West Loop, Near West Side

 

Deciding which neighborhood to visit on the Near West Side was difficult. The area includes unique places, such as Greektown, Fulton Market, and the quiet residential Tri-Taylor. Before moving to Chicago I had read quite a bit about Little Italy, and considered locating my family there. Using Google street views I liked the style of the homes and its proximity to a university and downtown. After nine months of living in Chicago I still hadn’t gone to the neighborhood.

My daughter and I do regularly go the Morgan L (elevated train) stop of the Near West Side. I adore the shrimp grits at Wishbone restaurant, Khloe at Solo Salon is a genius at giving me a beautiful shade of “natural” red hair, and Wigglyville is my favorite spot to buy dog treats.

Still, the point of my project was to experience new places. Before locating to Chicago I’d read about the French Market. Unfortunately, it’s closed on Sundays, when my family and I often travel around the city. I talked my daughter into accompanying me during a weekday to West Loop.

We took the L to the Clinton stop. The French Market was only a block away. While I would have liked to have eaten lunch in one of the finer nearby French restaurants, none I found were within our budget.

I’m a big fan of public markets because they are so important to the health of a community. The eastern side of West Loop is adjacent to Chicago’s downtown and lives in the shadow of one of North America’s tallest skyscrapers, the Willis Tower. (Locals still call the building the Sears Tower.) Rents in West Loop are climbing similarly sky high.

The public market provides space to small and local vendors who couldn’t otherwise afford to be the in the area. We were able to experience interesting food without breaking the bank. The market is located in the Ogilvie Transportation Center, combining two of my favorite things—markets and trains. Shopping in the train station allows Metra commuters to grab groceries or a bite to eat as they pass through.

Nearby is Union Station, serving more Metra lines and Amtrak. Chicago is the largest rail hub in the United States, both for freight and passenger travel. West Loop is unique in that many of those tracks run under the neighborhood. While cities like New York have contentious battles over air rights, the problem for West Loop is ground rights. It’s difficult to find empty places to anchor new buildings along the river.

Upon arrival to the French Market we pursued various vendor stalls to choose our lunch. Options included a number of nationalities, including Mexican and Asian. I was tempted by a Croque Madame sandwich or fresh crepes. In the end, my daughter and I both opted for delicious Belgian hamburgers and fries. I’ve never tried mayo on my fries. It was much tastier than I expected.

After lunch we traversed the eastern side of the neighborhood, starting along the river. It was an unseasonably warm early February day in the low forties. Small groups of people walked in the sunshine or took smoke breaks outside office highrises.

It didn’t take long to complete a loop, going as far as the freeway on the western side. We purposely ended up back at the French Market to find mid-afternoon desserts. There were plenty of chocolates, pastries and sweets. Before we finished I bought treats to take home and some wonderful fresh tortellini to add to our salads for dinner. I plan to keep the market in mind for cold winter days ahead.

 

 

VIDEO: Pullman Historic District

Link to video of photos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WWxj5rwA4U

Choosing Chicago Part 6

Part 1 (Go the beginning of Choosing Chicago, if you missed the first part of the series. Otherwise, read on.)

Part 6

In Miami I had my moment of realization. I’m not sure why such an obvious fact had never occurred to me before. In thinking about the different cities we were visiting, the neighborhoods were shaped by their street grids. I began to realize that despite a city’s best intentions the basic grid can’t be changed. The streets just are where they are. Miami had installed a PeopleMover elevated tram to transverse an inaccessible downtown, but it didn’t fix the basic problem. A pedestrian can’t walk from downtown to the adjoining Omni neighborhood on most of the streets. The areas are only connected for vehicular traffic on roads.

Miami was spending boatloads of money to bring in fancy consultants to help them “reshape” their urban environment for cycling and walking. An honest assessment would be to tell them to pray for an enormous natural disaster—an earthquake or hurricane which levels part of the city. Something which would wipe their slate clean and allow them to start over from scratch.

A city can be designed for travel by foot or in cars, but not both. Parking completely changes the landscape. If the streets are laid out for walking around, then it will retain its basic pedestrian scale, like the grid of Manhattan. Suburbs designed for trolley cars, like those found in Brooklyn or many neighborhoods of Chicago, also maintain a pleasant atmosphere, particularly when fast transit links to downtowns are available. Neighborhoods built in the last seventy years are designed for cars.

Americans have a choice we don’t want to make. We want to believe there is a magical middle ground between facilitating walking and the use of cars. It doesn’t exist. High priced consultants are creating reams of reports on design tweaks to “retrofit” sprawling communities into old fashioned cities. The entire city of Miami cannot be retrofitted for pedestrians.

Sure, any city can make improvements to the urban environment. But I realized there are very few neighborhoods, anywhere in the country, which are both affordable and offer the amenities we wanted. The USA is, likely will be, and always has been a nation of single family homes on farms, in towns, and later in the suburbs. The best way to get around these places is in a car.

Suddenly our choices were narrowed. There are very few neighborhoods anywhere in the country like Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, Park Slope in Brooklyn, or Miami Beach, Florida. Given our budget constraints, our reasonable options were even less.

Part 7 (We decide on a city.)

Pullman Historic District

My favorite photo. Car with custom license plate.

On Labor Day we took the Metra Electric District train to Pullman. It was the first time since moving to  Hyde Park in Chicago we traveled south on the commuter train instead of north to downtown. Unlike the neighborhoods on the north side of the city, few people visit most of the southern communities.

Pullman was originally built as a company town in the late 1800s by George Pullman for the workers at the Pullman rail car factory. I've come across several references to the African-American porters who worked on the rail cars. The porters didn't live in the factory town while it was owned by the company, as African-Americans weren't hired for production work at that time. The workers were European, many of them immigrants.

When the community was built it was a remote, self-contained village. The Pullman company was ordered to sell the homes after a workers' strike around the turn of the century. During our visit my family and I were dismayed to find the neighborhood's only cafe was closed. Our only food option was a hot dog truck. Like many south side neighborhoods, services are lacking.

The area struggled to survive during the twentieth century. Mid-century the neighborhood was in danger of being razed to clear space for an industrial park.

The Pullman community has worked hard to keep their neighborhood from falling into complete disrepair like so many places on the south side. The neighborhood rallied and got historic designations for the village. In 2015 some of the sites were designated a national monument. A visitors center is now staffed by park rangers.

Below are some photos of the historic homes.

While taking this picture I met a mother taking two kids to visit at this home. She said it was owned by her grandmother.

All the houses in town were originally owned by the Pullman company.
Higher ranking employees got fancier houses located closer to the factory.

Modest homes were located farther away from the town center and factory.

Alley decorated with artwork. All of the houses built by Pullman had private backyards and wood sheds.

Building duplexes and row houses saved money on construction costs and created a village modeled (somewhat) upon a couple of European company towns.

Pullman believed in adding lots of hand-crafted detailing to his Pullman rail cars and his company town.

When George Pullman owned the town landscapers were employed to maintain the front yards and common grounds. The tradition of beautiful plantings continues today.

Pullman continues to be a mostly working class neighborhood.The more modest homes are cheap to buy. A row house in foreclosure can be had for less than $50,000. A similar apartment is $850 a month and Section 8 renters are welcome. Even the fancier row homes, which were rented by factory managers, are inexpensive compared to the north side of Chicago.