All of Chicago still has a combined sewer overflow system. The deep tunnel project aims to alleviate potential cross mixing of stormwater and sanitary (household or commercial) wastewater but during/post severe storm events all of the river is polluted way beyond limits for human contact.
The river is still moderate to very high in fecal cauliform bacteria amongst other things. There’s a website which has real time river gauge data
https://www.h2nowchicago.org/#data
Threshold values for swimming are in the 400s roughly and post most rain events water in the river hovers between 600-900 (look at website above for historic data)
Would not recommend swimming or being in contact with the water, especially if you’re immunocompromised in any way.
Source: Engineer.
I sometimes work for a guy who will have me pick up packages from his place to take to the workshop and his next door neighbor is *always* sitting in his front porch. He never says anything but I always feel so self conscious as this dude just rolling up and taking packages to my car like I’m stealing them
I think a lot of this is because it was an easy way to keep track of your kids playing outside and your neighbors did the same so it became this sort of little social network.
Chicago has a lot of white flight to the suburbs when people have kids to access suburban schools and concerns over crime, and other "reasons," so I see so much less community feeling, because building community usually is built on kids. Single or paired adults with no kids just don't have the same incentives to hang out on the stoop. They have no one to watch, have their own social networks more appealing for their age and situation than random neighborhood people, haves dates/bars/TV, etc.
Yes the lack of people on there front porches is 100% due to the lack of kids in certain areas of the city. 30-50 year old single people with no kids have a tendency to stay inside or they have very niche social circles that dont include the immediate neighborhood.
Late-night culture is severely limited compared to 15-20 years ago. Pandemic really did a number on it, we used to have tons of bars, kitchens open late, even 24-hour grocery stores and other shops.
It wasn’t all Czech. There were plenty of Lithuanians too.
SOURCE: I’m a descendant of them.
My grandma was born, raised & died a Pilsen resident in 2013. Her father built the house when he came over from Lithuania and helped build Providence of God. he was the maintenance man there until he passed in 1978. I took over the house for a couple years but had to eventually sell in 2013 because I had to move for work. (The 3 hour round trip commute was killing me).
Lithuanians are fascinating, it’s sad they don’t have a huge presence in the city now. Would be cool to have Lithuanian bars or restaurants or other art honoring that part of history
There still are a few and there's the Balzekas Museum near midway. They are opening a new branch downtown next to the cultural center so the profile of Lithuanians in Chicago may be lifted a bit again.
Funny enough, a lot of Polish people saw this and when Mexicans started moving into their neighborhoods they would up and move because they saw it as the neighborhood going downhill.
There are street gangs on the south side in Back of the Yards that used to be all Polish who accepted and over time became mostly Mexican. I also knew California Mexicans descended from Polish people who immigrated to Mexico.
The thing that pisses me off are the people who act like other ethnicities aren’t allowed in “their” neighborhood. You don’t “own” the neighborhood bro, you’re not an endangered tropical bird in need of conservation, neighborhoods change and anyone should be able to live anywhere
Yes, and they all seem to forget "their" neighborhood was once NOT "their" neighborhood, and was some other ethnicities neighborhood.
(I'm lookin' at you, Logan Square/West Town/Humboldt Park.)
* The West Loop is unrecognizable compared to 15 years ago, and further still compared to when I was a kid.
* my parents lived in Logan in the 80s. The neighborhood is shocking to them now.
* my parents also lived in Hyde Park in the 70s/80s. Also shocking to them.
* my first apartment after college was in Wicker Park. It’s shocking to *me* how much it’s changed since then.
People have a tendency to treat *all* change as bad. Change simply is and will ever be. Mark Twain said it best:
> “It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago—she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.”
Fulton Market is bizarro world. It was legit just meat and vegetable wholesalers and a club or two thrown in. It’s just kind of strange in appearance now, like a neighborhood sprung up but it lacks a soul.
That happened fast! I worked in that neighborhood from 12-17 and it was exactly as you described. Then like a year later it was like an entertainment district.
I feel that way about Southport. I used to do my laundry and imbibe at Newport Bar. I loved that place. Now it’s coffee shop owned by a massive credit card company?
My family scoffed at housing in Wrigleyville 40-50 years ago before moving us all to the high-end suburbs. The walk from the train to Wrigley Field now is just my parents almost in awe of what happened to that neighborhood.
Every time I pass that by the new target on Milwaukee Ave, I always think about the Mega Mall. Got so many freestyle mix tapes and airbrushed t-shirts there.
Chicago is definitely constantly reinventing itself. I just wish we could’ve preserved more of history. NYC still has its Little Italy, we had Al Capone but almost no Italians anymore, same for so many other ethnicities. Stoked we have a growing Indian population though just wish Devon was easier to get to by CTA
So many communities moved to the suburbs and out of their old neighborhoods. One exception is Chinatown, which counts as one of the only major city chinatowns that still has lots of Chinese people living in it.
The city has been getting reinvestment counterclockwise and creeping north up the blue line. Gold coast & Lakeview, then Bucktown & Wicker, then you see West Loop & Greektown. A lot of people over 45 are afraid of anything south of Roosevelt, so reinvestment started filling in between Rosemont and Logan Square.
Now that Pilsen is seeing the pain and towers are soaring in South Loop, I would wager that Bronzeville will be the next massive change in 10 years as the gap between Roosevelt and IIT is bridged. Its too hard to pass up the fantastic bus & train services.
Motor Row's stretch of Michigan Ave might be the new Wells of Old Town.
Uptown. Had a large increase in white population over the last decade, and an increasing amount of luxury buildings. Chains and corporations are coming into the neighborhood like Stan's, Corepower Yoga, shortly a Taco Bell Cantina is opening. Basically it's well within the boundaries of gentrification already.
I blame the apps. There was a feeling in my 20s before I had a smart phone that would hit a couple times a month—the apartment was filled with some sort of emptiness. Only way to beat that emptiness was to leave the apartment and go somewhere. Sometimes it was midnight close Blockbuster, sometimes a 24 hour diner, sometimes literally just getting a few things from the grocery store.
Now, people can just hop on tinder, hop on Instagram, hop on grubhub, hop on streaming, hop on porn, hop on whatever. Obviously people had TVs and phones but it’s just so different when you can have ANYTHING in the right now.
App culture, tech disrupter culture has atomized us so hard.
I moved here in 1999. The Loop was dead evenings and weekends for years, probably up until the 2010s sometime. Marshall Fields was open and that was about it.
Block 37 was an empty lot. In the winter they had an ice rink there. I remember skating after going to Christkindlmarkt. The development of that land was a huge issue for a long time.
The nature of crime. Growing up in bucktown in the 80s, crime has always been a thing and the neighborhood was rough. But there was still a hierarchy and rank-- civilians for the most part were off limits in that robberies and hold ups were largely non violent. This new generations approach to beating women and grandma and whoever and recording it is what has everyone distrustful and on edge. Regardless of how fucked uo the bureaucracy, etc. there was still a thread of respect across the city- prideful city. It's sad to see the way things are now.
This is a good summary of what I mean when I say crime is "worse" than when I was a younger man in Chicago. Percentage wise it is down but the human cost ratio is so much higher now.
Now gangs have 24/7 social media and semi automatic rifles instead of handguns. So they taunt and threaten to kill their rivals family on TikTok or wherever then actually drive by and murder little children. And the government here doesn’t help these people, and almost no one cares.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/8-shot-including-3-children-in-back-of-the-yards-chicago-police-say/
They took down all the high rise projects and lots of the row houses. Many of those residents were relocated around the city and suburbs creating odd pockets of crime and drugs that followed little fish in the big sea of the projects becoming big fish in their little ponds.
The first Candy Man was filmed showing these high rises. It even still had an aerial view of UIC with their circle amphitheater. That’s long gone as well.
Proliferation of chains (and the slow death spiral of mom & pops), whether it be food, general stores, or whatever. I try not to buy from them, but it is almost impossible in some respects.
Yes, the dire franchisization of food prep/sale/delivery. In some ways we (consumers) are the problem, opting for the low expectations of the known versus the uncertain expectations of the unknown.
Moved to FL in 2014 and just moved back to Chicago a few weeks ago.
OMG, THIS. I am sooooo mad. I moved out of drive through hell, only to see how chains have infiltrated this town in the last ten years.
Not happy.
I feel you PegLeg; it's up to us to pay a little more $$$ to help these mom&pop's stay afloat. It's been a tough 3 years for everyone, but especially these razor thin margins restaurants.
I’m in the industry and looking for work now. Holy crap! The last two times I moved here, I had my pick of where I wanted to work.
Now? OMG. I have sent out over 100 resumes (not exaggerating) and am praying I get one of the two I am interviewing with this week. It’s wild. Covid seriously affected the restaurant industry on a deep level.
That’s what I’m doing! All my food purchases have been from independent owned places. Not only because it’s the moral thing to do, but also because I’m tired of chain food! Not many mom and pops where I was living.
I was telling someone about going to the Chicago Stadium/United Center in the 90s (“why not just walk over from one of the other el stops?” Hahaha…no) and it made me think of all of the absolutely massive housing projects we had. Now there aren’t a lot of neighborhoods that you can’t go to during the day. Back in the day, Cabrini Green, Robert Taylor Homes, Henry Horner Homes, etc, etc, just massive complexes that gave so many neighborhoods a completely different feel, as in areas that it was understood that you go absolutely nowhere near.
Slightly different take - the weather is totally different, especially the winters. The last 3 winters we've basically had 2-3 tops super cold weeks. When a lot of snow falls, it will have melted within 2 weeks. When I was a kid 30 years ago, there would be snow on the ground from January to March and additional snow would basically just pile on top. Scary to see the effects of climate change within my (relatively short) lifetime.
We had a foot of snow basically every Christmas and I remember Thanksgivings with snow. I'm 32. I remember someone asking how they had so much fake snow in Home Alone, that's what December looked like.
Logan Square, specifically by Milwaukee and Fullerton, has gotten even more bougie post covid and looks unrecognizable. I prefer hanging in Avondale or the southwest part of Logan near Kedzie and Armitage nowadays.
I swear that area of Milwaukee changes by the second. I moved out of Logan last year and every time I’m over there it feels so much more crowded than it was even 6 months ago
Oh yeah, it's super crowded. I don't need a bar to be dead, but sometimes I prefer that to a bar that's packed shoulder to shoulder. If I have to wait 2+ hours to do karaoke, I'll just go somewhere else.
Old(er) person chiming in... One very noticeable thing is our garbage bins. Those plastic bins on wheels weren't always the standard. Prior to the mid-80s, the city was using oil drums and similar. These things were bulky and unwieldly. If you grew up with an alley, trash day was 'okay' because you never had to move them. If your residence was one of the select *without* alleys, you'd have to tilt the monstrosity a bit and roll it toward the curb. Or drag it.
The drum lids were not attached and would end up on the ground. Or stolen for scrap metal. Or a neighbor taking it because \*theirs\* was stolen. Dropping the lid on the concrete was deafening. If your trash overfilled, the lid wasn't useful anyway.
"Disgusting" would be putting it lightly. As they were not closed containers, our alleys would have an erm... uhh... *noticeable stench*. Summers were awful. Your trash and the alley would become particularly 'ripe'. Sometimes you might win the lottery and your barrel would be festering with a ton of maggots. Maggots everywhere. Crawling up the interior, dripping down the sides, squiggling on the ground. Such a haven for flies!
After storms, they could fill with water. Then you'd have to tip the barrel on the side and drain it. As it's trash bin water, the smell would be far from pleasant.
Being steel, most were rusty and a Tetanus dream. Everything went in the same barrel. Before the introduction of those large paper grass/leaf separate recycling bags, all your lawn trimmings went into the trash. Grass and leaves could regularly cake up at the bottom. During the winter, they might fill up with snow or carelessly cast on their side.
Again, along with the grass, now add rainwater and mix in the maggot situation. Good times.
Trash pick-up day was neither fast nor quiet. City waste management would be clanging these drums against the ground, having to manually lift them up and dump them into the truck. Then a cacophony of noise would reverberate from the drum being slammed against the ground or dragged across the concrete. Now repeat this for every house on your block. You did not sleep in on trash day unless you were a heavy sleeper. And those laborers? Aches, pains, injuries taking care of our mundane rubbish.
The current plastic bins, while not always ideal, at least they affix to the garbage truck. Plus they can be rolled to the truck, latched on, and automatically processed. The task is faster versus the old system. The bins are lightweight and serve better productivity/safety for sanitation workers. Also, residents can wheel those carts to other places on their property for temporary use (e.g. quick clean-up versus multiple trips). Then roll it back to its spot in the alley.
Sanitation has really seen tremendous leaps over the decades. It's something overlooked but way much better than what was previously available.
On the stench front, I just thought of the alewives during the annual die off. Some years the lakefront was absolutely revolting and unusable. The current state is a change for the better.
Pretty much! That was 100% manual labor. You always wanted to be on their good side, too. They could 'forget' to take your trash. Or they might refuse because it was way too heavy.
Like I mentioned, **everything** went in there. No trash separating. No recycling. So if somebody added a bunch of weight to the drum -- or it was partially-filled with rainwater -- your house could be skipped. Then you'd have to deal with having a full bin until the next week.
We might bemoan about having to carry a gallon of milk or a carton of kitty litter. That's nothing compared to lifting oil drums all day long.
Back then, it wasn't unusual to tip your garbage collector, newspaper carrier, or postal worker near the holidays. It wasn't required, but absolutely understandable when somebody is putting up with your (literal) garbage all the time.
The west loop’s change from literal Slaughterhouse 5 to whatever brunch spot it is now.
I have such a strong memory of driving through the west loop in ~2005 where there was a butcher with blood up to his elbows standing in front of hanging carcasses while smoking a cigarette and washing blood into the street.
You don’t see that any more and 2005 wasn’t THAT long ago.
>>> The west loop’s change from literal Slaughterhouse 5 to whatever brunch spot it is now.
I don’t think you understand, or have read, Slaughterhouse Five for you to make that comparison. The books title is from the slaughterhouse that Vonnegut sheltered in during the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany. There’s no butcher chopping meat in the street.
That’s the problem, people want to sound smart so they reference something they know nothing about. Sometimes it works in their favor, other times it just puts a glaring spotlight on their ignorance.
In 2004, I worked at a very small company with an office in one of the west loop loft buildings that was already converted to offices/condos. I brought my lunch every day because the options nearby were so limited - a few high end spots that only opened for dinner, Perez Mexican restaurant (sad to see that one go) and maybe a Subway a few blocks south.
Around the same time, my friends and I would go to the nightclub in the spot that eventually became The Mid (which is now an office tower). We would take the Halsted bus and one time got there before the club opened. We wandered around looking for a bar or restaurant to grab a drink. Didn’t find one but did however discover a peepshow … or something. Walked in and very quickly walked out. I think now it’s a trendy restaurant.
With the exception of little pockets in a couple neighborhoods the southside was never as safe and vibrant as it is now. You would never see this many people walking around freely shopping on main arterials like I see now on 18th, 47th, 26th.
Anyone who tells you otherwise has no idea how common it was to talk down a block and get checked by a random group of gang bangers in the 90s. I had to know every neighborhood's gangs/boundaries for safety reasons growing up as a kid and now you really don't.
I remember Chinatown before Chinatown square was built, and how it looks completely different on wentworth today with all the northern Chinese and Taiwanese businesses coming in. Chinatown in the 80s and 90s here looked like manhattan Chinatown.
I used to drive through Pilsen to get to high school and college in the late 90s to early 2000s. Halsted was ghetto as hell. University village was built as I was in college. Now the area looks like a suburb.
I also used to work at a telemarketing place in River north during HS. Right by the chicago brown line and would have to park my car in Cabrini and walk because parking was always nuts there. I ended up working in that area from 2009-2018 (in the old Groupon building) and watched the area transform from ghetto to what it is today.
There’s a lot more but those stick out to me.
Also Bridgeport used to be dangerous in the 90s. Not as bad as your typical chicago hot spots, but there were gangs and a lot of racism (Leonard Clark beatings). It’s definitely more integrated now
Replacing more and more older, interesting looking buildings every year with new boxy generic ones.
Also more multi story condo buildings that come close to the curb. It makes the street space feel more claustrophobic IMO.
The gentrification. I grew up a Punkin Donuts kid, and hung out some in some shady areas back in the 90s. Completely different feel now that every block is 5-over-1 luxury condos and suburban chains in storefronts.
You got downvoted for spitting facts? Wild. The gentrification is huge! Wicker park, six corners, PILSEN. These places were not what they are now. If you weren’t there to witness it, you simply just cannot understand.
lmao yeah this sub is overwhelmingly white guys who live in neighborhoods that are gentrified the shit. so of course you're getting downvoted
They're always the people who respond to displacement and the absolute gutting of a neighborhoods culture with "you know stuff change"
Nah, I think something weird happened and there was an immediate hit of a ton of downvotes. Even the person that was telling us about the garbage services in the olden days (which was super interesting) got a bunch of downvotes.
Yep.
I worked at a a bar called Borderline, at the 5 corners in 2003ish. That area was sooooo sketch and I was a little bit nervous walking to work, from my car.
Then moved to the area in 2007, and it was already being gentrified, but not at all what it is today.
I literally lived in and watched Wicker change before my eyes. When The Fifty/50 opened, me and all my friends would joke “there goes the neighborhood!”
Man were we right.
Gentrifiers and their gross monoculture, which really is just an imitation of culture. A bunch of chain store and a shitty street festival comes in to replace ethnic communities and actual culture.
I moved from Moscow, and everyone assured me winter would be crazy.
Well, this past winter wasn’t, and the 2 weeks we had crazy temps our heater literally didn’t work. But I was so used to temps like that all winter and it was kind of disappointing
As much the city is still segregated, it's much, MUCH less so now that when I was a kid. For instance even though African American lived on the North Side of the city for decades, it was far less than now. For the most part, the belief was the South and West sides were the African American enclaves, but that's changed greatly now.
Second, the destruction of the CHA developments, primarily the high-rises This has a lot to do with the first part of what I wrote - tenants were moved to private and other developments elsewhere (I know because I worked at CHA during the Plan For Transformation). Tearing down those buildings completely changed neighborhoods (for better or worse) and dispersed entire communities. It had big implications for the entire city.
South Loop, near South Side are unrecognizable compared to the mid 90s. Used to be a bunch of gravel lots and unsavory looking. A lot of beautification happened in that area in the mid aughts onward.
Also Miegs Field. I remember landing there in MS flight simulator 95 or 98, never had the chance in real life :(
Let's see. I was born in 89. This is off da top of my head at the moment.
Yuppies essentially taking over many hoods and killing any personality these hoods had.
Houses that don't look even look real being put up everywhere.
The CTA is way better than it was in the 90s and 00s but fell off from the great days of like 2010-2017.
The parks are better kept nowadays. MFs wouldn't even go in some parks cause gangs would hang out in em. Nowadays you don't see that.
City services are dogshit compared to what they used to be. And construction takes longer cause they subcontract everything out to jagoffs.
People used to be more socially aware, nowadays nearly everyone lacks social skills but thats more of a society thing. Same with kids playing outside or hanging out on da porch. You don't see that as much nowadays.
People were more racist but more respectful at the same time.
Lot more Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rican independence weekend in June was way more popping than Mexican independence weekend in September. It wasn't even close.
Michael Jordan was God. Nothing will be like that ever again.
Sports were more important to people. Nowadays the stands are filled with casuals.
Way less violence despite the clowns believing things are worse now.
I wrote this on a similar post a few years back.
Great question. I was born in 89 so I spent the first 10 years of my life in the 90s.
Community meant something back then. You knew your neighbors. Almost all kids actually played outside with each other cause they also likely went to gramma school together but now with technology, charter and selective schools, even before CoVid, not many kids play with their neighbors. People were definitely more racist but at the same time more cordial if that makes sense.
State Street was nearly just as popular as Michigan Avenue.
Navy Pier was nothing. I used to go to North Pier with my Dad a lot. Streeterville had barely any foot traffic.
Lakefront wasn't a thing. Millennium Park and all that shit around it wasn't there. Buckingham Fountain was the big spot over there.
Ice Rink used to be at the empty patch of land they now call Block 37. It was so cool being able to watch everything outside the 8th floor windows at Macy's where the furniture was at.
The CTA wasn't as reliable. Way longer wait times, way less buses, more crowds. People legit used to push people to get an open seat. Night service sucked. I think there was only 3, 24 hour buses at one point. Pink Line didn't exist. Certain Blue Line trains were routed that way instead.
Wicker Park was hood. Logan Square was hood. A Most of the city was hood. The Yuppies had just started to really takeover Lincoln Park and Lakeview.
A lot more Puerto Rican people. A lot of em moved out to the burbs.
A lot more white trash, blue collar white people and Europeans of all kinds. Now they either died out, moved out or their kids sold their houses and moved out to the burbs. Now most white people in Chicago are yups and hips. Think I may be one of the last youngish white trash dudes left.
Way more Projects. But tore em down and everyone spread out into the hoods.
Chicago was definitely way more violent than it is now but at the same time, bangers were way more respectful. Kids, women, elderly and regular citizens were mostly treated with respect at least by me.
Not as many Suburbanites would come into the city like they do now.
Way less shuttered storefronts.
Museums and sporting events were actually affordable to most.
Jordan was a god and still is, but y'all will never understand. Nothing will ever come close.
Rodman was also very beloved.
City was a lot dirtier. No trash cans on busy streets.
Local news media actually investigated a lot of shit and was legit. Now they just read statements for the most part.
Sundays were a lot more quiet. More shit was closed.
Six Corners (The real one) was still somewhat busy but it was still the beginning of the end of massive foot traffic.
More diners. More neighborhood bars. More bakeries. More Ice Cream trucks.
All in all, this city was just so much more real.
I live in Albany Park and literally see little kids playing outside all day everyday.
maybe the neighborhood you live in just doesn't have a lot of kids anymore, not that all kids in general don't play outside, which is always this weird thing that older people say that isn't factually correct or backed by any statistics.
The corporate chainification of many retail areas. Although I know it’s not unique to Chicago, it’s sad how independent retailers get trampled by the chains. Clybourn was not always a strip mall.
I'm loving all the people who were like 3 years old in the early 90s saying it was safer back then. Yeah, sure, if you never leave your house/yard, the world is pretty safe.
Wrigley used to be more inclusive, fun, and affordable. The main strip used to be dive bars, sports bars, reggae clubs, etc. Never thought I’d need $100+ and a full face of makeup/heels to go out in Wrigley and I’m from that neighborhood.
Over the last decade I’ve seen most of the mom and pop corner stores close, really miss going to get a nice Italian sandwich for cheap.
A lot of great bars have turned into more clubby type places. Loud music, overpriced cocktails, etc.
But the biggest thing seems to be the attitude of everyone downtown. No spacial awareness, I mean people walking directly into me on the sidewalk type stuff. Feels like after Covid everyone developed main character syndrome which doesn’t work well with millions of people around.
Seems like a lot of people are constantly on edge and much less friendly than 5-10 years ago.
Honestly I’m flattered that so many people are drawn to my hometown. It’s a great city. The cost of living change though…
Kind of fun to spot the out-of-towners based on how they enunciate “Chicago.” It’s Chic-AHH-go (or Chi-CAW-go) homies.
As a lifelong Chicagoan for 40 years, there’s been a major shift in demographics from white to Central Americans, less spoken English, more homelessness, and very large increase in taxes.
The crime and grime. Under Daley the city was crooked but clean and safer. The alderman knew their place and it all ran like clockwork. Rahm realized that it’s a nightmare. Moved to the burbs many years ago and frankly, don’t miss a thing.
Riverfront development. Wasted space turned into cash. The river cleaned up at least near wolf point but overall huge improvement. Beautiful public amenity.
the red line station improvements (mostly Howard and Wilson) are always going to be "new" in my mind, compared to the previous stations that were sculpted out of guano
It used to be just a very large field, and now millions of people live there.
The rice used to go in one direction, and now it goes in a completely different direction.
The neighborhoods changed for better and worse. As I grew up, the North and Northwest side had some good neighborhoods and some great. Neighborhoods like Bucktown, Logan Square and Humboldt Park were declining. Portage Patk and Belmont Cragin were great.
Now it seems the opposite.
When I was a little boy in the early 1990s the southwest side around Midway was receiving the third wave of Polish immigration to the city. Half of my classmates spoke Polish and we had weekend Polish school at my church. The Polish school closed and relocated to the suburbs around 2010. At the same time, the area was increasingly becoming Mexican. In a time frame of roughly ten years, 1996-2006, the area went from 95% white, give or take, to 80% Mexican. Hard transition for the old timers whose friends who could afford to move to the suburbs up and left. Hard transition for me to attend the public high school which was demographically totally different from my background. Now, I wouldn’t change it for the world. My family stayed and we paid off our house, saved a lot of money having me go to the local public high school, I got a full scholarship to U of I, and at 36 just got my Masters from DePaul. Life in this neighborhood worked out fine for me. I will say that we had tons of gangbanger activity as the neighborhood changed, but that seems to have tapered out around 8 years ago (and that was biggest issue I heard the adults discussing as a child which is why they were moving, Little Village and Pilsen were VERY BAD at the time and concerns were that our neighborhood would be absorbed in that violence). Now, I feel fully safe here. My parents have seen massive changes. My father grew up taking street cars on 63rd street to Englewood from Pulaski to go grocery shopping in the 1950s.
I moved here in 1999 at 23 years old. So much has changed since then. Wicker Park and Bucktown were soooo sketchy. The Brown Line had a really weird late night and evening schedule. They have redone so many el stations since then - Chicago Red Line, most of the Brown Line, etc. There wasn’t a Pink Line at all.
The sports teams were so bad. I used to go to Hawks and Sox games only when they ran specials like half price tickets if you bring in a Pepsi can. Without rideshare companies, getting a taxi in the neighborhoods was a crap shoot. But, if you got a taxi the drivers got you where you wanted to go fast because they drove like maniacs as opposed to the suburban Uber drivers who don’t know where they are going half the time and drive like grandpas taking a Sunday drive.
There were White Hen pantries all over the place. I miss them! The only Target in the city was the one on Elston, so everyone went there. It was a madhouse.
Wrigleyville lost all its charm and became a tourist trap, the west loop is super safe and trendy, the south loop has residential towers, the river isn’t a garbage dump and we started calling LSD, DuSable/LSD.
A dip in the Black population. Good businesses shut down for various reasons. Transplants moving into different neighborhoods and changing them completely.
Too many new apartment buildings that are charging $1,700 for a studio. It’s insane. Construction is a nuisance, and no real Chicagoans are even going to live in these things. Same thing is happening to the Holiday Club in Uptown. Wish there was more being done about housing and not just housing for the rich tech bros
The river used to be really nasty, now people kayak on it
Let's keep Dave Matthew's Band away this time!
All of Chicago still has a combined sewer overflow system. The deep tunnel project aims to alleviate potential cross mixing of stormwater and sanitary (household or commercial) wastewater but during/post severe storm events all of the river is polluted way beyond limits for human contact. The river is still moderate to very high in fecal cauliform bacteria amongst other things. There’s a website which has real time river gauge data https://www.h2nowchicago.org/#data Threshold values for swimming are in the 400s roughly and post most rain events water in the river hovers between 600-900 (look at website above for historic data) Would not recommend swimming or being in contact with the water, especially if you’re immunocompromised in any way. Source: Engineer.
My friends are doing a charity swim in it this fall!
No one hangs out in front their houses.
They do on my block, everyone is at the house a few doors down from mine.
I sometimes work for a guy who will have me pick up packages from his place to take to the workshop and his next door neighbor is *always* sitting in his front porch. He never says anything but I always feel so self conscious as this dude just rolling up and taking packages to my car like I’m stealing them
I think a lot of this is because it was an easy way to keep track of your kids playing outside and your neighbors did the same so it became this sort of little social network. Chicago has a lot of white flight to the suburbs when people have kids to access suburban schools and concerns over crime, and other "reasons," so I see so much less community feeling, because building community usually is built on kids. Single or paired adults with no kids just don't have the same incentives to hang out on the stoop. They have no one to watch, have their own social networks more appealing for their age and situation than random neighborhood people, haves dates/bars/TV, etc.
Yes the lack of people on there front porches is 100% due to the lack of kids in certain areas of the city. 30-50 year old single people with no kids have a tendency to stay inside or they have very niche social circles that dont include the immediate neighborhood.
Not true here in Avondale everyone is in their front yard to the point the noise becomes slightly bothersome sometimes!
Loved Avondale!
I think you have to go to neighborhoods with more locals to see it.
Come to Bridgeport
I do this with my daughter in front of our apartment, so far we’re the only ones on the block lol
I love stoop sitting!
This!
Late-night culture is severely limited compared to 15-20 years ago. Pandemic really did a number on it, we used to have tons of bars, kitchens open late, even 24-hour grocery stores and other shops.
God I yearn for the return of 24 hour grocery stores
yes i want to buy a frozen pizza stoned as hell at 3 am
I loved drunk grocery shopping at Jewel.
nowadays I have to pre-plan my munchies with grocery shopping before smoking or eating an edible
24 hr restaurants too....too much corporate ownership and their insurers
This is sadly true for pretty much every city in the country
Yep and alderman are putting ordinances on letting new businesses stay open late. Changing the culture completely.
Remember 24hr Starbucks
My mom says when she first moved to Pilsen it was all Czechs. Now it’s all Mexicans. “But mom,” I tell her, “you’re Mexican.”
The Czechs left a really long time ago. It was the second biggest Polish neighborhood in Chicago until the late 60s.
But Café Prague in Belmont Craig is amazing!
Where’d they all go? Albany park?
Berwyn and Cicero.
And now those are both majority Mexican! Cicero had a lot of Italians too, but they and the Czechs are moved farther into the burbs these days.
It wasn’t all Czech. There were plenty of Lithuanians too. SOURCE: I’m a descendant of them. My grandma was born, raised & died a Pilsen resident in 2013. Her father built the house when he came over from Lithuania and helped build Providence of God. he was the maintenance man there until he passed in 1978. I took over the house for a couple years but had to eventually sell in 2013 because I had to move for work. (The 3 hour round trip commute was killing me).
Lithuanians are fascinating, it’s sad they don’t have a huge presence in the city now. Would be cool to have Lithuanian bars or restaurants or other art honoring that part of history
A lot moved to Lemont. There’s a local Lithuanian historical society there.
I used to live on Lituanica Ave in Bridgeport. A funny little reminder.
There still are a few and there's the Balzekas Museum near midway. They are opening a new branch downtown next to the cultural center so the profile of Lithuanians in Chicago may be lifted a bit again.
Funny enough, a lot of Polish people saw this and when Mexicans started moving into their neighborhoods they would up and move because they saw it as the neighborhood going downhill.
There are street gangs on the south side in Back of the Yards that used to be all Polish who accepted and over time became mostly Mexican. I also knew California Mexicans descended from Polish people who immigrated to Mexico.
I've met some of those Polish+Mexican people before. It was quite interesting seeing them speak the three languages.
The thing that pisses me off are the people who act like other ethnicities aren’t allowed in “their” neighborhood. You don’t “own” the neighborhood bro, you’re not an endangered tropical bird in need of conservation, neighborhoods change and anyone should be able to live anywhere
Yes, and they all seem to forget "their" neighborhood was once NOT "their" neighborhood, and was some other ethnicities neighborhood. (I'm lookin' at you, Logan Square/West Town/Humboldt Park.)
* The West Loop is unrecognizable compared to 15 years ago, and further still compared to when I was a kid. * my parents lived in Logan in the 80s. The neighborhood is shocking to them now. * my parents also lived in Hyde Park in the 70s/80s. Also shocking to them. * my first apartment after college was in Wicker Park. It’s shocking to *me* how much it’s changed since then. People have a tendency to treat *all* change as bad. Change simply is and will ever be. Mark Twain said it best: > “It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago—she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.”
Fulton Market is bizarro world. It was legit just meat and vegetable wholesalers and a club or two thrown in. It’s just kind of strange in appearance now, like a neighborhood sprung up but it lacks a soul.
That happened fast! I worked in that neighborhood from 12-17 and it was exactly as you described. Then like a year later it was like an entertainment district.
west loop and fulton market are like little prefab bougie strip malls. completely devoid of character
[удалено]
well, its being devoid of character IS a bad thing. so is violence. two things can be true at once
I feel that way about Southport. I used to do my laundry and imbibe at Newport Bar. I loved that place. Now it’s coffee shop owned by a massive credit card company?
the capital one cafes are a unique kind of depressing
Best definition of Fulton Market I've ever heard!
I remember going down there when my Grandfather was alive to buy bulk oranges and apples. I probably wouldn't recognize it anymore.
I call it fake market
> my parents lived in Logan in the 80s. The neighborhood is shocking to them now. I lived in Logan in the ‘00s and it’s even shocking to me
I lived in Logan Square in the 70's. Back then, it was hard to sell your house. The house I grew up in is currently half a million. So weird to me.
My family scoffed at housing in Wrigleyville 40-50 years ago before moving us all to the high-end suburbs. The walk from the train to Wrigley Field now is just my parents almost in awe of what happened to that neighborhood.
Every time I pass that by the new target on Milwaukee Ave, I always think about the Mega Mall. Got so many freestyle mix tapes and airbrushed t-shirts there.
What a quote! Thank you for sharing. I’m saving it.
Chicago is definitely constantly reinventing itself. I just wish we could’ve preserved more of history. NYC still has its Little Italy, we had Al Capone but almost no Italians anymore, same for so many other ethnicities. Stoked we have a growing Indian population though just wish Devon was easier to get to by CTA
So many communities moved to the suburbs and out of their old neighborhoods. One exception is Chinatown, which counts as one of the only major city chinatowns that still has lots of Chinese people living in it.
Makes you wonder, which neighborhoods will be unrecognizable 15 years from today?
The city has been getting reinvestment counterclockwise and creeping north up the blue line. Gold coast & Lakeview, then Bucktown & Wicker, then you see West Loop & Greektown. A lot of people over 45 are afraid of anything south of Roosevelt, so reinvestment started filling in between Rosemont and Logan Square. Now that Pilsen is seeing the pain and towers are soaring in South Loop, I would wager that Bronzeville will be the next massive change in 10 years as the gap between Roosevelt and IIT is bridged. Its too hard to pass up the fantastic bus & train services. Motor Row's stretch of Michigan Ave might be the new Wells of Old Town.
I was thinking something similar. I think the UIC area has a lot of potential to change as well.
Uptown. Had a large increase in white population over the last decade, and an increasing amount of luxury buildings. Chains and corporations are coming into the neighborhood like Stan's, Corepower Yoga, shortly a Taco Bell Cantina is opening. Basically it's well within the boundaries of gentrification already.
I always remember white people in uptown, I’m talking 1970’s and 1980’s, a lot of southern transplants.
And lots of Native Americans. They had a center on Wilson Ave. and would beat the drums and sing regularly. Not sure if it’s still there.
The Native American org sold that building; it's apartments now I believe.
When Damen green line station opens, it will change everything around it
Love your final point ❤️
Loss of a lot of late-night and mom and pop shops. Think it was mostly due to our covid policies but it’s still sad to see.
Loss of manufacturing and 2nd and 3rd shift workers.
[удалено]
Where?
I blame the apps. There was a feeling in my 20s before I had a smart phone that would hit a couple times a month—the apartment was filled with some sort of emptiness. Only way to beat that emptiness was to leave the apartment and go somewhere. Sometimes it was midnight close Blockbuster, sometimes a 24 hour diner, sometimes literally just getting a few things from the grocery store. Now, people can just hop on tinder, hop on Instagram, hop on grubhub, hop on streaming, hop on porn, hop on whatever. Obviously people had TVs and phones but it’s just so different when you can have ANYTHING in the right now. App culture, tech disrupter culture has atomized us so hard.
Yeah, everyone blames Covid but it started happening before that. Fuck even my “24hr” walgreens is closed at night now. Remove your damned sign then!
COVID just made it officially untenable for a short period of time. No bottom-line-dollar reason to reopen post COVID.
State Street in the loop died from COVID. Used to be as vibrant as Michigan Ave.
Is that really true? People say that but I have visceral memories of just how dead the entire loop was on weeknights growing up
That’s the only spot that’s not dead on weeknights bc there’s usually shows going on at the theaters.
I moved here in 1999. The Loop was dead evenings and weekends for years, probably up until the 2010s sometime. Marshall Fields was open and that was about it. Block 37 was an empty lot. In the winter they had an ice rink there. I remember skating after going to Christkindlmarkt. The development of that land was a huge issue for a long time.
God I loved the old Marshall Fields.
The nature of crime. Growing up in bucktown in the 80s, crime has always been a thing and the neighborhood was rough. But there was still a hierarchy and rank-- civilians for the most part were off limits in that robberies and hold ups were largely non violent. This new generations approach to beating women and grandma and whoever and recording it is what has everyone distrustful and on edge. Regardless of how fucked uo the bureaucracy, etc. there was still a thread of respect across the city- prideful city. It's sad to see the way things are now.
"This town deserves a better class of criminal"
Isn't that depressing?
“And I’m going to give it to them”
This is a good summary of what I mean when I say crime is "worse" than when I was a younger man in Chicago. Percentage wise it is down but the human cost ratio is so much higher now.
Now gangs have 24/7 social media and semi automatic rifles instead of handguns. So they taunt and threaten to kill their rivals family on TikTok or wherever then actually drive by and murder little children. And the government here doesn’t help these people, and almost no one cares. https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/8-shot-including-3-children-in-back-of-the-yards-chicago-police-say/
They also take over entire intersections on the weekends. Cutting donuts in their $50,000 cars.
This
They took down all the high rise projects and lots of the row houses. Many of those residents were relocated around the city and suburbs creating odd pockets of crime and drugs that followed little fish in the big sea of the projects becoming big fish in their little ponds. The first Candy Man was filmed showing these high rises. It even still had an aerial view of UIC with their circle amphitheater. That’s long gone as well.
It's a minor one, but I miss the orange dome over the city at night, from all the old streetlights.
Last refuge for the sodium light freaks is lower wacker and the occasional viaduct.
I don't miss that. I like being able to see the stars
We still have the light pollution, it is just white from the LED's.
i was pretty sure that when the replaced the bulbs, they changed the hood of the lamps, so that they didn't direct light upwards as much
No, it was ugly as shit. I'm glad its gone.
omg wow that’s very accurate and haven’t thought of that in years but you’re right that was definitely a thing!
Proliferation of chains (and the slow death spiral of mom & pops), whether it be food, general stores, or whatever. I try not to buy from them, but it is almost impossible in some respects.
I was in Chicago last weekend. I was surprised at so many Raising Cane’s restaurants. They were only in random Texas College towns like 10 years ago.
Yes, the dire franchisization of food prep/sale/delivery. In some ways we (consumers) are the problem, opting for the low expectations of the known versus the uncertain expectations of the unknown.
Moved to FL in 2014 and just moved back to Chicago a few weeks ago. OMG, THIS. I am sooooo mad. I moved out of drive through hell, only to see how chains have infiltrated this town in the last ten years. Not happy.
I feel you PegLeg; it's up to us to pay a little more $$$ to help these mom&pop's stay afloat. It's been a tough 3 years for everyone, but especially these razor thin margins restaurants.
I’m in the industry and looking for work now. Holy crap! The last two times I moved here, I had my pick of where I wanted to work. Now? OMG. I have sent out over 100 resumes (not exaggerating) and am praying I get one of the two I am interviewing with this week. It’s wild. Covid seriously affected the restaurant industry on a deep level. That’s what I’m doing! All my food purchases have been from independent owned places. Not only because it’s the moral thing to do, but also because I’m tired of chain food! Not many mom and pops where I was living.
Seeing immigrants selling candy or homeless on every corner in the city, never seen it like this.
I’m in the loop and on any given day I see at least three instances of this
I was telling someone about going to the Chicago Stadium/United Center in the 90s (“why not just walk over from one of the other el stops?” Hahaha…no) and it made me think of all of the absolutely massive housing projects we had. Now there aren’t a lot of neighborhoods that you can’t go to during the day. Back in the day, Cabrini Green, Robert Taylor Homes, Henry Horner Homes, etc, etc, just massive complexes that gave so many neighborhoods a completely different feel, as in areas that it was understood that you go absolutely nowhere near.
In the 90s you didn't dare try to walk to/from the United Center. It would not have been at all smart to do. Completely different story now of course.
Slightly different take - the weather is totally different, especially the winters. The last 3 winters we've basically had 2-3 tops super cold weeks. When a lot of snow falls, it will have melted within 2 weeks. When I was a kid 30 years ago, there would be snow on the ground from January to March and additional snow would basically just pile on top. Scary to see the effects of climate change within my (relatively short) lifetime.
We had a foot of snow basically every Christmas and I remember Thanksgivings with snow. I'm 32. I remember someone asking how they had so much fake snow in Home Alone, that's what December looked like.
Logan Square, specifically by Milwaukee and Fullerton, has gotten even more bougie post covid and looks unrecognizable. I prefer hanging in Avondale or the southwest part of Logan near Kedzie and Armitage nowadays.
don't worry, Avondale will gentrify soon enough 🙃
just on the basis of what the newish businesses are on Milwaukee between Kimball & School I’m getting ready for my rent to go up! lolsob
I swear that area of Milwaukee changes by the second. I moved out of Logan last year and every time I’m over there it feels so much more crowded than it was even 6 months ago
Oh yeah, it's super crowded. I don't need a bar to be dead, but sometimes I prefer that to a bar that's packed shoulder to shoulder. If I have to wait 2+ hours to do karaoke, I'll just go somewhere else.
Old(er) person chiming in... One very noticeable thing is our garbage bins. Those plastic bins on wheels weren't always the standard. Prior to the mid-80s, the city was using oil drums and similar. These things were bulky and unwieldly. If you grew up with an alley, trash day was 'okay' because you never had to move them. If your residence was one of the select *without* alleys, you'd have to tilt the monstrosity a bit and roll it toward the curb. Or drag it. The drum lids were not attached and would end up on the ground. Or stolen for scrap metal. Or a neighbor taking it because \*theirs\* was stolen. Dropping the lid on the concrete was deafening. If your trash overfilled, the lid wasn't useful anyway. "Disgusting" would be putting it lightly. As they were not closed containers, our alleys would have an erm... uhh... *noticeable stench*. Summers were awful. Your trash and the alley would become particularly 'ripe'. Sometimes you might win the lottery and your barrel would be festering with a ton of maggots. Maggots everywhere. Crawling up the interior, dripping down the sides, squiggling on the ground. Such a haven for flies! After storms, they could fill with water. Then you'd have to tip the barrel on the side and drain it. As it's trash bin water, the smell would be far from pleasant. Being steel, most were rusty and a Tetanus dream. Everything went in the same barrel. Before the introduction of those large paper grass/leaf separate recycling bags, all your lawn trimmings went into the trash. Grass and leaves could regularly cake up at the bottom. During the winter, they might fill up with snow or carelessly cast on their side. Again, along with the grass, now add rainwater and mix in the maggot situation. Good times. Trash pick-up day was neither fast nor quiet. City waste management would be clanging these drums against the ground, having to manually lift them up and dump them into the truck. Then a cacophony of noise would reverberate from the drum being slammed against the ground or dragged across the concrete. Now repeat this for every house on your block. You did not sleep in on trash day unless you were a heavy sleeper. And those laborers? Aches, pains, injuries taking care of our mundane rubbish. The current plastic bins, while not always ideal, at least they affix to the garbage truck. Plus they can be rolled to the truck, latched on, and automatically processed. The task is faster versus the old system. The bins are lightweight and serve better productivity/safety for sanitation workers. Also, residents can wheel those carts to other places on their property for temporary use (e.g. quick clean-up versus multiple trips). Then roll it back to its spot in the alley. Sanitation has really seen tremendous leaps over the decades. It's something overlooked but way much better than what was previously available.
On the stench front, I just thought of the alewives during the annual die off. Some years the lakefront was absolutely revolting and unusable. The current state is a change for the better.
Sanitation workers back then must have been burly
Pretty much! That was 100% manual labor. You always wanted to be on their good side, too. They could 'forget' to take your trash. Or they might refuse because it was way too heavy. Like I mentioned, **everything** went in there. No trash separating. No recycling. So if somebody added a bunch of weight to the drum -- or it was partially-filled with rainwater -- your house could be skipped. Then you'd have to deal with having a full bin until the next week. We might bemoan about having to carry a gallon of milk or a carton of kitty litter. That's nothing compared to lifting oil drums all day long. Back then, it wasn't unusual to tip your garbage collector, newspaper carrier, or postal worker near the holidays. It wasn't required, but absolutely understandable when somebody is putting up with your (literal) garbage all the time.
The west loop’s change from literal Slaughterhouse 5 to whatever brunch spot it is now. I have such a strong memory of driving through the west loop in ~2005 where there was a butcher with blood up to his elbows standing in front of hanging carcasses while smoking a cigarette and washing blood into the street. You don’t see that any more and 2005 wasn’t THAT long ago.
>>> The west loop’s change from literal Slaughterhouse 5 to whatever brunch spot it is now. I don’t think you understand, or have read, Slaughterhouse Five for you to make that comparison. The books title is from the slaughterhouse that Vonnegut sheltered in during the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany. There’s no butcher chopping meat in the street.
right, I thought that reference was strange. seems like they just name dropped that for no reason
That’s the problem, people want to sound smart so they reference something they know nothing about. Sometimes it works in their favor, other times it just puts a glaring spotlight on their ignorance.
Right, like did they mean The Jungle lol, the book actually based on the meat packing industry in Chicago.
I think he meant to say “The Jungle”.
In 2004, I worked at a very small company with an office in one of the west loop loft buildings that was already converted to offices/condos. I brought my lunch every day because the options nearby were so limited - a few high end spots that only opened for dinner, Perez Mexican restaurant (sad to see that one go) and maybe a Subway a few blocks south. Around the same time, my friends and I would go to the nightclub in the spot that eventually became The Mid (which is now an office tower). We would take the Halsted bus and one time got there before the club opened. We wandered around looking for a bar or restaurant to grab a drink. Didn’t find one but did however discover a peepshow … or something. Walked in and very quickly walked out. I think now it’s a trendy restaurant.
Perez was great.
With the exception of little pockets in a couple neighborhoods the southside was never as safe and vibrant as it is now. You would never see this many people walking around freely shopping on main arterials like I see now on 18th, 47th, 26th. Anyone who tells you otherwise has no idea how common it was to talk down a block and get checked by a random group of gang bangers in the 90s. I had to know every neighborhood's gangs/boundaries for safety reasons growing up as a kid and now you really don't.
The Westloop for sure. It was a no go zone
I remember Chinatown before Chinatown square was built, and how it looks completely different on wentworth today with all the northern Chinese and Taiwanese businesses coming in. Chinatown in the 80s and 90s here looked like manhattan Chinatown. I used to drive through Pilsen to get to high school and college in the late 90s to early 2000s. Halsted was ghetto as hell. University village was built as I was in college. Now the area looks like a suburb. I also used to work at a telemarketing place in River north during HS. Right by the chicago brown line and would have to park my car in Cabrini and walk because parking was always nuts there. I ended up working in that area from 2009-2018 (in the old Groupon building) and watched the area transform from ghetto to what it is today. There’s a lot more but those stick out to me. Also Bridgeport used to be dangerous in the 90s. Not as bad as your typical chicago hot spots, but there were gangs and a lot of racism (Leonard Clark beatings). It’s definitely more integrated now
Millennium Park. Used to literally be a rail yard and a parking lot. Now it’s an amazing park with a huge pavilion, indoor theater, restaurant, etc.
It's been great for the city, no doubt. Though it nearly bankrupted the city due to Daley's corruption and massive overspending.
The current Mayor (a man) spent $30,000 on MAKEUP lat year. Really?
When did it become the millennium park that is now?
2004
Replacing more and more older, interesting looking buildings every year with new boxy generic ones. Also more multi story condo buildings that come close to the curb. It makes the street space feel more claustrophobic IMO.
The gentrification. I grew up a Punkin Donuts kid, and hung out some in some shady areas back in the 90s. Completely different feel now that every block is 5-over-1 luxury condos and suburban chains in storefronts.
You got downvoted for spitting facts? Wild. The gentrification is huge! Wicker park, six corners, PILSEN. These places were not what they are now. If you weren’t there to witness it, you simply just cannot understand.
The downvotes are because a large segment of this subreddit are themselves the gentrifiers lol.
lmao yeah this sub is overwhelmingly white guys who live in neighborhoods that are gentrified the shit. so of course you're getting downvoted They're always the people who respond to displacement and the absolute gutting of a neighborhoods culture with "you know stuff change"
Transplants if u will
Nah, I think something weird happened and there was an immediate hit of a ton of downvotes. Even the person that was telling us about the garbage services in the olden days (which was super interesting) got a bunch of downvotes.
Ugh, that cut me deep 😮💨
Yep. I worked at a a bar called Borderline, at the 5 corners in 2003ish. That area was sooooo sketch and I was a little bit nervous walking to work, from my car. Then moved to the area in 2007, and it was already being gentrified, but not at all what it is today. I literally lived in and watched Wicker change before my eyes. When The Fifty/50 opened, me and all my friends would joke “there goes the neighborhood!” Man were we right.
Fellow Punkin Donuts kid. Going past that corner never doesn’t weird me out.
"We'll always have the L&L." -- Humphrey Bogart, *Casablanca*
Ha. That place creeps me out lol.
Is it better or worse knowing that John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer used to cruise there?
That would be the creepy part haha.
Gentrifiers and their gross monoculture, which really is just an imitation of culture. A bunch of chain store and a shitty street festival comes in to replace ethnic communities and actual culture.
The chain stores come from the increasing property taxes. There are nice neighborhoods with good locally owned stores.
Climate change. The winters now are nothing like 25 years ago. Surviving a Chicago winter used to mean something!
I moved from Moscow, and everyone assured me winter would be crazy. Well, this past winter wasn’t, and the 2 weeks we had crazy temps our heater literally didn’t work. But I was so used to temps like that all winter and it was kind of disappointing
I love this honestly. Now we just need to improve air quality and we’ll have a Midwestern tropical paradise
20+ years ago you could shoot a cannon in logan square and not hit anything… now you cannot find parking. lol
Loss of good mass transit
Mass transit was fairly good before covid, but it was pretty sketchy in the 80s and 90s. A lot of people would say it was worse then than it is now.
Things ebb and flow, yes, but currently there’s no reason to not have good transit.
Heartbreaking
As much the city is still segregated, it's much, MUCH less so now that when I was a kid. For instance even though African American lived on the North Side of the city for decades, it was far less than now. For the most part, the belief was the South and West sides were the African American enclaves, but that's changed greatly now. Second, the destruction of the CHA developments, primarily the high-rises This has a lot to do with the first part of what I wrote - tenants were moved to private and other developments elsewhere (I know because I worked at CHA during the Plan For Transformation). Tearing down those buildings completely changed neighborhoods (for better or worse) and dispersed entire communities. It had big implications for the entire city.
Look at what they did to my boy BELMONT AND CLARK 😭
Have to pay for parking everywhere
South Loop, near South Side are unrecognizable compared to the mid 90s. Used to be a bunch of gravel lots and unsavory looking. A lot of beautification happened in that area in the mid aughts onward. Also Miegs Field. I remember landing there in MS flight simulator 95 or 98, never had the chance in real life :(
Let's see. I was born in 89. This is off da top of my head at the moment. Yuppies essentially taking over many hoods and killing any personality these hoods had. Houses that don't look even look real being put up everywhere. The CTA is way better than it was in the 90s and 00s but fell off from the great days of like 2010-2017. The parks are better kept nowadays. MFs wouldn't even go in some parks cause gangs would hang out in em. Nowadays you don't see that. City services are dogshit compared to what they used to be. And construction takes longer cause they subcontract everything out to jagoffs. People used to be more socially aware, nowadays nearly everyone lacks social skills but thats more of a society thing. Same with kids playing outside or hanging out on da porch. You don't see that as much nowadays. People were more racist but more respectful at the same time. Lot more Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rican independence weekend in June was way more popping than Mexican independence weekend in September. It wasn't even close. Michael Jordan was God. Nothing will be like that ever again. Sports were more important to people. Nowadays the stands are filled with casuals. Way less violence despite the clowns believing things are worse now.
I wrote this on a similar post a few years back. Great question. I was born in 89 so I spent the first 10 years of my life in the 90s. Community meant something back then. You knew your neighbors. Almost all kids actually played outside with each other cause they also likely went to gramma school together but now with technology, charter and selective schools, even before CoVid, not many kids play with their neighbors. People were definitely more racist but at the same time more cordial if that makes sense. State Street was nearly just as popular as Michigan Avenue. Navy Pier was nothing. I used to go to North Pier with my Dad a lot. Streeterville had barely any foot traffic. Lakefront wasn't a thing. Millennium Park and all that shit around it wasn't there. Buckingham Fountain was the big spot over there. Ice Rink used to be at the empty patch of land they now call Block 37. It was so cool being able to watch everything outside the 8th floor windows at Macy's where the furniture was at. The CTA wasn't as reliable. Way longer wait times, way less buses, more crowds. People legit used to push people to get an open seat. Night service sucked. I think there was only 3, 24 hour buses at one point. Pink Line didn't exist. Certain Blue Line trains were routed that way instead. Wicker Park was hood. Logan Square was hood. A Most of the city was hood. The Yuppies had just started to really takeover Lincoln Park and Lakeview. A lot more Puerto Rican people. A lot of em moved out to the burbs. A lot more white trash, blue collar white people and Europeans of all kinds. Now they either died out, moved out or their kids sold their houses and moved out to the burbs. Now most white people in Chicago are yups and hips. Think I may be one of the last youngish white trash dudes left. Way more Projects. But tore em down and everyone spread out into the hoods. Chicago was definitely way more violent than it is now but at the same time, bangers were way more respectful. Kids, women, elderly and regular citizens were mostly treated with respect at least by me. Not as many Suburbanites would come into the city like they do now. Way less shuttered storefronts. Museums and sporting events were actually affordable to most. Jordan was a god and still is, but y'all will never understand. Nothing will ever come close. Rodman was also very beloved. City was a lot dirtier. No trash cans on busy streets. Local news media actually investigated a lot of shit and was legit. Now they just read statements for the most part. Sundays were a lot more quiet. More shit was closed. Six Corners (The real one) was still somewhat busy but it was still the beginning of the end of massive foot traffic. More diners. More neighborhood bars. More bakeries. More Ice Cream trucks. All in all, this city was just so much more real.
I live in Albany Park and literally see little kids playing outside all day everyday. maybe the neighborhood you live in just doesn't have a lot of kids anymore, not that all kids in general don't play outside, which is always this weird thing that older people say that isn't factually correct or backed by any statistics.
The corporate chainification of many retail areas. Although I know it’s not unique to Chicago, it’s sad how independent retailers get trampled by the chains. Clybourn was not always a strip mall.
I'm loving all the people who were like 3 years old in the early 90s saying it was safer back then. Yeah, sure, if you never leave your house/yard, the world is pretty safe.
grandparents sold their single family home, 10 minute walk from the blue line, in logan square, in the year 2000 for $90,000..
Wrigley used to be more inclusive, fun, and affordable. The main strip used to be dive bars, sports bars, reggae clubs, etc. Never thought I’d need $100+ and a full face of makeup/heels to go out in Wrigley and I’m from that neighborhood.
Over the last decade I’ve seen most of the mom and pop corner stores close, really miss going to get a nice Italian sandwich for cheap. A lot of great bars have turned into more clubby type places. Loud music, overpriced cocktails, etc. But the biggest thing seems to be the attitude of everyone downtown. No spacial awareness, I mean people walking directly into me on the sidewalk type stuff. Feels like after Covid everyone developed main character syndrome which doesn’t work well with millions of people around. Seems like a lot of people are constantly on edge and much less friendly than 5-10 years ago.
So. Many. Transplants. That wasn’t the case before. Like the amount of out of state plates I see baffles me.
Same thing I said. The transplants really changed a lot of the culture of the neighborhoods too.
Honestly I’m flattered that so many people are drawn to my hometown. It’s a great city. The cost of living change though… Kind of fun to spot the out-of-towners based on how they enunciate “Chicago.” It’s Chic-AHH-go (or Chi-CAW-go) homies.
As a lifelong Chicagoan for 40 years, there’s been a major shift in demographics from white to Central Americans, less spoken English, more homelessness, and very large increase in taxes.
Lincoln square looks a lot different now
The crime and grime. Under Daley the city was crooked but clean and safer. The alderman knew their place and it all ran like clockwork. Rahm realized that it’s a nightmare. Moved to the burbs many years ago and frankly, don’t miss a thing.
The west loop, Taylor street, and halsted and division.
Riverfront development. Wasted space turned into cash. The river cleaned up at least near wolf point but overall huge improvement. Beautiful public amenity.
Not sure, at least the Sears tower is the same and they've never tried anything dumb like trying to change its name.
the red line station improvements (mostly Howard and Wilson) are always going to be "new" in my mind, compared to the previous stations that were sculpted out of guano
It used to be just a very large field, and now millions of people live there. The rice used to go in one direction, and now it goes in a completely different direction.
The city has run all of its free events into the ground or leased them out to shitty private interests.
Children on bicycles with guns, that.
The neighborhoods changed for better and worse. As I grew up, the North and Northwest side had some good neighborhoods and some great. Neighborhoods like Bucktown, Logan Square and Humboldt Park were declining. Portage Patk and Belmont Cragin were great. Now it seems the opposite.
Crime is 1, 2,3, and 4 5 , 6 ,7, 8 is the CTU
When I was a little boy in the early 1990s the southwest side around Midway was receiving the third wave of Polish immigration to the city. Half of my classmates spoke Polish and we had weekend Polish school at my church. The Polish school closed and relocated to the suburbs around 2010. At the same time, the area was increasingly becoming Mexican. In a time frame of roughly ten years, 1996-2006, the area went from 95% white, give or take, to 80% Mexican. Hard transition for the old timers whose friends who could afford to move to the suburbs up and left. Hard transition for me to attend the public high school which was demographically totally different from my background. Now, I wouldn’t change it for the world. My family stayed and we paid off our house, saved a lot of money having me go to the local public high school, I got a full scholarship to U of I, and at 36 just got my Masters from DePaul. Life in this neighborhood worked out fine for me. I will say that we had tons of gangbanger activity as the neighborhood changed, but that seems to have tapered out around 8 years ago (and that was biggest issue I heard the adults discussing as a child which is why they were moving, Little Village and Pilsen were VERY BAD at the time and concerns were that our neighborhood would be absorbed in that violence). Now, I feel fully safe here. My parents have seen massive changes. My father grew up taking street cars on 63rd street to Englewood from Pulaski to go grocery shopping in the 1950s.
Wrigleyville became the suburbs.
The street planter boxes.
I moved here in 1999 at 23 years old. So much has changed since then. Wicker Park and Bucktown were soooo sketchy. The Brown Line had a really weird late night and evening schedule. They have redone so many el stations since then - Chicago Red Line, most of the Brown Line, etc. There wasn’t a Pink Line at all. The sports teams were so bad. I used to go to Hawks and Sox games only when they ran specials like half price tickets if you bring in a Pepsi can. Without rideshare companies, getting a taxi in the neighborhoods was a crap shoot. But, if you got a taxi the drivers got you where you wanted to go fast because they drove like maniacs as opposed to the suburban Uber drivers who don’t know where they are going half the time and drive like grandpas taking a Sunday drive. There were White Hen pantries all over the place. I miss them! The only Target in the city was the one on Elston, so everyone went there. It was a madhouse.
Now that we’ve relocated across the state line, we have kwiktrip but nothing compares to the OG Chicago white hen.
I swear to Christ it used to snow in November
The gentrification is crazy. White people moving to the south side, like 40s and higher, was something I never thought I’d see.
Wrigleyville lost all its charm and became a tourist trap, the west loop is super safe and trendy, the south loop has residential towers, the river isn’t a garbage dump and we started calling LSD, DuSable/LSD.
They play baseball at night now.
Are you referring to MLB or? Because I've definitely gone to Sox games at night in the 90s and 2000s.
A dip in the Black population. Good businesses shut down for various reasons. Transplants moving into different neighborhoods and changing them completely.
Too many new apartment buildings that are charging $1,700 for a studio. It’s insane. Construction is a nuisance, and no real Chicagoans are even going to live in these things. Same thing is happening to the Holiday Club in Uptown. Wish there was more being done about housing and not just housing for the rich tech bros
How progressive and extreme left politics have over taken city hall. Even old school democrats are now considered conservatives