served. Please gentlemen, no do-rags.”

We pass Leo Catholic High School, 7901 S. Sangamon, where a sign says, “Expect to Succeed,” and then the Nation of Islam’s Salaam Bakery and Restaurant, 700 W. 79th, with its golden star-and-crescent sign, now defunct.

After crossing under some Metra tracks we head a bit north to Winneconna Parkway, which parallels Auburn Park, a series of three small lagoons situated in a diagonal line from southwest to northwest, an unusual deviation from the grid. Fountains shoot up from the centers of the lagoons and several fishermen stand on the rock slabs along the edges.

According to the Chicago Park District, real estate developers created this green space in the late 1800s, on what was formerly marshland. When the City of Chicago took control of the park in the early 1900s, the agreement mandated that the land remain a park forever and always be called Auburn Park.

We return to 79th and pass by the sketchy-looking Dew Central Motel, 425 W., and Hair 2001 salon, 422 W., its airbrushed sign adorned with portraits of a stylish man and woman. Feeling parched, we duck into Discount Meat and Produce Market, 337 W., for cold drinks. Fresh-looking produce is on display and a bustling meat and fish counter offers “Mississippi sausage,” catfish, perch, tilapia and chicken gizzards.

As we approach the Dan Ryan and the recently rehabbed 79th Street Red Line Station, a vender is selling icy treats. “How about getting yourself a snowball?” he asks. Nearby kids are drumming on plastic buckets, hoping for tips from train commuters.
Now we’re in Chatham, the middle-class, African-American neighborhood where James lives, also home to Senator Roland Burris. Kids pass by wearing their school uniform of light blue shirts and navy slacks. A daycare center at 305 W. has Wizard of Oz characters painted on the windows.

Fire Sound Records, 307 E., features framed portraits of Michael Jackson, James Brown and Billy Holiday, and Coltrane plays on the sound system. James chats with owner Gregory Pitts about Jame’s recent gig DJ-ing at the Blues Fest. “Does anybody still listen to blues?” Pitts wonders. A large photo hanging on the wall shows an Afro-ed Pitts in the 1980s, grooving to music as he spins records on two turntables. “You probably want to go through all these 45s,” he says to James, indicating a bin of records. “I can see you got pretty good taste.”

I tell Pitts about our walking project and ask him to characterize 79th Street. “It’s the heart of the South Side,” he says. “It goes all the way from east to west and we get a lot of foot traffic. We’ve lost a lot of record stores and lounges over the last 20 years, but a couple of places on 75th still have live jazz." The New Apartment Lounge, nearby at 504 E. 75th, springs to mind.

Pitts says he got started in the record business when he was working as a truck driver and began selling old records at the Maxwell Street Market. “It’s not what it used to be,” he says. He used to DJ at small blues lounges during the ‘70s. “In the ‘80s house music took over and all these DJs came from nowhere.” He still DJs from time to time, playing stepper’s clubs and other venues.

He says the record store is doing reasonably well, and he often gets visitors from Europe and Japan who are experts on blues and R & B. “It’s a little embarrassing, he says. “Foreigners know our music better than we do.”

Ready to eat again, we stop at the famous soul food restaurant Captain’s Hard Time Café, 440 E. 79th. A photo mural on the door shows a plate of chicken and waffles hovering over the city like a UFO. There are photos on the walls of Harold Washington, Cook County Commissioner John Stroger, bluesman Fernando Saunders, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. I order stewed oxtails with greens and sweet potatoes – delicious.

Owner Josephine Wade comes over to say hello, apologizing for moving slowly since she recently had a stroke. She says the restaurant is named after a chain of seafood joints her husband used to run called Captain’s, and a famous restaurant in Acapulco called Hard Times. She plans on retiring soon and passing along the restaurant to her son, but she hopes to start her own cooking show on local TV.

After lunch I stop to snap a photo of Pride Cleaners, 558 E., Chicago’s most famous example of futuristic, postwar “Googie” architecture, with it’s soaring, wing-like roof and Vegas-style sign. As I snap photos some teens pass behind me on the sidewalk. “Are you a tourist?” they ask. “Yep,” I answer.

Thirsty again, we stop at the J & R Cocktail Lounge, 612 E., “Where friends and family meet,” according to the printing on the window. The walls are salmon-colored and there’s a cool Art Deco back bar with a sign that says, “Respect is always available but you must give some to get some.”

Middle-aged women are playing an intense game of darts, which whiz behind our heads as we sit at the bar. “Back That Thing Up” by Ludacris comes on the sounds system and the ladies clap their hands and dance in their seats and on the floor.

Refreshed after the cold drinks, we continue on pass Yassa, 716 W., a Senegalese restaurant I visited on my birthday a few years ago. I got a gigantic whole tilapia that had been marinated and charcoal grilled, served with cabbage and plantains – a memorable meal.

We’re entering a bustling business district with sports clothing stores, a hair braiding shop, a dentist, beauty product stores and the fourth Harold’s Chicken of the day at 806 E. Lotus Chop Suey, 814 E., has a cool old neon sign shaped like a pagoda. “This is definitely the most lively stretch we’ve been on,” Kristen says.

There seems to be a significant Caribbean presence in this part of town – by now we’ve passed a half dozen jerked chicken places. West Indies Bakery, 841 E., offers vegetable and beef pastries, sweet buns, coconut drops and sweet, glutinous Jamaican hard dough bread, which is always served with jerked chicken.

Owner Norma Stevenson says the bakery supplies many of the Caribbean restaurants on the South Side. Her son Ozezua, a reggae singer, helping out at the shop, brags about how hearty the bread is. “You have one slice with coffee and it will last you ‘til lunch. You don’t need no bacon and eggs.”

We pass East of the Ryan, a popular stepper’s spot, then Mayfair Academy of Fine Arts, 1025 E, and the nearby 79th Street Metra stop. Star Drive-in Cleaners, 1311 E., is another retro-cool dry cleaner, with a glamorous atomic-age neon. As we cross Stony Island, 1600 E., a bow-tied Nation of Islam member standing on the pedestrian refuge island offers to sell us a bean pie and a copy of The Final Call.

Crossing under the Chicago Skyway to the six-way intersection of 79th, Jeffrey and South Chicago, we see the wedge-shaped, Moorish John L. Connor Fellowship Hall at the southeast corner.

Then we come upon the New Regal Theater, 1641 E. Opened in 1927, the theater hosted a who’s who of jazz, R & B and comedy acts, many of whom appear in a mural on the west wall of the building: Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Holiday, Gillespie, Wonder and comedienne Moms Mabley. Although the theater sees little use nowadays, it did host a victory party for Obama’s election.

Tough Times Thrift Store, 1939 E. has a sign reading, “A store designed for the times.” “This whole afternoon has been a tribute to mom-and-pop stores,” James says. An airbrushed mural above a storefront at 2034 E. reads “Piece Buys Peace,” with a peace sign.

A few blocks later a full moon becomes visible through the trees. It’s 7:30 pm and congregants are entering the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witness, 2833 E. A folk art-style mural on the side of J & J Foods, 2901 E., shows a young man lounging in a hammock, enjoying a cola.

We cross yet another set of Metra tracks and come to South Shore Drive, where a mural outside shuttered Maxwell’s Charcoal Grill, 7901 S. South Shore, features primitive renderings of a Chicago hotdog, gyros, taco, Italian Beef and fried mushrooms. Beside a nearby Gaia Movement clothing donation drop box, photos of a woman modeling underwear are scattered on the pavement.

Moonlight is glinting off the lake and crickets chirp as we make our way up the coast a few blocks to Rainbow Beach. As we pass scraggly lakeside vegetation James says, “It looks like midnight on the bayou.”

The beach house has large, futuristic awnings shaped like Eggo waffles. While my friends gaze at a gorgeous view of the skyline in the twilight, I lie on my back on a long, low wall and relax, listening to waves lapping on the shore. Our walk is complete.

Walking from Milwaukee to Chicago

2011-06-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

by John Greenfield

[This piece also runs in this week's New City magazine, www.newcitychicago.com.]

It’s a Thursday evening in late June and I’m clutching a pint in the Exchequer Pub on Wabash, not drunk but completely trashed after walking a hundred miles. Kirsten Grove, the Chicago Department of Transportation’s pedestrian program coordinator, and other CDOT staff who’ve met us there raise a toast to my trek. I smile weakly and thank them but I’m distracted by my aching back, sore legs and especially my throbbing feet.

I’ve bicycled from Chicago to Milwaukee a dozen or so times, including several trips during the dead of winter on the annual Frozen Snot Century ride. But lately I’ve been getting interested in walking as a form of travel that helps me take in more of my surroundings by slowing me down.

This year I’ve made a project of hiking the length of some of our city’s key thoroughfares, like Halsted, Grand and Archer. On each trip I met cool people, ate good food, saw fascinating scenery and drank in dive bars I’d never have noticed pedaling by three times as fast.

After I checked out the book Biking on Bike Trails between Chicago & Milwaukee by Peter Blommer, it occurred to me that walking between the two cities would make for a memorable journey. Blommer details a route that takes advantage of the many multi-use paths along the way - 80% of the itinerary is car-free.

I decided to hike from the Milwaukee Art Museum to the Art Institute of Chicago over four days. To cover 25 miles a day I’d have to travel fast and light so rather than take a tent and sleeping bag I opted to “credit card camp,” staying at fleabag motels. I packed a messenger bag with the bare necessities and caught the Amtrak Hiawatha north on a Monday morning.

The Milwaukee pedestrian coordinator, Dave Schlabowske, whose brother I know from the Chicago music scene, had agreed to walk me part of the way out of town. He meets me at the station and we hoof it to Lake Michigan and the Calatrava-designed art museum with its skeletal, retractable wings. I officially start my journey at 10:40 am.

Schlabowske suggests we backtrack to the Milwaukee River and stroll south along the city’s new riverwalk lined with cafes and brewpubs. The promenade was the brainchild of ex-Mayor John Norquist who resigned during a sex scandal and now heads the Congress for the New Urbanism, based in Chicago.

After Schlabowske says farewell at the confluence of the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers, I follow signs for Route 32, the secondary highway that leads to Illinois, hugging the lakeshore. Soon I spy the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower, the world’s largest four-faced clock with octagonal faces nearly twice as large as Big Ben’s.

At 1st and Kinnickinic St. a mural depicts civil rights figures from around the world, from Nelson Mandela to Hmong leader Vang Pao; from Cuban political theorist Pedro Campos to Milwaukee fair-housing activist Father James Groppi. Crossing the Kinnickkinnic River I’m in the Bayview neighborhood with its many quirky independent businesses.

Grabbing a salami sandwich at an Italian grocery owned by Father Groppi’s family, I head east to Cupertino Park for a view of a marina and the city’s modest skyline. From there, as recommended by Blommer, I pick up the Oak Leaf Bike Trail heading southeast out of town past pebbly beaches full of Canada geese and into lush woods.

Emerging in a park in the suburb of Cudahy I see a multiracial group of teens playing soccer. One of the boys calls, “Look behind you.” “What’s that?” I ask. “That girl – she’s 17,” he said pointing to one of his friends. “She likes you.” I chuckle nervously and keep walking. A beefy guy with a mustache walks past them northbound and the kid tries the same gag. “Don’t cause me any problems,” warns the man.

I get back on 32 and it becomes a highway with no sidewalks as I enter the village of Oak Creek. Walking on the left shoulder facing rush hour traffic, I flag down a couple of fresh-faced bicyclists with saddlebags. Joe Bell and Colin Bortner are riding cross-country, as I’d done the previous summer. They’d started in Rochester, NY, and are heading to Seattle after visiting friends in Chicago’s western suburbs.

Well-scrubbed cyclists usually get a warm reception from curious locals, but as I continue down the busy road I realize that in our car-centric culture people who travel by foot are often viewed with suspicion. In fact most people I see walking down this highway seem to be troubled teens or down-on-their-luck adults. As the northbound commuters rush by me, my possessions on my back, I feel temporarily alienated from mainstream society, little more than a hobo.

South of Milwaukee County, the east-west roads are named, Detroit-style, according to their distance from downtown Racine. Sweaty and exhausted I take a break at the Brass Rail tavern at 6 Mile Rd. This dive has a half-assed pirate theme: Jolly Roger flags, a model ship behind the bar and numerous plastic skeletons. When I’ve nearly drained my $1 draft, the bartender, his hand in a splint, says, “Let me see that glass – there’s something wrong with it,” and refills it for free.

After a big plate of pasta at a red sauce Italian joint across the street, I walk another mile or so on 32 to the Country Inn Motel, arriving at 9:10 pm. Like most budget hotels I’ve stayed at in rural America, it’s owned by Indian-Americans, probably immigrants from the western state of Gujurat. I sleep like a baby in the cool, clean room.

The next morning I grab coffee at Mocha Lisa at 4 ½ Mile Rd. In a secluded nook of the café with a couch, a sign reads “Four drink minimum for making out in this room. This room is not available by the hour.” From there I get on the North Racine Bike Path, a rails-to-trails that goes past wetlands with blue spruce and Queen Anne’s lace with a soundtrack of chirping birds. I find myself daydreaming about various plans and schemes as I stroll.

After the path ends I get back on 32, now called Douglas Ave. and walk towards downtown Racine as cottonwood seeds blow across the gritty street. The city claims to have the largest population of Danes in the U.S., so I stop at the O & H Danish Bakery, 1841 Douglas, to sample a rich slice of kringle, the ring-shaped pastry that is the local specialty.

Racine’s boutique-lined Main Street is decorated with 3’ tall spheres, customized by artists Cows-On-Parade style. “Toulouse-Laugoose Egg” by Robert W. Anderson featured a top-hatted fowl perched on an homage to “At the Moulin Rouge” while Jeff Lavonian’s planet Earth covered with small colored glass balls is titled “The World is Losing its Marbles.”

I trek west to the towering, Wright-designed Johnson Wax building and continue through the south side on Racine St., passing the local NAACP branch. A few blocks later I notice smoke coming from the next block - the side porch of an old house is on fire. As I rubberneck from the alley with a group of locals, firefighters swiftly appear and douse the blaze.

After following 32 for a couple miles, I pick up the Racine County / Kenosha County Bike Path, another converted rail bed. Boredom sets in so I start listening to the Chicago band the Sea and Cake on my iPod. Leaving the trail on the north side of Kenosha, Wisconsin’s fourth largest city, my left shoulder is killing me from carrying my one-strap bag. There’s a message on my cell from Jim, who works with me at a bike shop. “Oh, my feet hurt,” he says. “Keep walking homie.”

I head east and walk downtown on a lakefront bike path lake, soothed by view of the cobalt water and air scented with honeysuckle. Catching sight of the red Pierhead Lighthouse I feel the beginnings of blisters on my toes and stop to adjust my socks.

Crossing a bridge over a marina into town I stop at Paddy O’s Pub, 5022 5th Ave., for a cold one. “Zippy” the bartender, wears a bushy beard, a straw cowboy hat and a “Nuke the Whales” t-shirt. He’s telling the regulars about going to Pazzo’s, a fancy local Italian restaurant, with a buddy one afternoon and spending $200 on wine and snails.

“We were drunk and I was dressed like this, so when the suits started showing up for dinner they asked us to leave,” he complains. “Sounds like a civil rights lawsuit to me,” says a barfly with a few teeth missing. “It was no problem,” says Zippy. “I just went in their bathroom and pissed all over their toilet paper.”

At sunset I sneak into the Keno Drive-In Theater on the south side of town. I figure it’s OK since I don’t have a car and I’m buying a brat at the snack bar. “Kung Fu Panda” is playing so I sit on my raincoat on the grassy area in front of the screen within earshot of car radios tuned to the soundtrack. As a scruffy, single man watching a children’s movie I seem to be mistaken for a sexual predator - one of the families next to me drives off and parks in a different spot.

I’d called RV Sports Motel in Pleasant Prairie that afternoon, and the owner, also Indian-American, assured me I’d have no problem getting in. But when I show up after the movie he says the place is full. I protest and he offers me a shabby room with no hot water at full price, but promises I can bathe in another unit in the morning. Grimy, I take a painfully cold shower anyway and go to bed slightly resentful and a little lonely.

Crossing the “Cheddar Curtain” on Day 3, I’m struck by how the scenery immediately changes from pretty, rolling terrain to grim flatlands when you enter Illinois. The main drag of Winthrop Harbor, IL, the state’s northeastern-most town and home of the largest marina on the Great Lakes, is lined with gas stations, liquor stores and bait shops.

I breakfast in Zion, founded in 1901 by Scotsman John Alexander Dowie as a home for his sect the Christian Catholic Church. North-south streets named after biblical people and places are reminders of the city’s roots as a theocracy. At the Star Lite Restaurant, I enjoy a chili omelet but I’m curious about the Ballpark Skillet: eggs, potatoes, green peppers, onions, American cheese and sliced hotdogs.

On the west side of town I pick up the Robert McClory Bike Trail but in Waukegan, the blue-collar city that produced Ray Bradbury and Jack Benny, I grow tired of the monotonous, dead-straight trail and detour into neighborhood streets. A Rottweiler chained on a front lawn barks and lunges at me. I’m in a foul mood from my aching feet, so when the owner comes out I yell at her. “You should keep your dog on a shorter leash. No one can use the sidewalk.” “Do you live in this neighborhood?” she demands. “No, but I’m allowed to walk here,” I fire back.

Returning to the path I walk through a glass-strewn industrial area near Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago and pass a Metra station, tempted to hop a train home. Entering Lake Bluff I abruptly find myself in the posh northern suburbs that are the backdrop for John Hughes’ teen comedies.

I rest on a bench in the village square and take stock of my throbbing extremities. The blisters are getting bigger and hurt so much I’m wondering if I’ll be able to keep walking. But soon after gulping painkillers outside a Lake Forest Walgreens my feet become miraculously numb.

I detour into the Fort Sheridan development, formerly a military installation that housed the troops who stormed Chicago to shut down the Pullman Strike in 1894, leading to the deaths of 13 workers. There I admire a lifelike statue of a soldier on horseback, wearing a Civil War-style cap and holding a banner, galloping off into the now setting sun.

Trudging south down Sheridan Road I’ve got my fingers crossed that the Hotel Moraine actually exists. When I’d searched the Internet for cheap lodging in the ritzy North Shore, the hotel at 700 N. Sheridan in Highwood seemed to be my only option, but every time I called I got voicemail.

Suddenly it’s looming in front of me, a five-story brick box with lettering in big, gold cursive, and my heart leaps. But as I get nearer I see there’s only a car or two in the parking lot. The lobby’s dark; power tools and an Orange Crush box lie on the floor.

My hopes of sleeping indoors dashed, I accept that I’m going to have to crash in the woods somewhere. I buy a baby blanket in a dollar store and brood about my fate over a cheeseburger on pumpernickle at the Nite ‘N’ Gale, an old-school cocktail lounge with red leather booths and LeRoy Neiman prints.

As I approach Ravinia Park along the Green Bay Trail in the dark, the path is packed with fans leaving a Robert Plant and Alison Krause concert. I’m wearing my headlamp and one woman looks startled I pass her. “David, are you there?” she cries. “What’s the matter,” says David. “Are you afraid of the miner guy?”

Heading a bit west along the Lake-Cook county line I find a little mowed patch in a forest preserve just off of Green Bay Rd., next to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. It’s hidden from the police by surrounding tall grass but close enough to the highway for protection from serial killers.

The night is chilly and misty, so I put on all the clothes I have with me, cinch the hood of my raincoat around my head, place a plastic bag under my behind and wrap the tiny baby blanket around my bare legs. I feel new sympathy for homeless people. I’m just barely warm enough and mosquitoes harass me all night, but earplugs and eyeshades block the sound and lights of traffic and I manage to get a few hours sleep.

In the morning the Green Bay Trail takes me through Glencoe and Winnetka to Kenilworth where I cut east to Sheridan Rd. and a view of the lake. Nearing the Baha’i Temple, that giant orange juicer made of lacey, white concrete, the road is torn up for many blocks for sewer renovations and for once I’m glad to be on foot instead of two wheels.

The Evanston Arts Center, next door to a lighthouse, features an installation of giant bottle shapes sunk into the front lawn, assembled from actual glass bottles decorated with black magic marker. I detour onto a peninsula next to the Northwestern campus and catch an inspiring view of the Loop.

Heading back west to Clark St. with my feet feeling like lumps of clay I soon pass the Calvary Catholic Cemetery and cross Howard St. into Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. I’m glad to be back in my city, but a little disappointed by a depressing view of strip malls and big box stores of the new Gateway Center. Fortunately, this “Geography of Nowhere” landscape quickly yields to miles of diverse small businesses.

On my way downtown on Clark I see restaurants offering almost every known ethnic cuisine and I immediately stop at Cuetzala restaurant, 7350 N. The al pastor (Mexican gyros), tilapia and cabeza (cow head) tacos are tasty, but due to the recent salmonella scare there are no tomatoes in the fresh salsa, just chopped onions, garlic, cilantro and chiles.

Soon I’m in Andersonville with its colorful shops, sidewalk cafes and a couple of my favorite taverns, Simon’s and the Hopleaf. Passing Graceland Cemetery and Wrigley Field, I head a bit east to the Addison Red Line station and pick up Kirsten Grove, who’d agreed to escort me downtown so my pilgrimage would be bookended by the ped coordinators from both towns. Since CDOT employees are not supposed talk to the media without prior approval, I promise her that any discussions we have along the way about narrow sidewalks or dangerous intersections will be off-the-record.

In Old Town we head south on Wells St. to chat with a couple of other CDOT staffers who are conducting bicycle traffic counts, then walk east on Erie to Michigan. It’s exhilarating to complete my journey by joining the rush hour throngs on the Magnificent Mile, one of America’s busiest thoroughfares.

We snap a few pictures by one of the Art Institute’s bronze lions then adjourn to the old-school Exchequer, a few blocks away. After I regale the group with road stories I feel nearly comatose from physical exhaustion plus the twin soporifics of beer and deep-dish pizza, so I spring for a cab home.

As I’m standing in the shower with the warm water soothing my shoulders, it occurs to me that I’ve finished the longest walk of my life. And I feel like I know the territory between Milwaukee and Chicago intimately now – I’ve stitched together the two towns.

Sitting on my bed I stare at my feet once more. Yellow, fluid-filled pillows have blossomed on both of my pinky toes, between my right big toe and its neighbor, and on the ball of my right foot. Despite the pain, at this moment I’m happy and satisfied: proud of my accomplishment and thrilled to be spending the night indoors.

Strolling 63rd Street

2011-06-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

Walking 63rd offers a taste of Lithuanian, Middle Eastern and African-American culture

By John Greenfield

My project to walk the length of Chicago’s major streets always takes me to tasty grub, interesting sights, cool taverns and friendly people. Having hiked the length of Western, Milwaukee, Halsted, Archer and Grand, it’s time to walk another South Side thoroughfare, so why not 63rd Street?

At 11 miles, 63rd is basically Chicago’s longest continuous east-west street. It definitely is if you add Hayes Drive, its 3/4-mile extension through Jackson Park to the 63rd Street Beach. It’s a little less than halfway down the city’s South Side and it provides a good sampling of some of the different cultures that have helped shape the region.

After puttering around the house and waiting for a friend to drop off my guitar, I don’t wind up leaving Humboldt Park until well into the afternoon on Saturday, September 6. As I’d done on my Archer trek, I take the CTA Forest Park Line to Harlem, then catch the Pace 403 bus south, getting off around 3 pm just a mile further south this time. But this walk would be pretty different, since Archer veers northeast from 55th Street, while 63rd heads due east from the suburb of Summit to Lake Michigan.

63rd and Harlem is a fairly insane intersection of two eight-lane arteries, which doesn’t seem to bode well for the trip. I’d also read in the Tribune about a tragedy that happened two blocks west in Summit’s Robert Allison housing project a few days earlier. A young mother had fallen asleep with a candle lit; she survived the resulting blaze by jumping out of a second-story window but her three young children perished.

At the southeast corner I see a truck with “SHRIMP - CREDIT CARDS WELCOME” painted in big red block letters on the side, parked outside Mr. Shrimp, a seedy seafood shack, 7157 W. 63rd. I choose an alligator nugget dinner from the menu, which also includes fried oysters, lobster and frogs’ legs. An ancient, nearly toothless gentleman in a paper hat is the lone staffer – he says he’s been working there 50 years. While I respect his staying power, the little man seems confused and shuffles slowly around the galley.

But the food appears faster than I’d hoped. I ask for hot sauce and the man seems to ignore me and retreats to the kitchen. “Go ahead and ask again,” says a female customer, “It’s worth it.” I repeat my request and the man angrily yells, “I heard you!” as he returns with the sauce. I take the box to nearby Nottingham Park and find the fries and breading are tasty, but the salty carnivore meat is almost too chewy to chaw. That’s the last time I eat gator.

63rd is soon tamed down to a four-lane, lined with Eisenhower-era, two-story brick homes with stone accents which give way to bungalows. The neighborhood, bordering Midway Airport, is called Clearing, because agricultural products were to be “cleared”(transported) via the airport and railroads.

I pass by Hale Park, 6300 W., where white and Latino kids are playing soccer and baseball. As I’m checking out the Touch of Class Lounge, 6058 W., a young woman with a Muslim headscarf drives by. Across the street, the Record Dugout, 6053 W., has a great selection of baseball memorabilia and vintage vinyl.

A copy of Male magazine, the ‘50s precursor to Men’s Health, features a cover painting of a Hemingway stand-in shooting a tiger who’s mauling a loin-clothed local. A story by a prominent psychologist asks, “Is There a Lesbian in Your Town?” Not wanting to leave empty-handed I randomly pick up a 45 of the song “Ting Ting Tong” by the doo-wap group the Charms, priced at $3. The owner, impressed by my taste, lets me have it for a buck less.

Intrigued by its vintage, hand-painted red door, I stop into Pete & Mary’s, 5908 W. for a beer around 5 pm. As usual in remote neighborhood bars the Polish-accented barmaid scrutinizes my drivers license, but this time she rejects it as expired, then apologizes when I prove her wrong. Sipping on a Highlife, I check out the tiny beer garden, a photo of the Pope John Paul II next to pictures of patrons with pumpkins, and a poster of a woman sitting at a bar with a sign reading “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” She’s wearing a shirt and shoes but she’s not wearing any pants or underwear and the man at the next barstool is staring bug-eyed at her behind.

On the 5600 block, new Wrigleyville-style townhouses seem to be built as housing for flight crews based out of Midway, a stone’s throw away. Crossing Central Ave., I’m at the southeast corner of the one-mile square airport. A Southwest Airlines jumbo jet attempted to land on a snowy runway on December 8, 2005, and slid through a barrier fence, crushing a car on Central near 63rd, killing a six-year-old boy.

Through a stretch of chain-link fence I can see the towers of the Loop on the other side of the empty expanse. I pass by an Illinois National Guard station at 5400 W., then see the Obama campaign’s plane parked on a runway, emblazoned with the candidate’s rising sun logo and the slogan, “Change we can believe in.”

Crossing Cicero Ave., 4800 W., a high-speed 8-lane, I’m in the community of West Lawn. My feet are already getting tired after only three miles; oxford shoes were definitely a bad choice of footwear. Next time I’ll switch back to Sambas.

I come upon Winston’s Sausages, 4701 W., an Irish-style butcher shop topped by a huge fiberglass steer. My friend T. C. O'Rourke buys bangers, soda bread and black and white puddings there each year for brunch before our annual bike ride to the South Side Irish Parade on the far Southwest Side.

By now it’s around 6 pm, rain looks like a possibility and the sun will be setting soon. It would be stupid for me, a not particularly streetwise outsider, to travel alone, on foot, after dark through the Englewood neighborhood a few miles down the road, with the highest crime rate in the city. I decide to bail for the day and take the nearby Orange Line downtown to catch Anna Biller’s “Viva,” a hilarious homage to '70s sexploitation flicks, at the Gene Siskel Center.

But before I hop on the train I stop for another brew at Mr. C’s Midway Bar, 4654 W. It’s probably the only tavern for many miles with Blue Moon and Stella Artois on tap, but that doesn’t mean it’s a highbrow joint. Vintage photos of the airport and a model plane made of Miller Lite cans attest to its proximity to the runways.

A sign behind the bar declares, “Sexual harassment will not be reported but it will be graded.” Accordingly, a short, top-heavy woman is loudly teasing a male friend about the size of his genitals. “Rack ‘em up,” says a pool player. “I got a perfect rack already,” the woman quips.

“I fell asleep on a booty call last night,” reports a man at the bar. “I woke up on the couch holding a beer with the woman’s kids laughing at me. I hadn’t spilled a drop.”

That Tuesday I catch the California / Kedzie bus south to the Orange Line and resume my walk from Mr. C’s at 1 pm in gorgeous weather. Tigress Coiffures, 4352 W., features an adorable cartoon of the eponymous feline on its sign while Midway Banquet Hall and Lounge, 4222 W., has classy vintage neon.

On the 4100 block a paleteria, a panaderia and a botanica (popsicle shop, bakery and herb-and-charm store, respectively) stand side by side. Most of 63rd is peppered with Latino businesses until the street becomes solidly African-American east of California, 2800 W.

At Pulaski, 4000 W., a huge statue of a bespectacled Native American, featured in the movie “Wayne’s World”, tops the Midwest Eye Clinic. Locals will tell you that if you approach from the west the brave’s left thumb appears to be his penis hanging out of his pants. Sadly, someone has broken the eagle feather off his head since the last time I pedaled by.

To the southeast is Marquette Park, a historically Lithuanian neighborhood. I detour south two blocks to the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, 6500 S. Pulaski, which seems to be staffed entirely by attractive, 40s-ish blondes. They invite me to sit alone in a small theater to watch a tourism film about their homeland, which makes Vilnius look like a pretty happening town.

The small museum is chock full of mildly interesting stuff: stone-age axes; crossbows and suits of armor; amber jewelry; dolls and mannequins in traditional costumes; ornate Easter eggs and a collection of vintage canned ham, sausage and luncheon meat. I make a note to return there with my ¼-Lithuanian girlfriend when I have more time.

Back on 63rd, I enter a stretch from Pulaski to Kedzie, 3200 W., where many Arab-owned businesses opened during the late 20th Century. There seem to be fewer today, as large numbers of Muslims have settled in suburbs like Bridgeview and Oak Lawn. A couple of the Middle Eastern restaurants I’d read about in Sharon Woodhouse's A Native’s Guide to Chicago are gone, but the Aladdin Club, 3831 W., is still there.

Although there’s an image of a hookah on the storefront and a real one behind the counter, the owner tells me that the alcohol-free café is simply a place to drink coffee and socialize, now that the city has gone smokeless. “It’s a private club, mostly for Arabian people,” he says politely as three or four older guys look on. There are boxes of Middle Eastern candy on the counter and several video gambling machines at the front of the room.

Olive Mount Imported Food, 3526 W., features a well-organized selection of interesting Middle Eastern groceries like pickled labna cheese and halal meat, including bins of lamb kidneys, hearts and lungs. There are also long-handled metal coffee pots, bins of black tea and a wide variety of fruit-flavored hookah tobacco. A Palestinian flag hangs at the back of the store.

After buying some nuts and candies, I walk a little east for lunch at the hole-in-the-wall Nile Restaurant, 3259 W. I try the kalaya, a hearty, chili-like stew of diced beef, onions and tomatoes served over rice with a side of pickled cucumbers and carrots.

East of Kedzie, 3200 W., two teens on BMX bikes pedal past me on the sidewalk. The first boy smooches at a girl walking westbound; she smiles and swats at the head of the second one. I pass by the offices of 15th Ward Alderman Toni Foulkes, 3045 W., then stop to check out Nate’s Leathers, 2950 W., specializing in gear for police officers like jackets, holsters and body armor.

There’s no one in the shop, which smells strongly of dead cow. The young, cop-like owner soon returns from outside with a German shepherd with a spiked collar, eyeing me suspiciously. After I explain my mission he relaxes and tells me about his business, sewing everything from custom boat covers to bulletproof vests on the premises.

After I cross California into West Englewood, a well-dressed man approaches me as I’m checking out the stonework of St. Rita Parish church, 6243 S. Fairfield. “Excuse me sir, may I have a cigarette?” he asks. “I don’t smoke, sorry,” I apologize.

Soon liquor-food-lottery stores and fast food joints with bulletproof glass dominate the street. As I pass a group of teens outside a hoagie shop one of them spits at the ground near my feet. A man walks by with a shopping cart full of children’s bicycles and car tires.

But there are signs of revitalization in what has long been one of Chicago’s poorest communities. Garifuna Flava, 2516 W. is a spotless new Belizean restaurant with tasty-sounding dishes like conch fritters, cow foot soup and “boil-up”: boiled cassava, sweet potatoes and plantains with stewed fish, pig tails and dumplings.

I drop into a new Chicago Public Library branch at 1745 W. to use the bathroom and find the library to be a spacious, airy, state-of-the-art facility with a nice garden with seating next door. A child and family center next door features bold architecture, including a futuristic ribbon of stainless steel connecting one wing of the building to another.

Mural on an El piller near the Ashland Green Line stop

Long Grove Cleaners, 1146 W., has jacket-length doors in the bulletproof Plexiglas through which patrons pass their clothes. A mural on the side of Neighborhood Food and Liquors, 1122 W., is a crash course in Chicago-style fast food with images of a loaded hotdog, an Italian sausage-beef combo sandwich, gyros and rib tips. When I stop to photo it one of the employees invites me to tour the clean, orderly grocery store and lunch counter. A trained meat-cutter, years ago he slaughtered hogs in the stockyards for the Ampeg Meatpacking Co., and seems proud of his present workplace.

When Kevin Monahan and I walked Halsted, 800 W., last December we saw new Kennedy-King College buildings that had been constructed at 63rd, the former site of the Englewood Shopping Center, but there wasn’t much open yet. Now there is a book store and a copy center; student radio and TV stations; and the Washburne Culinary Institute. Sikia, a student-run restaurant at 740 W. offers dishes from Africa and the black Diaspora, from Moroccan tangine to Jamaican jerked chicken, Ethiopian curries to Louisiana gumbo.

A block east at 63rd and Wallace St., as detailed in The Devil in the White City, Dr. H. H. Homes built his World’s Fair Hotel in anticipation of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. The 60-room building was a maze of hidden staircases, trapdoors, dungeons and gas chambers that later became known as the Murder Castle. Homes lured dozens, maybe hundreds of young women to their deaths there, selling their skeletons to medical schools. Nowadays the site is the Englewood Post Office.

At Englewood High, 400 W., “Home of the Mighty Eagles,” the football team practices on a field in front of the school, their purple and white uniforms covered in grass stains. By 6 pm I’m crossing the Dan Ryan Expressway, 200 W., which was recently enlarged to seven lanes in each direction. The southbound rush hour traffic is still moving slowly, proving the urban planning adage, “You can’t build your way out of congestion.”

The land between the interstate and the Green Line stop at King Dr., 400 E., is largely vacant lots. Near the station a flock of seagulls flying under the tracks reminds me I’m getting close to the lake. This area in the Woodlawn neighborhood is dense with businesses. I hear the crack of the pool balls as I pass a pool hall, note the Plexiglas shield in front of the neon sign for a Rothschild’s Liquors, and see the men hard at work at Turner’s Professional Shoeshine, 438 E.

I like the slogan of the sign of the Kozy Korner tavern, 461 E., “Where old friends meet,” so I venture inside. “How can we help you?” asks a dapper gentleman sitting near the door. “Oh, I was going to get a beer,” I say. “Well, alright then, make yourself at home.” I take a seat at the far end of the bar and introduce myself to Niecie the bartender, explaining what I’m up to. Sipping on a Highlife I check out the room. There’s a large, old-fashioned streetlamp in the center and mirrors framed by plastic roses. A photo of Barack Obama hangs on the wall and Smokey Robinson’s on the jukebox. The crowd of well-dressed middle-aged and older professional folks seems to be having a great time, laughing non-stop.

Cliff Pierce, the manager who’d greeted me, soon joins me at the bar and buys me my second beer. He used to write a gossip Column for the Chicago Defender. “You’re a rare bird, but not for long,” he tells me. “It’s only 10 minutes from my house to the Black House [Obama’s home in Kenwood.] We’re talking about where the next president lives. And then there are the Olympics in Washington Park. So in the next ten years this neighborhood is going to become the hub. One day I’m gonna look out this window and see nothing but limousines.”

Buzzed, I continue strolling toward the Cottage Grove stop as the sun is setting. Although it’s only been a few hours since lunch, I’m ready to eat again so I stop for dinner at Daley’s Restaurant, 809 E., a soul food diner highly recommended by the Chicago Reader’s Mike Sula. The menu’s illustrated with photos of the Columbian Exposition and there are photos of local politicians on the walls. My meal of chicken soup, salmon croquettes, mashed potatoes and greens is cheap and excellent. As I return to the counter to leave a tip the waitress takes the bills directly from my hand. “You have a blessed evening,” she says with a smile.

A few years ago, the easternmost Green Line stop at Woodlawn, 1200 E., and four blocks of track were removed to make way for development, but I suspect the idea was to create a buffer zone between the rowdy commercial areas under the tracks and the new upscale townhouses. There’s a half-mile of vacant lots between Cottage Grove and the homes, a few blocks of pleasant, but eerily quiet, residences.

I pass the Apostolic Church of God mega church at 6320 S. Dorchester; the headquarters of the Woodlawn Organization community group at 1508 E. 63rd; and Leon’s on Six Tre restaurant, 1528 E., featuring ribs, tips and chicken. 63rd Street officially ends at Stony Island, 1600 E., the border of Jackson Park, but although it’s getting late and I’m tired I decide to soldier on down Hayes St. to the 63rd Street Beach.

Walking through the park I hear a group of men hanging out by their cars, blasting dancehall reggae, speaking loudly in a Caribbean patois, possibly relaxing after playing soccer in the park. Halfway to Lake Shore I see the Statue of the Republic, AKA the Golden Lady, a 24-foot-tall gilded bronze sculpture of a robed woman holding aloft an eagle and a staff symbolizing national unity. It’s actually a 1/3-scale reproduction of the Daniel Chester French original from the World’s Fair.

As I approach the lake I can see moonlight glinting off Jackson Harbor, smell barbecue wafting up from a party at the boathouse and hear African drumming coming from just south of the beach. I take the recently built underpass below Lake Shore Drive and emerge to see the Romanesque arches of the grand beach house, which was rehabbed a decade ago. I make my way to the wide beach and stroll down the plastic wheelchair track to the edge of the rushing lake. Dipping my fingers in the cool water, my journey is done.

Walking Grand Avenue

2011-06-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

by John Greenfield

When I was trying to decide which local thoroughfare to take on next, Grand Ave. sprang to mind as an archetypal Chicago street. Years ago I hiked all of Western and Milwaukee Avenues. Recently I completed Halsted and Archer as part of a new project to walk the length of all the city’s major streets while seeing the sights, eating good, cheap food and visiting interesting dive bars.

Grand started out as a rough Indian trail, originally called Whisky Point Road, according to Streetwise Chicago by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee (Loyola University Press 1988.) Its name is believed to come from the city’s first town president, Col. Thomas, J.V. Owen, who declared, “Chicago is a grand place to live.”

Nowadays the avenue runs about 12 miles through town, heading southeast from the suburb of Elmwood Park, then due east to Navy Pier. The street provides a cross-section of the city’s architectural and transportation features. Ranging from old-fashioned, pedestrian-oriented retail to the skyscraper canyons of River North, crossing Metra tracks, the Kennedy Expressway, the Chicago River, three CTA El lines and Lake Shore Drive, ending at Lake Michigan, Grand represents the city’s center of gravity.

This was the first time I’d walked a street on a workday. I caught the #72 North Avenue bus west from Humboldt Park on the warm, gray morning of Wednesday, June 4, then transferred to the #65 Grand Avenue. After walking a couple blocks west from the bus terminal at Nordica St., 7030 W., at 10 am I tagged the “Welcome to Elmwood Park” sign at Harlem Ave. 7200 W. and backtracked into the Chicago neighborhood of Mont Clare.

Mont Clare’s business strip was streetscaped a few years ago with Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired pylons and new signs on the streetlamps that say “City of Chicago / I Will / Grand Avenue” but it still feels like a small-town main street from the 1950s. I passed by Grand Cycle, 7160 W., which specializes in BMX and lowrider bicycles and skateboards, then crossed the street to gawk at a huge model schooner in the window of Julie’s furniture, 7163 W. “Nice ship, huh?,” said a woman pedaling by on the sidewalk. “Beautiful.”

I returned to the Terminal Snack Shop, 7030 W., next to the bus turnaround, and downed some coffee and a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on white toast as I admired the orange walls and oil paintings of lush landscapes with waterfalls and snow-capped mountains. I continued on past the castle-like Galewood-Mont Clare branch of the Chicago Public Library and Bill & Michelle’s Question Mark Bar, 6918 W.

Soon I was jolted back into the modern era as I hit a nasty stretch of car dealerships, chain restaurants and the Bricktown Square shopping plaza. So it was refreshing when I saw something unique: the World’s Largest Wagon outside the Radio Flyer corporate headquarters, 6515 W. It’s 27’ long with 8’ diameter wheels; it took 100 gallons of red paint to cover it. Inside the lobby I read about the company’s founder, Italian immigrant Antonio Pasin, who eventually produced the wagons on an automobile-style assembly line, earning him the nickname “The Little Ford.”

At Narragansett, 6400 W., small businesses appeared again, with many of the signs in Spanish. The menu at El Guanaco Salvadorian Restaurant, 6345 W., features pupusas - thick discs of corn or rice dough with various savory fillings - as well as platters of fried yucca and sweet plantains served with beans and sour cream. Paleteria Currucel, 6315 W., had a dozen or so Mexican ice cream carts parked inside. I tried on some cowboy shirts next door at Almacenes Western Wear but they were all a little flashy for my taste.

Soon afterwards the street became residential for the first time on my walk with several evergreen trees, rare in this city, including a few beautiful blue spruce. At Melvina, 6200 W., I was reminded of an old, off-color joke: “What three streets in Chicago rhyme with the name of a woman's sex organ?” Please ask someone else for the answer.

Supreme Frozen Products, 5813 W., is a wholesaler specializing in the kind of American-style tamales sold at hot dog stands. I recently read a piece in the Chicago Reader about a foodie who is researching the origin of the Mother-in-Law sandwich, a tamale in a hotdog bun, covered with chili. The man I talked to at Supreme said he had never heard of the Mother-in-Law. When I described it he said, “Oh, you mean a tamale boat?”

The day was getting hotter as I passed the Fade Factory, 5747 W., a barbershop offering “graphics, hot shaves, nails, fades and braids” to a Latino clientele. Reflecting the area’s changing demographics, a storefront at 5637 W. which I remembered as Smiler Coogan’s, a “Wayne’s World”-style rock club, was now a bar called Teloloapan featuring Mexican music acts like Grupo Los Pickaros. A “Please Leave Quietly” sign on the wall was still covered with stickers for bands like Bulkhead, Insult to Injury and Occasional Pimp.

At busy Central Ave., 5600 W., I saw Prosser Vocational High School and the vast green expanse of Hanson Park to my left. To my right were a Cook County Circuit Court building and the Chicago Police Area Five headquarters. In June of 1998, after a Bulls game police officers and civilians partied late into the night in the parking lot behind the police station. Officer George Wilson drove home drunk in his pick-up that morning and struck Sophia Latuszkin, 66, as she tried to cross Harlem Ave. in Elmwood Park. She was killed; he fled the scene as bystanders wrote down his plate number. Wilson was sentence to five years in prison and only wound up serving 20 months.

A few blocks later outside a firehouse at 5252 W., I saw a tiny pond sunk into the pavement with a fountain fashioned from a fire hydrant and goldfish swimming in the murky, green water. I stopped into Del Rey Tortilleria, 5201 W., to buy some buenelitos, pieces of crisp fried flour tortillas covered with cinnamon sugar. A large shrine in the otherwise stark room included images of Jesus, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Pope John Paul II, plus flowers and large Christmas ornaments.

At Lemke Screw Products, 4911 W., I peeked through the window bars of the low industrial building to see workers laboring at big, old-fashioned lathes to the whir of machine belts and large fans. Up the street at Las Islas Marias, 4750 W., a big fiberglass lobster was perched above a sign for various seafood dishes, touting their health benefits: “Bienvenidos a su vitamina” – welcome to your vitamin. A block later I saw the rear end of the city’s only Wal-Mart, 4655 W., and the scenery changed once again to chain retail and giant parking lots.

Outside a school bus garage at 4253 W., a group of heavy-set, middle-aged ladies smoked and joked as they killed time between runs, one of the women sitting on a hydrant. It was getting really hot and I was ready for a beer. A man in a Puerto Rican flag t-shirt pedaled by on a BMX bike, riding one-handed while eating a long, cherry Flav-R-Ice.

At Pulaski Ave., 4000 W., Jimmy’s Hotdogs, in business since 1954, had a large sign for Supreme Tamales featuring the image of an alluring senorita. Just east Cedric’s Auto service was topped by a bearded fiberglass giant, a dead ringer for Paul Bunyan, holding up a piece of bent pipe.

So far I had encountered mostly Latinos on the street with a smattering of Caucasians, but for the next few block I saw mainly African-Americans. Unfortunately I wasn’t hungry enough yet for lunch at CJ’s Diner, 3839 W., a soul food place recommended by a friend for its biscuits and gravy. The door of the C. O. G. I. C. church youth center, 3839 W., was flanked by paintings of graceful angels.

At Monticello, 3632 W., I could just make out the Sears Tower through the warm haze. I finally stopped for a cold one at the Lite Inn, 3614 W., the first open bar I’d noticed on the trip. A few patrons were conversing in Spanish with soft Caribbean accents as “The People’s Court” played on TV. There wasn’t much in the way of décor except for a few sombreros hanging from a wall. For some reason there was a whole row of Cook’s Champagne bottles behind the bar.

The elderly, mustachioed bartender scrutinized my ID carefully before serving me an icy bottle of Corona with lime. Next to me a guy in a white apron, probably a cook from the Puerto Rican sandwich shop next door, sipped a Coronita, the 6.7-oz version. After all, it was business hours.

A wonderful smell of pizza wafted out as I passed an industrial bakery at Spauding, 3300 W. Soon afterwards I spotted my first hipster of the day, a young white guy with long sideburns, a short-sleeve cowboy shirt and a Greek fisherman’s cap, riding a yellow fixed-gear bike with a pad on the top tube emblazoned with a lightning bolt.

At an industrial building at 3100 W., I saw an odd sign for Nature House, makers of the original aluminum purple martin bird feeders, so I rang the bell. Out came Larry Coffey, plant manager for Erva Tool & Manufacturing Co., which recently bought the birdhouse company.

A recent transplant from Griggsville, in west-central Illinois, Coffey speaks with a country twang. He explained that purple martins migrate from South America to the U.S. each year. West of the Rockies they live in woodpecker holes and cactuses and build mud nests under highway overpasses but for unknown reasons they can’t build nests in the East and rely on man-made shelters.

He brought me into a showroom filled with various lawn ornaments and plant hooks as well as the large, pagoda-like feeders. A vintage sign showed a cartoon of a smiling martin with the legend “2,000 mosquitoes per bird.” “They claimed a purple martin could eat 2,000 mosquitoes a day,” said Coffey. “I do know that in Griggsville, when the martins were in town you didn’t have to worry about bugs but when they left it was time to bring out the citronella.”

Moving on, I passed by Taco El Jalciense Mexican restaurant, squeezed into a narrow triangular lot at the southeast corner of Grand and Chicago Ave., 800 N. A block later I saw a hypodermic needle lying on the sidewalk, something I’ve never noticed before. I walked along the massive Metra yard near California Ave. (2800 W.,) then passed the Chicago School of Ballet, 2635 W.

As I walked by Smith Park, 2550 W., I remembered a recent article from the Chicago Journal about a controversy over creating a new garden at the park which is diving residents along ethnic lines. Some who feel the park is part of the Ukrainian Village community want the garden to be a memorial to the Ukrainian famine, called the Holodomor, which killed millions of people in 1933. Others who call the area Smith Park and consider it an Italian-American neighborhood want the garden to be dedicated to police officer Michael Ceriale who was shot during a narcotics stakeout in 1998.

I’d been walking southeast for many miles but Grand flattened out at Western Ave. and becomes an east-west street. The site is marked by Josh Garber’s sculpture “Episodic,” powder-blue steel pipes that loop into the sky in a Mobius strip-like form.

It was 2:15 pm and a cool breeze was blowing in from the lake. I decided to stop for lunch at Hound Dog’s Burgers and Teriyaki, 2252 W., a greasy spoon that serves Asian dishes like Bulgogi (Korean BBQ) as well as tacos, pizza puffs and other fast food staples. I got a big bowl of bibimbap: rice topped with marinated beef, carrots, cucumbers, bean sprouts, spinach and a fried egg with a side of red chili sauce - delicious.

Down the street at 1924 W. I saw an odd house I had passed by many times before on my bicycle but had never really noticed. The second story has a wild west-style façade, and in addition to a large American flag and a few geese ornaments the place has year-round Christmas decorations: lights, snowmen and a dozen plastic candy canes attached to the railing of the balcony.

At Wood St., 1800 W., the downtown skyscrapers started to come into focus. I passed by Betty’s Blue Star Lounge, 1600 W., formerly a dive bar and now a velvet rope dance club. Signs on the window said “Dress code strictly enforced” and “Notice: per Chicago ordinance this premises under 24-hour video surveillance.”

I was entering the dense Near West Side business strip which includes many old-school Italian restaurants, grocery stores and bakeries, as well as trendy newer bars and cafes. Above the Twisted Spoke, 1226 W., a motorcycle -themed bar, a skeleton perched on an antique bike rotated in the sky. Next door a fluffy, gray cat snoozed in the window of an empty storefront.

The sun burst through the clouds as I crossed over the Kennedy Expressway around 900 W. and the break in the buildings provided a panoramic view of the Loop above the canal of roaring traffic. At Halsted, 800 W., I passed a Blue Line station as well as Richard’s Bar, an old man bar with a storefront painted red, white and green and photos of famous Italian-Americans hanging inside.

Just east of Halsted I ducked into the Salvation Army store at 509 N. Union to continue my search for a summer shirt. Years ago, I’d gone there to shop for a bed and was looking at single beds. The older lady who helped me said, “Young man, I suggest you buy a double bed because there may be some situations in the future where that may be useful.” On this visit, as I went upstairs to the clothing department people were assisting an elderly woman in a wheelchair who seemed to be having some kind of seizure. As I left, paramedics from the fire department were storming into the thrift shop.

As I approached the Chicago River I saw many new residential highrises sprouting up and the Kennedy’s Ohio Street feeder was visible and audible to my left. I enjoyed the fine view of the Loop from the bridge, then went down to check out a new fountain and river walk by Kingsbury Plaza, a tall, blue tower. Historically, Chicago’s riverfront has been underutilized but nowadays the City requires developers to create sections of walkway when they build on its banks, so eventually you may be able the walk and bike along the entire length of the river.

I passed under a speeding Brown Line train at Franklin, 300 W., and Grand became one-way westbound a block later. The Anti-Cruelty Society animal shelter, 157 W., was adorned with Art Deco bas-reliefs of robed figures nurturing a cat, a dog and a horse. Looking south as I strolled I spied the twin corn cobs of Marina City at State St., 1 W., and then at Wabash, 30 E., the Trump Tower, whose looming, zig-zag structure echoes that of the Sear Tower. At Rush St., 130 E., all four corners of the intersection were occupied by beige, concrete boxes with chain restaurants or a Marriot lobby at ground level, topped by several stories of windowless parking garage. Pretty depressing.

After passing through the sketchy dimness of Lower Michigan Ave. for a block, I emerged into the sunlight to see that a strange, low-lying fog obscured Navy Pier, my finish line. I stopped into Boston Blackies, 162 E., a tavern I’d been meaning to check out for a while. The décor seemed to be a 1970’s vision of the 1920’s with houseplants, lots of brass and a mural behind the bar showing a glamorous gangster scene: big city skyscrapers, a naked moll leaning backwards against a chair, and the large face of Blackie himself, a handsome, dark-eyed youth with slicked-back hair.

I ordered a Boston Blackies Amber, made by west-suburban Two Brothers Brewing Company, and listened to attorneys and other late-middle aged folks at the bar talk politics with the bartender and the owner, an elderly Greek immigrant. Local political fundraiser Tony Rezko had just been convicted of several counts of corruption. “I bet he’ll be real popular in prison,” said the barkeep. A news report on TV said Chicago was chosen as one of the top finalists to host the 2016 Olympics. “I wouldn’t blame people if they’d rather go to Rio than Chicago,” I conceded. “In Chicago you get handguns,” countered the lawyer at the next stool. “In Rio it’s machine guns.”

With only a few blocks left I strolled past an old-fashioned neon parking sign and the rusty-looking Time-Life building at McClurg Court, 400 E., with its shiny, copper-colored windows. It grew chilly as I walked through the cloud of mist which almost completely concealed the monolithic Lake Point Tower condo building.

After I passed under the eight-lanes of Lake Shore Drive, 600 E., and saw the pier entrance a couple blocks away, my cell phone rang. It was my high school classmate Chris O’Brien, now a D.C.-based “beer activist” and author of the book Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World. Chris’ book is a manifesto on the social and environmental impact of choosing craft-brewed beverages over Big Beer. He’s currently working on a similar book about coffee. You can read his beer blog at http://beeractivist.com.

Chris’ day job involves advising corporations, schools and other institutions about how they can buy “green.” He was in town for a conference on ecologically responsible procurement practices and he wanted to know if I wanted to meet up for a cold one. “Where are you?,” I asked. “Navy Pier,” he answered. In a moment we met up at the gate, beside the cool blue of Lake Michigan. We retreated a few blocks on Grand to meet up with his colleagues at D4, a nouveau-Irish bar at 345 E., where we toasted the coincidence with pints of stout.

Greg Borzo, author of "Where to Bike: Chicago"

2011-06-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

by John Greenfield

Most photos by Greg Borzo

[This interview also runs at www.timeoutchicago.com.]

Greg Borzo’s new book, Where to Ride: Chicago (BA Books, $24.95) isn’t just a guide to Chicagoland’s bicycle lanes, paths and trails. The 280-page book includes detailed cue sheets and maps for 72 routes across the region. But it’s also a celebration of the Chicago bike scene and the city’s history, bicycling and otherwise, packed with photos and background info. Borzo’s keen interest in the past and green transportation led him to write an encyclopedic history of Windy City transit, The Chicago “L.” So it’s no surprise he managed to slip plenty of local color into this bike guide, the first U.S. title in a series by Bicycling Australia.

I caught up with Borzo at his South Loop high-rise to talk about his background in cycling, the enviable task of scouting out the routes, “hidden gems” among Chicagoland bike trails, his favorite new bike movie, and how he managed to snag a photo of a sweaty, smiling Mayor Daley hanging out with cyclists on a Bridgeport hilltop. Borzo signs copies of Where to Bike: Chicago at a free launch party on Friday, February 4, from 6-8 pm at 1333 N. Kingsbury, the world headquarters for SRAM, a bicycle parts manufacturer.

Tell me about your background with bicycling.

Do you have all day? I’ve been biking my whole life. I was born in Chicago, grew up in Des Moines and there the family had no car. So we all had bikes – there were nine kids and a dozen bikes. That’s how I got around ever since I was a kid.

I spent almost a year in Holland when I was 13. There I was amazed at the infrastructure and the popularity of biking. You’d see people wearing suits riding to work and groups of ten people biking together. I didn’t really have to go to school during that period and I had to keep myself busy somehow, so I was biking across town and eventually across the country.

Ever since then I’ve used biking for running errands, for commuting, and to go on bike vacations. A couple years ago a dozen of us went off to the Loire Valley and spent ten days riding our bikes. Recently I completed RAGBRAI [a bike tour across Iowa that draws 10,000 riders] and loved it. I’m a bit of a bike evangelist and I’ve brought a lot of friends along for the ride, so to speak.

You wrote the column “Roll Film,” about bicycle movies, for Active Transportation Alliance’s newsletter, right?

Yes, I was trying to help people connect to biking through cinema. You can still read those movie reviews at the website for my new book, wheretobikechicago.com.

What’s your favorite new film that involves biking?

Medicine for Melancholy. It’s a black-and-white film with touches of color, kind of a moody piece. It’s a story of a couple who have a one-might stand and spend the next day together instead of just splitting off and disappearing. What I love about the film is the way that they naturally take to biking. They walk out the door and decide to bike to a museum together. For these San Francisco hipsters, to get around by bike just seems so normal. And the scenes of biking around San Francisco are very cool too.

Tell me about the process of writing Where to Ride, choosing the routes, scouting them out and writing them up. It seems like it must have been a lot of fun.

It was fun. The funnest part was riding. All the other work was real work but when I was riding I had to pinch myself and remind myself I was actually working. I came back to Chicago in ’76. Having lived here so long I’d ridden many of these trails over the years. So I thought I knew the bike scene and the rides pretty well, but in fact the book required a real good balance geographically, and a good balance in terms of difficulty and variety of road surface. So I had to do a lot of research and a lot of riding to select the rides that eventually wound up in the book.

The best part was learning new routes. Being a Northsider I discovered some great rides on the South Side, like the Old Plank Road Trail. A lot of rides had to be left out of the book because we could only have so many.

How did you get that candid photo of Mayor Daley with the cyclists on top of the hill in Stearns Quarry Park in Bridgeport?

Stearns Quarry is a great place to get a view of the skyline. I was up there with a couple of friends on a Saturday morning, shooting for the book, and the mayor appears, trotting up the sidewalk. We hardly recognized him because he was just wearing a polo shirt and a baseball cap. There’s a parade of staffers and a couple of cops at the end of this line of people coming up the hill.

We started to chat and he remembered that I had written a book about the Chicago “L,” and he liked that book. So I asked him if we could take a photo of him and he posed with my friends, and it’s a good, candid photo of him. We caught the mayor on a very relaxed day. It was shortly before he announced that he wasn’t going to run for reelection.

That’s why he looks so happy?

Maybe that explains it. Afterwards we talked for about 15 minutes about bikes. I teased him, “You know everyone says you’re a cyclist but I’ve never seen you on a bike.” He says, “Yeah, that’s because you don’t get up early enough.” He goes out early in the morning and bikes on the lakefront.

Most people who have been riding a bike in Chicago for a while are familiar with the Lakefront Trail, of course. They might have done the North Branch Trail. They might have done the Green Bay Trail and Robert McClory Path up towards Wisconsin, some of the more obvious ones. What are some of the hidden gems that even experienced riders might not be aware of, that they might discover through your book?

The Des Plaines River Trail. A lot of Chicagoans know the part that’s near the city – I’m not a big fan of that section. Parts of it are really scruffy; parts of it are impassible. But what surprised me is when you get up north into Lake County it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous trail, beautifully maintained, with deep, clean, well-lit underpasses. It’s just like riding on glass, and the scenery’s gorgeous, with lots of tree cover. It’s crushed limestone but it almost feels like pavement because it’s so smooth.

Morton Arboretum. A lot of people don’t think about biking there but it’s actually one of the most pleasant places to bike. The roads there are paved and you’re sharing them with automobiles during busy times. But if you go out there during a weekday you’ve got the roads to yourself, the trees are gorgeous and there are flowers. It used to be open only once a week to bikes and that was for members only, but now it’s open to all cyclists every day.

The trails at Palos Forest Preserve are pretty rugged. They’re probably the best mountain biking in the Chicago area. But that area also has some trails that are not so rugged that you’re going to have to be riding a Stumpjumper. So that’s a good place to go, whatever level of biking you enjoy.

The Northbrook Velodrome is a hoot. You can go up there and pretend you’re a racer, doing laps and leaning into the banks. It’s in a public park, so whenever it’s available you can ride any kind of bike on it.

The Joliet Ironworks Heritage Trail goes through an amazing stretch of an old, abandoned industrial area. You go near the “Joliet Joint” prison from the Blue Brothers. You go by these old foundries and abandoned buildings and walls and causeways. Riding through that historic area you get a good sense of the former industrial grandeur of the area.

The Union Stockyards gate, showcased in one of the rides

How are you promoting the book?

There’s the party on February 4 at SRAM Corporation. Lots of people ride all winter in Chicago, but many people can’t get over that hurdle. We want to get them engaged early so that they start biking in April instead of July. Spring is right around the corner and you should get your bike out of the basement and tune it up, or buy a new bike, get that helmet and get out there and start biking. There’ll be nice days in March and April for fair-weather cyclists. We’re also going to have another book signing at the Book Cellar [4736 N. Lincoln] on Thursday, February 17 at 7 pm.

I’ve created a photo exhibit with up to 25 photos, using photos that are from the book, showing a cross-section of biking around the city and suburbs. That photo exhibit is available for free to any library, bookstore, bike shop or civic organization that would like to put it on display for two to four months. And I have several copies of it, so we can have it up at different places at the same time.

Anything else you want to tell me?

Yes. We partnered with World Bicycle Relief [SRAM’s outreach program which has donated over 70,000 bicycles to people in developing nations] on this book. A percentage of all the book sales will go to them. We want people to be aware of the good work that organization does in not only giving bikes to people in third-world countries but actually designing and building bikes that are specially suited for conditions in these countries: rougher roads and the need to transport water or medical supplies.

Also, we’ve partnered with Geoffrey Baer, who just came out with the video “Biking the Boulevards” for WTTW, so we want people to know about that wonderful program and to be aware that in our book the Biking the Boulevards tour follows his route and has photos of him biking.

One of the unique features of this book that none of the other titles in this series has is a chapter on local bike history. So we’ve got a little about the growth of biking in Chicago from the 1870s onward, looking at the fads that have come and gone, and some of the characters that have been involved in the local biking scene. There’s such a colorful history of bicycling in Chicago. It has been a center of the bike industry and the bike movement over the whole history of bicycling in the United States.

Walking Halsted Street

2011-06-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Two men brave ice, slush and alcohol to walk the length of Halsted Street in one day

Originally published on Gapers Block 12/27/08:
http://gapersblock.com/detour/800_west

By John Greenfield

I don’t walk much in Chicago; most of the time I ride a bicycle or take transit. But I have taken some epic hikes in the city. Back in ’95 I strolled Milwaukee Avenue from the West Loop to the suburb of Niles, about 11 miles. A few years later I followed Western Avenue from Blue Island to Evanston, about 24 miles, over the course of two days. Walking an entire street is a great way to get a feel for the vastness of our town and to experience its architectural, economic and cultural diversity.

When Time Out Chicago recently did a special on Western Ave., one of the world’s longest streets, it reminded me how satisfying it was to complete those urban hikes. I decided it was time to take on Halsted Street, one of our most famous and varied thoroughfares. It runs through Chicago from 129th Place in gritty West Pullman, a working-class, black neighborhood, to Grace St., 3800 North, in gentrified Boystown, the center of gay life in the city. Halsted is shorter than Western, but with less car lanes and slower traffic it’s a more walkable street and perhaps a more interesting one. If I could complete the 20-mile stretch in a day it would be the longest walk of my life.

According to Streetwise Chicago by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee (Loyola University Press 1988) Halsted was originally named First Street, then Dyer Street in honor of Charles Volney Dyer, an abolitionist who aided hundreds of freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad. Later it was renamed after William and Caleb Halsted, brothers and bankers from Philadelphia who helped Chicago Mayor William Ogden finance his real estate ventures. Early on Halsted was called the Egyptian Road because it eventually made its way to southern Illinois, known as “Little Egypt”. Nowadays Illinois Route 1 follows the street from I-57 at 99th St. far into the south suburbs. The highway ends at the Kentucky border by Cave-in-Rock State Park, which used to be a hideout for Ohio River pirates.

This fall I persuaded my buddy Kevin Monahan to join me on this excursion, but we kept procrastinating until Sunday, December 9, long after the temperature had dropped below freezing and several inches of snow had fallen. An ice storm hit the night before and the sidewalks of our neighborhood, Humboldt Park, were glazed and treacherous as we made our way to the CTA Blue Line. An hour and a half later Pace Bus 352 dropped us off at 130th and Halsted in the village of Riverdale, between Whistler Forest Preserve and the Joe Louis “The Champ” Golf Course. We were just south of the Little Calumet River, Chicago’s southern border. There were no sidewalks here and wooded areas on either side. At 10 a.m., after ducking behind trees to pee, we began our march.

On the way to the bridge over the river we passed the Riverdale Marina where a couple of yachts hibernated at the dock. At the apex of the bridge I found a bootleg CD of Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane’s album “Trap-A-Thon” lying in the snow and we shot a self-portrait with the water behind us. As we crossed into the city the scenery suddenly changed from rural to urban. Halsted became a four-lane street with parking, left-turn bays and sidewalks, lined with storefront churches, day-care centers, barbershops and Harold’s Chicken shacks – we counted three within a seven-mile stretch. Virtually everyone we’d encounter for the next 90 blocks was African-American.

Here the concrete was covered with a grainy slush that was easier to walk on than the glare ice we encountered up north and Kevin, half a foot taller than me, set a brisk pace.
We passed the Cedar Park Cemetery, the Halsted Bowl bowling alley and the Jetsonian Kleen Towne Cleaners building. At 119th we crossed the Major Taylor Trail bike path, named after the black man who dominated bicycle racing at the turn of the 20th Century.

We stopped for brunch at the Roseland neighborhood’s S & E Diner, 11117 S., where signs told us the building was for sale. It was a cozy, old-fashioned café with booths and a long lunch counter, decorated for the holidays with tinsel and poinsettias. The wall behind the counter was crowded with framed photos of regulars, memorabilia from the Civil Rights Movement and a Sears Tower-shaped plaque honoring the late Mayor Harold Washington.

At 11 am we were the only customers – there wasn’t even a pot of coffee on the burner. Perhaps the place fills up after church services let out. The young woman behind the counter seemed a bit wary of two Caucasian strangers, as if she suspected we were undercover cops. “This is a really cool place,” I said, trying to make conversation. “It’s a shame it’s not going to be around much longer.” “Yes, it is,” she said dryly.

I got devil-red salmon croquettes, eggs, grits and biscuits; Kevin carbo loaded with French toast, home fries and a pancake. The food was delicious but the high butter and grease content troubled Monahan, a vegan. When it was time to pay, an older lady who had cooked the meal came out to ring us up. She was as friendly as the waitress was taciturn. She asked us if we had gotten our Christmas shopping out of the way and was delighted when Kevin said he was giving plants and homemade nut butters as gifts. “What a wonderful idea!”

North of there, the development became car-oriented, dominated by fast-food chains, strip malls and big-box stores with huge parking lots. At 101st we stopped to gaze at
a banner outside the headquarters for the Warriors Drum & Bugle Corps “for boys and girls age 10 to 20”. A young man, dressed in a baseball cap and turtleneck with a rhinestone-studded crucifix medallion, came out to greet us and tell us about the program “We have church services too – you’re welcome to come back and join us any time you like. We don’t see color here, just souls.”

A block later we came upon a mural titled “Our Brothers and Sisters from Day One” painted on the side of the Halsted Auto Diagnostic Clinic. It features dozens of figures from African and African-American history, from Queen Nefertiti to Frederick Douglass to Louis Farrakhan, the latter portrait added in recent years by a graffiti artist. After we crossed I-57 at 99th, Halsted became dominated by bungalows and three-flats, followed by a bleak stretch of industrial land and vacant lots. As we passed under the Metra tracks at 87th, a woman who was missing a few teeth slogged through the snow shouting into her cell phone. “I’m walking! Come get me then!”

The sidewalks had grown slippery again and Kevin and I had several near-spills, catching our balance only by windmilling our arms. “I wonder who’s gonna fall first,” he said. In the Auburn-Gresham area we started seeing local businesses once more. On 79th Christmas wreaths hung on the lampposts below the star-and-crescent sign for a mosque. Around 1:30 pm we decided to rest our feet at the Popcorn Lounge, 7656 S., where we could hear loud R & B playing on the sound system. Printing on the door warned “Must be 30. No Loitering / Peddling. 2 drink min.”

“Can I help you?” said the woman who was tending bar, pointing at the door - I had left it wide open. I mumbled an apology and we walked past a row of 50s-ish men in leather jackets and sat down. She studied our IDs carefully, perhaps guessing we’d been sent by the Liquor Control Board. “What do you have on draught?” Kevin asked. “Miller.” I asked for one and she handed me a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. Monahan ordered a Hennessy. As my friend and I chatted amongst ourselves I think the bartender realized we were harmless. She walked over to the jukebox and put on a soul singer’s cover of “Tush” by Z.Z. Top, probably for our benefit.

Refreshed, we continued north to 71st where a brown street sign for “Honorary Emmett Till Drive” commemorates the young Civil Rights martyr. At 65th bike lanes were visible for the first time on our walk, installed as part of the redevelopment of the former Englewood Shopping Plaza site. Kennedy-King College is relocating to the area and several big new buildings were visible by the Green Line stop at 63rd. As a result, property values are rising in what has long been one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. We were shocked to see Spartan new three-flats nearby with signs advertising condos “from the $200s”.

At Garfield Boulevard, 5500 S., we saw another mural titled “Women Against Oppression” painted on the side of LeMeck’s, a steak house with a huge, old-fashioned neon sign. Soon afterwards a guy rode past us on a mountain bike with wire baskets on the back and a large silver headlamp, one of the few cyclists we’d spotted all day. “If we see him again I’m going to flag him down and talk to him,” I declared.

A mile down the road we saw him pedaling towards us and I held up an index finger to catch his attention. Frank White III, who lives nearby at 56th and Union, was more than happy to talk. He asked Kevin, an IT specialist, for advice on getting around the password for a computer he had salvaged. He mentioned he was trying to break into the bike messenger business, so I suggested a few companies he could try. But he was really interested in telling us about his Rottweiler, Ren. His dog been gotten attacked by one of the local pit bulls and nearly got his ear torn off. After that, Frank trained him to fight by waving a rag in the air for his dog to attack; since then Ren hasn’t had any trouble with the neighborhood bullies.

As we continued through the Canaryville neighborhood, formerly home to the Union Stock Yards, an unpleasant dog food-like odor emanated from G & W Packing, the last remaining meat processor in the area. Kevin’s vegan nostrils were particularly offended, but the smell must have been nothing compared to the stench of the stockyard in its heyday as described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. We stopped by the old Stock Yards Gate at Exchange St., 4200 S., a massive limestone arch crowned by a steer’s head. Nearby, a recently-installed monument to fallen Chicago firefighters resembles a miniature version of the Vietnam War Memorial, topped by doughy sculptures of firemen with anguished faces.

A few blocks later we entered Bridgeport, the historically blue-collar, Irish- and Italian-American neighborhood where both mayors Daley grew up. Here the demographics changed abruptly and for the rest of our walk we saw mostly white faces. A cold mist was blowing in from the north so we ducked in for a beer at Schaller’s Pump, 3714 S., an old tavern that has long been a hangout for local politicians. The 11th Ward headquarters is right across the street. There are few windows on the front of the bar and you have to enter from the parking lot through the side of the building, apparently so patrons can come and go discreetly. As we entered the bar, the waitress stared at my salt-stained shoes; it seemed like outsiders aren’t particularly welcome there. The décor probably used to be pretty interesting but the place had been redecorated recently and there wasn’t much to look at besides some old photos of the White Sox and a grinning Richard J. Daley.

When we left Schaller’s at 4:30 pm it was already dark outside. Bridgeport feels like a small town in the city and as we continued through the 30s we passed a number of unique small businesses: the Ramova Grill, 3510 S.; Augustine’s Spiritual Goods, 3327 S.; Let’s Boogie Records, 3321 S.; the Healthy Food Lithuanian Restaurant, 3236 S.; and Ed’s Potsticker House, 3139 S. We picked up some apples at the Egg Store produce market, 3008 S., before heading next door to the Unique Thrift Store where Kevin bought some bandanas and a knit cap. As we were leaving he realized he’d dropped a glove and had to go back inside. On the way out the security guard gave him the third degree and searched his bag for several minutes as I watched through the glass door. Monahan was cursing when he returned. “The guard said, ‘Maybe you’re not shoplifting but how do I know you weren’t hired by my boss to test me?’”

In a few blocks we crossed the south branch of the Chicago River into the east side of the Pilsen neighborhood, a once Czechoslovakian-, now largely Mexican-American area that has seen an influx of other new residents in recent years, including many artists. We passed by the Skylark bar, 2149 S., a popular hangout for local Bohemians (painters, not Czechs). Many of the storefronts on this stretch of Halsted house galleries and much of the land is owned by the Podmajersky family, the Medicis of Pilsen.

After passing through a long railroad viaduct at 16th we found ourselves in the newly created University Village district, the University of Illinois at Chicago’s prefab college town. Formerly, the Maxwell Street area, it was home to a stretch of funky men’s wear stores, a huge Sunday flea market and two 24-hour Polish sausage stands, Jim’s Original and the Original Maxwell Street. Peddlers used to stand outside hawking tube socks and porno tapes at all hours of the night in the grilled onion-perfumed air. Most of the old buildings were razed and replaced by generic-looking university offices, condos, chain stores and fast-food franchises.

Crossing the Eisenhower Expressway by the UIC-Halsted Blue Line station at 500 S., we got a fine view of the Sears Tower and other Loop skyscrapers topped by red and green lights that shined through the murky night. “Do all the building managements get together and agree to light their buildings the same color,” I mused, “Orange for Halloween and pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month?”

Just north of the Ike, Greektown was quiet on this dismal Sunday evening but neon signs for its shops and restaurants buzzed cheerfully in the mist. As we crossed Madison Street, Chicago’s north-south bifurcating street I cried “Now we’re back on the North Side!” and the street addresses began increasing again. We passed by Club Paradox, 159 N., a strip club where some cat from Japan I used to know once worked as a male dancer.

Our feet were getting weary once more so we stopped for a third drink at the TNT Lounge, 184 N., a bar I’d read about in the great guidebook Chicago’s Best Dive Bars by Jonathan Stockton (IG Publishing 2005). It’s a predominantly African-American hangout around the corner from the fancy Randolph Market dining district. Kevin was impressed by the green pressed-tin ceiling and I noted a sign behind the bar for “Brain Day,” a chess and checkers session on Mondays at 6:30. A nook near the front window was lined with records and as a “stepper’s cut” played on the sound system an older gentleman grabbed the hand of a young woman with dreads and they danced with gusto.

Moving on, we trudged through slush on a bridge over railroad tracks and the Kennedy Expressway, catching a whiff of chocolate from the nearby Blommer factory. Descending to the six-way intersection with Grand and Milwaukee I spied the huge mural for the Funky Buddha Lounge which portrays the spiritual leader as a chubby man in a feathered bowler enjoying a snifter of brandy. A few blocks later at Chicago Ave. the Prairie concrete plant loomed to our left with its huge silos and dozens of cement mixers.

We crossed the north branch of the Chicago River onto Goose Island, the city’s only isle, and stopped at the curiously named Flaming Wok, 901 N., an Indian and Pakastani restaurant that caters to cab drivers. When I asked to see a menu, the man behind the counter spooned out small portions of various curries onto a plate for us to sample. “I’m going to have to veto this,” whispered Kevin. “I’ll tell you why later.” Feigning an upset stomach, Kevin apologized to the counterman and we left. Outside he told me he had once taken a food safety course and he noticed that the curries were sitting lukewarm in trays and were microwaved just prior to being served, ideal conditions for food poisoning.

Crossing back off the island at Division Street, 1200 N., we saw the last remaining high rises of the Cabrini Green housing project, destined for the wrecking ball to make room for new condos. A couple of the windows of the bleak concrete towers had black smudge marks smearing upwards, probably from kitchen fires. Approaching the Red Line station at North Ave., 1600 N., I finally slipped on the icy sidewalk and fell palms first on the pavement, losing our gentleman’s bet.

From here on, Halsted Street became a pleasant, two-lane thoroughfare lined with bike lanes and parked cars, dense with boutiques and eateries, theaters and taverns. It occurred to me that this is the terrain that comes to mind when most North Siders think of Halsted, but in reality this well-scrubbed territory makes up only the northern tenth of the 20-mile street.

Kevin remembered that a friend of his was working at Café Ba-Ba-Reeba, 2024 N., a stylish Tapas bar, so we stopped in for free drinks and plates of marinated vegetables and grilled baby squid. We continued pub crawling a few more blocks to a new Irish pub called Trinity, 2721 N., in the Lincoln Park neighborhood near DePaul University. Monahan had read on the internet that drinks were half price there on Sundays; this was not the case but pints of Guinness were a reasonable $3. The Colts were playing the Ravens on TV and a couple of frat brothers high fived after a touchdown. “Yes, we are in Lincoln Park,” I sniffed.

At Belmont Street, 3200 N., we spotted the phallic, rainbow-ringed monuments that mark the entrance to Boystown with its multitude of gay bars and dance clubs. We’d invited a gay friend to join us on this odyssey but he wound up canceling due to inadequate footwear. So, while it might have been more fitting to have our last drinks at a gay venue like Roscoe’s, Sidetracks or the Cell Block, we demurred and went to the strip’s only straight bar, the Town Hall Pub, 3340 N.

The place was almost deserted, but it was a pleasant dive with Christmas lights and old photos plastered over the back bar. I’d heard it was a Deadhead hangout, but mellow indie rock was playing on the jukebox as Julie the punky, tattooed barmaid held court. We were nearly done with our walk so we toasted our accomplishment with pints of beer, followed by complimentary shots of Julie’s homemade jalapeno-infused vodka backed by beakers of Bloody Mary mix.

We left the day’s sixth bar and staggered the remaining four blocks to the finish line, the terminus of Halsted at Broadway and Grace, 3800 N., where I tagged the northernmost Halsted Street sign. It was 10 p.m., 12 hours after we’d begun our expedition.

I ducked into the adjacent 24-hour IHOP to urinate before we caught the CTA home. A sign of the door insisted that restrooms were for customers only, so I asked the host for a blueberry muffin to go. Confused, he replied that they didn’t have muffins. “Would you like some pancakes?” The manager came over to facilitate. When they turned their heads for a moment I made a b-line for the bathroom. The manager followed me. “Are you getting an order for here or to go?” he demanded. “Uh, to go,” I said, opening the door.

On the way back I considered making a break for the exit, but instead I opted to tipsily address the host again. “Um, what kind of scones do you have?” The poor bastard, probably tired of dealing with late night drunks, replied tartly. “We don’t have scones. You could try Caribou Coffee or Starbucks.” In the interest of not being a complete jerk, I bought a small cocoa and left.

Kevin was waiting outside with a sheepish expression on his face. The manager had busted him at the restaurant’s dumpster in mid-pee. We retreated south and I stood guard as he finished the job behind an abandoned muffler shop next to the local police station. Relieved, we walked west two more blocks on Addison St. towards Wrigley Field and the Red Line en route to our warm beds.

Walking Kedzie Avenue

2011-06-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Walking the length of Chicago’s Kedzie Avenue reveals a kaleidoscope of cultures

By John Greenfield

[This piece also runs on Gaper's Block, wwwgapersblock.com.]

“No Kedzie is known to have been arrested as a violator of the civil law, to have been intemperate, or dependent on charity, or to have paid less than one hundred cents on the dollar,” claim family records, as quoted in Chicago: Its History and Its Builders.

Chicago’s Kedzie Avenue, which runs about 23 miles from the city’s southern border to its northern limit, is named after one of the family’s favorite sons, John Hume Kedzie. The son of Scottish immigrants, he developed parts of the North and West Sides and several suburbs, and spoke out against slavery as an early member of Illinois’ Republican Party, according to the book Streetwise Chicago.

I’ve strolled the length of several Chicago streets, including Western, Milwaukee, Halsted, Archer, Grand and 63rd, in search of interesting sights, good grub and cozy dive bars. Looking for another north-south thoroughfare to add to my collection, I choose Kedzie as a reasonably walkable roadway with an interesting mix of ethnic businesses. The catch is that Kedzie, located at 3200 W., is non-contiguous; it leaves the city for two miles on the South Side, then disappears up north, only to reappear four blocks later. I decide that’s not a problem.

A guy named Richard, who I used to know from the weekly Bike Messenger Night series at Phyllis’ Music Inn but haven’t seen for a decade, has contacted me recently. He’s stumbled upon my 63rd St. write-up on the Web and volunteers to join me for the first half of this trek. He’s a food and drink expert who has done extensive research on South Kedzie, so he’ll be a useful person to have along for the walk.

On the morning of Saturday, January 3, I take the CTA Green Line downtown, catch the Red Line south to 95th St. and then ride the 112 bus southwest to meet Richard in the Mount Greenwood community. After coffee, eggs and grits at the Magic Restaurant, 3335 W. 111th, a Greek diner packed with Irish-Americans, we head south to Kedzie and 115th, at the border with the suburb of Merrionette Park.

We begin our northbound walk back into Mount Greenwood at 10:20 am as the sky grows overcast. This blue-collar, Catholic community, a knob of the city surrounded by seven different cemeteries, produces more than its fair share of cops and firefighters. Here Kedzie is a manageable four-lane road lined with bungalows. The lawn of one of these at 11123 S. has 2-foot-tall wooden cutouts of a cherubic marine, sailor and soldier next to a yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon.

We pass two beloved local eateries, Grant’s Wonderburger, 11045 S., and Lindy’s Chili and Ice Cream, 11009 S., then the Mount Greenwood Church of the Nazarene, 10454 S., with a sign in English and Arabic. Chicagoland Fitness and Schwinn, 10359 S., is the city’s southwestern-most bike shop.

At 103rd Kedzie leaves the city for Evergreen Park, the village that produced George Wendt (Norm from the sitcom “Cheers”) and Ted Kaczynski, AKA the Unabomber. There are few traffic lights here and the ensuing high-speed traffic here reminds us that we’re in the ‘burbs. We detour west a couple blocks on 97th to check out a small, diamond-shaped park at the crossroads of eight streets.

Next we visit Snackville Junction, 9144 S. Kedzie, a diner where the plates are delivered by model train cars that ride a track around the oval-shaped counter. I buy some coffee to go, setting the cup on top of a gumball machine. When it slips and crashes to the floor, I yell the F-word in the restaurant full of small children and their parents. “Pardon my French,” I say sheepishly.

Guardian Auto Rebuilders, 8939 S., is topped by a large fiberglass Paul Bunyan look-alike whose hands were designed to hold either a muffler or an axe but are empty instead. After we pass Smokey the Bear Tobacco Shop, 8701 S., we’re back in Chicago and the cars slow to a more pleasant speed for us adjacent pedestrians.

This is the Ashburn neighborhood, so named because it used to be a dumping ground for the city’s burnt coals. “It’s kinda funny,” says Richard, “We haven’t passed a single bar yet.” As if in response, an anonymous Old Style bar soon appears at 8406 S., next to the Gaelic Fire Brigade, a private social club, but we decide it’s too early to drink.

For the next few blocks most folks on the street are African-American. As we stare at the broken-down, atomic-age sign for Royal Cleaners, 8220 S., an elderly Jamaican lady comes out of the jerked chicken stand next door. “Are you interested in buying my building?” she asks. She’s wearing a blue knit beret and a red apron that reads “Sexy Senior Citizen.”

We pass 18th Ward Alderman Lona Lane’s office at 8146 S., pass under a Metra viaduct and find ourselves at Don’s Hotdogs, 7748 S. The fiberglass wiener on the roof is squirting mustard and, breaking the local taboo, ketchup on himself. He’s wearing Chuck Taylors and tube socks and an American flag cape.

Here Kedzie climbs over some railroad tracks and we spy the Kraft Chicago Bakery, 7300 S. which still has large NABISCO signage. Richard, an architecture buff, admires what he calls the Art Moderne streamlining of the building’s window bays. “I love this stuff,” he says.

We descend into Marquette Park, the largest park on the Southwest Side, its lagoons frozen solid. North of the park in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, many of the businesses have signs in Spanish. On a whim we stop for a drink on 66th St. at a salsa club called Ruta (“Route”) 66. Richard addresses the barmaid in fluent Spanish and she doesn’t seem to understand when I order in English, so I figure it wouldn’t be rude to hack my way through the conversation en español as well.

As we drink Coronas with lime and salt while salsa blares in the nearly empty bar, Melissa tells us she moved here from Nicaragua a few years ago. “Do you like Chicago?” I ask. “No,” she says. “It’s too cold here.” “But Chicago is a very interesting city with many things to do,” I protest in stilted Spanish. A bartender himself, Richard orders us a chelada, basically a Bloody Mary with beer instead of vodka, and grills Melissa about her other drink recipes before we move on.

At 64th, a mural on the Southwest Side Youth Collaborative building features Chinese dragons and carp, Mayan-inspired artwork, “Wildstyle” graffiti writing and Arabic calligraphy. We’re starting to get hungry again, just in time for Richard to take me on tour of local Mexican restaurants that serve regional specialties.

We start at La Chaparrita #2, 5958 S., for Veracruz-style tamales, wrapped in banana leaves. They’re out of these so we buy miniature tacos filled with steak, steamed beef and cow head and scarf them down as we walk.

We pass the old Colony Theater and Betty’s Ice Cream (“Good ice cream for good people”) at 55th and decide to stop for a second beer at Ted’s Firewater Saloon, 5834 S., which Richard says is run by three crazy old Irish sisters. The dive is decorated with stuffed deer and wild boar heads and the crowd is a mix of Anglos and Latinos.

After downing mugs of Old Styles with ice crystals floating in them, we head up the street to Rosa’s Tamales, 5632 S., for atole, a warm, cornmeal-based drink. Richard orders me a guava-flavored atole and gets himself the chocolate version, called champurrado; I pick up some chicken tamales as well.

At 55th we pass St. Gall Catholic Church with its towering, minimalist cross and sweeping concrete buttresses, then see Kedzie Liquors across the street, its sign flanked by silver naked ladies. Next Richard takes me to Café-Chocolate, 5141 S., an ice cream parlor with that also serves savory specialties from the Mexican state of Durango, but only on weekends.

We get their versions of gorditas and burritos, made with homemade corn and wheat tortillas, respectively, and filled with carne deshebrehada (pulled beef), machaca (dried beef), rajas con queso (sweet peppers and cheese) or chile pasada (dried and stewed chile). The waitress also insists on us giving a few tangerines from a bowl on the counter.

By now I’m pretty stuffed, which is good because Richard warns me there won’t be anything to eat for a few miles. Kedzie soon becomes dominated by strip malls and big box stores. At 45th we pass the Columbia Explorers Academy, named in honor of the ill-fated space shuttle mission.

As darkness falls we stop at La Acambarense Bakery, 3815 S., to pick up pan de Acambaro, a specialty from the state of Guanajuato, round loaves of sweet bread with raisins, marbled pink with food coloring. After passing under the Stevenson Expressway we cross the Sanitary and Ship Canal and enter the Little Village neighborhood.

The Washburn Technical School used to exist at 31st. Richard says one of the school buildings, “a beautiful, creamy-white Art Moderne,” has already been demolished. The other structure, a hulking red brick building with many broken windows, covered in graffiti, seems destined for the wrecking ball.

By the railroad tracks near 28th there are more murals with vivid Pre-Columbian and Chinese imagery, as well a cartoonish exploding skull. The smell of fresh tortillas grows strong as we approach the vibrant 26th Street Mexican business district.

Richard suggests we head a bit east to Aguascalientes supermarket, next to the archway over 26th that says “Bienvenidos a Little Village,” to sample another style of gordita. These are made with thick rounds of grilled homemade corn dough. I get one stuffed with pork loin in red adobo sauce, beans and cheese – absolutely delicious.

Mi Tierra, 2528 S., is a massive restaurant with pink adobe walls and a bell tower, while across the street Volkan nightclub draws 20-somethings to dance to Latin music and disco. Botanica El Secreto Azteca, 2413 S. sells spiritual goods, including many statuettes of saints with skulls for faces. Richard tells me these are bought by followers of the Santo Muerte (“Dead Saint”) cult which is gaining ground in Mexico, to the dismay of the Catholic Church.

Cermak Avenue, 2200 S., is the sharp dividing line between Mexican-American Little Village with its healthy retail strips and Lawndale, an underserved African-American community with many shuttered businesses, vacant lots and burned-out buildings.

Richard is up for walking through the night, but I chicken out, remembering that a few blocks up the street is a stretch of Kedzie with broken streetlights. I’ve been hassled while bicycling through that section in the dark, so I decide it’s best to continue the walk in daylight. We shake hands and Richard catches the Cermak bus east to the Red Line while I ride the California-Kedzie north back home to Garfield Park.

That Monday morning at 8:30 I meet up with Casey, who recently taught English in Patagonia with my girlfriend, at the Kedzie Pink Line station near Cermak and we resume the walk. He moved to Chicago just three days earlier, so I figure this a chance to show him the city’s cultural diversity.

Just north of the station, the skull-and-iron-cross logo painted on the window board-up at 2101 S. suggests it’s the headquarters for an outlaw biker gang, but the buzzer says Illinois Manufacturing Co. A few blocks later, a mural on the side of cellular store at 1556 S. features a folk-art image of Halle Berry as Catwoman – her feline predecessor Eartha Kitt died this Christmas Day.

Douglas Boulevard, 1400 S., is part of the Boulevard System of Chicago which links most of the city’s major parks with broad roadways with grassy medians running down the middle. A weathered sculpture of a monolithic mother, father and child sits in the middle of Douglas.

I snap a picture of a beat-up sign for live catfish outside a grocery store at 1253 S., and as we walk away Casey say he thinks some guys are breaking into a car in the parking lot. “Maybe we should make a citizen’s arrest,” I reply.

After we cross the Eisenhower Expressway back into Garfield Park, we see a large mural at the Kut Zone, 407 S. featuring a bling-laden barber giving a customer a fade. A few blocks later we come to Edna’s, 3175 W. Madison, a cozy soul food place where Martin Luther King Jr. hung out while campaigning for fair housing in Chicago. A few years ago I ate there with a friend who’s Filipina. As we entered the restaurant, a small boy behind us on the sidewalk called out, “Hey, white lady.” She was pissed.

Just north of the Green Line stop at 259 N., a hand-painted sign on a telephone pole says, encouragingly, “We are all good people.” We’re only two blocks from my apartment but we keep walking, past the old factory building where my friend Steve lives. One of his neighbors is G the Sign Painter, an elderly Native American man who lives in his workshop and claims to have fathered 60 children.

I’ve been meaning to visit the 007 Lounge, 600 N., but it’s only 9:30 am when we pass by. My landlord told me he's worried he might get shot if he goes to the bar, but Steve has told me the place is all right. “I went there early one time and the owner was really cool – he’s a funny guy,” he said. “The pimps and hookers and drug dealers started showing up later on.”

A couple blocks later, a tall young man with a rhinestone-studded leather jacket approaches us. I’m guessing he’s going to ask us for money but instead he strikes up a conversation about the History Channel. “Did you guys see that show about Nostradamus?” he asks. “It’s called ‘Countdown to Armageddon.’ It’s real nice.”

Soon Casey and I enter Humboldt Park, the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood, and around 1400 N. we enter the eponymous park and climb a man-made hill for an unusual view of the skyline. At Armitage, 2000 N., we come to the “ghost bike” memorial for Blanca Ocasio, who was killed on her bicycle at this intersection in September 2007 when a garbage truck hit her. Six months later Amanda Annis died on her bike at the same spot after a car ran a red.

Kedzie becomes a broad boulevard at Palmer Square Park, 2200 N., as we approach the eagle-topped pillar of the Illinois Centennial Monument, the center of the gentrifying Logan Square neighborhood. We pass by the bike shop where I work, Boulevard Bikes, 2535 N., but it’s closed on Mondays, so we keep moving, negotiating the tricky six-way intersection and traffic circle around the nearby monument.

We enter Avondale, a heavily Polish community, pass under the Kennedy Expressway and then see a number of frozen pigeons under a Metra viaduct. Casey wonders if someone poisoned them.

Soon we’re multi-ethnic Albany Park. D’Candela Peruvian Restaurant, 4053 N., offers roast chicken and other hearty dishes like Lomo Saltado: beef slices sautéed onions and tomatoes, served with rice and fries. Arun’s, 4156 N., is a fancy Thai restaurant where I once ate an exquisite eight-course meal for my birthday. We soon enter a stretch with many Arab-owned businesses, and stop at Sanabel Bakery, 4253 N., to pick up some spinach and cheese pies.

Casey suggests we visit Our Lady of Mercy, 4331 N., a Roman Catholic church with twin steeples and a domed cupola. We yank on the locked doors and are about to walk away when a friendly, white-robed priest lets us in. Built in 1953, the church’s sanctuary feels modern but it has a lovely traditional altar with black marble columns and a huge crèche scene set up in front for the holidays. A drum kit and microphone stands are set up nearby and a sign says in Spanish and English, “No food, no gum, turn off cell phone.”

I buy some Middle Eastern pastries made with filo dough, honey at pistachios at Feyrous Bakery, 4510 N., and we stop into a McDonalds to take advantage of Free Latte Monday and eat the sweets. Continuing, we pass stores selling hookahs, cookware and wall hangings with Arabic calligraphy embossed in metal.

Around 4600 N., a Brown Line train rumbles by at street level and we pass Noon-O-Kabob, my favorite Iranian restaurant. I’ve been told Andy’s Fruit Ranch, 4733 N., sells every form of produce known to man.

After Lawrence, 4800 N., we start seeing signs in Korean and soon we cross the North Branch of the Chicago River. The Center for Seniors, 5320 N., has a pleasant Asian garden on its grounds with stone lanterns and topiaried trees that look like something out of Dr. Seuss. A few blocks of Bryn Mawr, 5600 N., west of Kedzie contain mostly Korean businesses. This strip is blocked off each summer for one the city’s best street festivals; one intersection is filled with sand for sumo-like wrestling bouts.

At this point the north-south street temporarily changes names from Kedzie to Jersey and angles northwest slightly, paralleling the North Shore Channel. The channel meets up with the Chicago River a few blocks south, forming a miniature waterfall.

We’re approaching Rogers Park, the center of Chicago’s Orthodox Jewish community, and as we pass Congregation Beth Shalom Ahavas Achim, 5655 N., an unmarked police car pulls up alongside us. An officer in a bulletproof vest and stocking cap requests our ID and asks us where we live before letting us go. “What’s going on?” I ask. “We’re looking for someone right around here,” the cop replies.

Casey stops for another free McDonalds latte at Peterson, 6000 N., before we head east to where Kedzie resumes as a quiet residential street on the other side of the channel. I’d promised Casey we’d get lunch on Devon Street, 6400 N., which is famous for its many blocks of Indian and Pakistani businesses. So we detour several blocks east, past Russian, Georgian, Assyrian (a Christian ethnic group from the Middle East) and Jewish businesses to my favorite Indian buffet joint, Sher-A-Punjab, 2510 W. Devon.

But when I return to the table with a full plate of curries, Casey tells me he’s going to skip lunch - all those lattes did a number on his stomach. He decides to head back downtown, but first we toast our walk with cans of PBR at his namesake dive bar, Casey’s Corner, down the street at 2733 W. Devon.

After I put him on a bus, I return to Kedzie and the giant baseball at Thillens Little League Stadium, 3200 W. Devon. The last 12 blocks of my trek are pretty monotonous. To my left is the wooded east bank of the channel, eventually obscured by an industrial zone. To my right are boring suburban-style residences, followed by four matching, monolithic senior high-rises, the Winston Towers.

Finally, with stiff knees and sore feet, I reach the terminus of Kedzie at Howard Street, 7600 N., the Evanston border. A Jewel-Osco, Best Buy and other big boxes loom in front of me. It’s a dull ending to a fascinating walk.

Walking Archer Avenue

2011-06-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Walking the length of Chicago’s Archer Avenue in one day provides a window to Polish-, Mexican- and Chinese-American culture

[This will also run 5/19 on Gapers Block, www.gapersblock.com]

By John Greenfield

A half hour into my stroll up Archer Avenue I noticed a car speeding by with a big red-and-white Polish flag taped to its hood, then a second one with a flag sticking out a window, then a third with a couple of flags attached to the roof. Something was going on.

Archer, which runs tens miles northeast through Chicago’s South Side, from the suburban border to Chinatown, was the lastest foray in my campaign to walk the length of all the city’s major thoroughfares. Years ago I tackled Milwaukee and Western Avenues; last December my friend Kevin Monahan and I conquered all 20 miles of Halsted Street in one long, frigid, alcohol-soaked day.

I’m not sure why I chose Archer Avenue this time, except I wanted to check out all the the cool post-war artifacts, ethnic restaurants and dive bars I’d seen on rides to the Baby Doll Polka Club and while doing fieldwork for the City’s bike program.

Archer follows the original portage path from the Desplaines River to the Chicago River, the same trail that French explorers Marquette and Joliet used to carry their canoes when they mapped out the Illinois region in 1673. The street parallels the route of the old Illinois and Michigan Canal, the Sanitary and Ship Canal (responsible for reversing the flow of the Chicago River) and I-55, the Adlai Stevenson Expressway.

According to Streetwise Chicago by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee (Loyola University Press 1988), Archer Avenue was named for Col. William Beatty Archer, a civil engineer and abolitionist. In the mid-1800s Irish immigrants who settled in the Bridgeport neighborhood, near the northern terminus of the street, disliked the colonel for his politics - they worried that freed slaves would compete with them for work. But after Archer became head of the I & M Canal Commission and provided them with hundreds of jobs building the waterway, he became a popular man in Bridgeport.

On Saturday, May 3, I boarded the Blue Line in Wicker Park solo – I’d invited a bunch of my pals to join me but this time no one took the bait. I rode southeast to the Loop and then west to the Harlem stop, then caught a Pace bus south a few miles to the suburb of Summit, where Archer crosses the border.

I continued another two blocks south to Chicagoland’s first Krispy Kreme location. Ten years ago, when this was the only place in the area to buy their doughnuts, I used make regular pilgrimages there to get them as rolled hot off the line. I was looking forward to starting my walk with a Boston cream, so I was bitterly disappointed when I saw “STORE NOW CLOSED” signs in the window. Now that you can find Krispy Kremes in any Jewel supermarket, the shop had lost its cachet. Like someone who had eaten too many of the oil-laden fritters, it was a victim of saturation.

The day was gray and chilly with light rain and a brisk wind blowing (fortunately for me) out of the southwest. Pulling the hood of my raincoat over my head I backtracked to Archer and started my trek east into Chicago’s Garfield Ridge neighborhood at 3:30 pm. At this point the road was essentially 55th Street, heading due east at 5500 south; it would begin its northeasterly slope a mile later.

In a few minutes I found myself outside the Rainbow Motel, 7050 W., which is famous for for its Pink Palace Suites, available for four- and six-hour visits as well as overnight stays. Eleven “Fantasy Rooms” offer marble whirlpool spas and complimentary champaign in unque theme settings. The “Hawaiian Waters” room includes an octagonal waterbed and tiki décor; “Space Walk” has a bed shaped like a lunar lander, surrounded by stars, planets and “friendly spaceships”; “Out to Lunch” features a bed shaped like a giant sandwich.

“It’s a year-round paradise and a dream fantasy vacation,” explains a brochure. “A couple’s place to get re-acquainted with the one you love, celebrate life with the one you married or begin a new, exciting relationship.”

After grabbing a prune kolacky across the street at Weber’s, 7055 W., one of dozens of old-school bakeries I’d pass that day, I continued east. Here, and for most of its length, Archer is a four-lane road with high-speed traffic and parking on either side.

Submarine, 6825 W., a drive-in with postmodern, boat-like architecture looked folorn, boarded-up and abandoned. On the other hand, Carmen’s Bicycles, 6519 W., is a cheerful outpost almost ten miles from the nearest Chicago bike shop. It was closed but behind the security lattice, man-sized Elmo and Kermit the Frog dolls were visible sharing the seat of a classic Schwinn cruiser.

At Narragansett St. (6400 W.), Archer veered a bit northward, splitting from 55th at a small triangular park where a granite slab honored the freedom fighter Lech Walesa and his Solidarity movement. Soon I began noticing the vehicles with red-and-white flags and realized the residents of this heavily Polish area must be celebrating something.

As a jet soared right over my head I remembered that I was only a few blocks from Midway Airport. Hungry, I ducked into Stan and Helene’s (5960 W.), a run-down bar that advertised home cooking in English and Polish. “Is this some kind of Polish-American holiday?” I asked the bartender as she drew me an MGD. “Yes, it’s Polish Constitution Day,” she replied in a pleasing Slavic accent.

I ordered some tasty potato pancakes with chunky applesauce and a side of smoked sausage and leaned back in my barstool to watch the Kentucky Derby on TV as “Mississippi Queen” blared on the jukebox. Next to me a very drunk couple caroused over mini pitchers. After the woman finshed cutting her sausage sandwich in two the barmaid demanded “give me the knife.”

In a few blocks I passed Bobak Sausage Company, 5275 S., a Mecca for lovers of encased meats, and then came to Szala’s restaurant, 5220 S., a huge A-frame building with evergreens and an old-fashioned carriage in front. The sign featured a cartoon of a burly Polish Highlander pouring himself a mug from a giant beer keg hoisted on his shoulder.

A second triangular park at Archer and 51st features an artillery gun and small memorials to the Korean and Vietnam wars. Gazing at them, it occurred to me that the Korean War was probably worth fighting – South Korea is now a rich country while the people of North Korean often face food shortages under one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. If things had gone similarly in Vietnam, that war might not have seemed like such a collosal mistake.

I spied the Orange Line station at Pulaski Ave., 4000 W., where Archer takes on a steeper pitch, heading almost due northeast. More Spanish-language signs began to appear among the Polish delis. The sign for La Femme Chicago Chic Boutique, 5093 S. shows a Patrick Nagel-inspired beauty, straight off the cover of a Duran Duran album, while glazed terra cotta tiles outside Szykowny Funeral Home, 4901 S., form a delicate rhododendron motif.

I stopped for aother beer at the headquarters for the cultural organization Polish Highlanders Alliance of America, 4808 S., a large complex with a restaurant, bar and banquet facilities. A group of Latino folks were entering the rental hall for some sort of celebration; a few of them were wearing cowboy clothes. Inside the tavern with its beautiful blond woodwork I heard only Polish as I sipped a big mug of Okocim.

An older gentleman next to me was dressed in white leggings and a vest. When I asked him if he was part of some kind of Constitution Day performance, someone explained that the guy didn’t speak any English. “It’s old-school, traditional Highlander gear,” explained a young guy with a red-and-white Dr. Suess hat emblazoned with the Polish eagle on the bar in front of him. “It’s kind of like mariachi to a Mexican.” Soon a quartet in a corner booth, including a young man in 1800s military clothing, began bellowing Polish drinking songs at an earsplitting volume.

Moving along, I passed the World’s Finest Chocolate factory, 4801 S., Show Carpet Outlet, 4327 S., with a garish Pirates of the Carribean-inspired mural painted on the side wall, and the classic Golden Heart Snack Shop, 4210 S.

At Tenoch Tattoo, 3970 S., young people were painting Pre-Columbian Mexican art designs on the walls, ceiling and floor, as well as a huge portrait of Kika, the owner. Jesus Barrios, the manager, explained that the shop is named after the legendary ruler of the Aztecs who founded Mexico City, AKA Tenochtitlan.

As the sun peeked out from the clouds I stopped at lush, green McKinley Park, 3700 S., one of Chicago’s three major parks named after assassinated U.S. presidents, to check out a statue of it’s namesake. Commander-in-Chief during the Spanish-American War in which the U.S won control of Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Phillipines and Guam, William Mckinley was shot by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901.

A few blocks later, I stopped at the windowless, triangular bar El Toro Loco for my third beer of the day. The place seemed a bit sketchy from the outside, but inside clean white walls and a large mirror created a pleasantly spacious effect. At 7 pm the place was empty except for a small group of attractive young and middle-aged women chatting in Spanish with the barmaid and a single man drinking alone at the other end of the bar. Conjunto music played on the sound system and a Mexican talk show was on TV. As I reached the bottom of my can of Tecate someone came in with a bag of limes and I was offered a slice for my beer – too late.

At Damen Ave. I saw Huck Finn Donuts, a 24-hour diner I used to frequent when I lived nearby in Bridgeport a decade ago. Half a block north I noticed La Palapa, 2000 W. 34th, a new seafood shack topped with a giant fibreglass shark, and couldn’t resist stopping in. I’d been planning to have dinner in Chinatown, but the shrimp-and-octopus cocktail I ordered came in a goblet the size of a goldfish bowl. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a while – packed with big pieces of seafood in a sweet tomato base with onion, cilantro and hunks of avocado, plus sides of ceviche (pickled fish), green salsa, crisp corn tortillas and Saltines.

Things became less scenic and my feet grew tired as I strolled away from the sunset into Bridgeport, with dull stretches of industry and cookie-cutter townhomes. At Ashland the Stevenson Expressway joined up with Archer and formed the view on my left. But as I passed the storefront Chicago Shaolin Temple, 2990 S. a view of senior citizens doing tai chi lifted my spirits.

Bike lanes were visible for the first time on Archer around 27th, shortly before the street parted ways with the expressway. I didn’t notice any artifacts of Bridgeport’s Irish past, but as I neared Chinatown I saw more signs in Chinese and a few Asian food manufacturing plants, like New Taste Good Noodles Co., 2559 S.

As I entered the Chinese neighborhood, I stopped to snap a picture of Lina Food and Liquor, near Cermak, with its neon Chinese dragon beer signs. The clerk came out and scolded me. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to ask permission before you do that.” “Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes, and walked away.

I was pretty sick of walking by then but the old-fashioned signage, festive lights and interesting architecture of Chinatown always cheer me up when I’m in a funk. I passed by the Chinatown Mall on the northwest side of Archer, where the locals tend to eat, away from the more touristy main drags of Cermak and Wentworth. The mall’s plaza is populated with large stone sculptures of temple dogs and others animals from the Chinese Zodiac. Up the block, a large mosaic shows the history of Chinese immigration to the U.S. In the center of the image, for some reason, figures of various ethnicites in office clothes stand under the Statue of Liberty.

I had only a couple more blocks to walk as I spotted the Hilliard Homes, curving, honeycombed towers designed by Bertrand Goldberg, the same architect who did the twin corncobs of the Loop’s Marina City complex. Originally a high-rise public housing project, the homes have recently been converted into mixed-income apartments.

As I reached the northern terminus of Archer at State Street, Chicago’s east-west bifurcator, on my right I saw the dull, new Pointe 1900 Residences. But on my left stood the inspiring architecture of Perspectives Charter School, a dramatic, angular steel-and-glass structure that resembles the prow of a ship. It seems like a cool school.

I backtracked to Chinatown, bought a coconut bun at a bakery and headed to catch a ride home at the local Red Line station near Cermak and Wentworth, next to an expressway exit ramp. A week earlier during Friday evening rush hour, a semi truck barreled off the ramp through the intersection and slammed into the escalator at the north entrance of the crowded station, killing two riders and injuring many others. As I write this, the 64-year-old driver is still in police custody while authorities try to determine what happed.

The north entrance had reopened the day before I walked Archer. The CTA had done a good job of cleaning up what had been a mass of wreckage. On top of the clean, white board-up area, a bilingual banner with Chinese characters and English words in reassuring Helvetica font informed customers that escalator replacement was underway. “We appreciate your patience.”