The Story in Each View
How can one claim to know Chicago by just living there for some time? Chicago, a collection of 228 neighborhoods, can one truly claim to know all, let alone most of them? And what qualifies as “knowing” a place? What does it mean to know a place?
Through Immersion Week in this class and its hours of walks across some of Chicago’s streets, I’ve realized that there is much to experience to know a place. To know a place is to hear what is around oneself, taking in the sights of people, colors, imagery, and the shifting environment around oneself.
I remember where we started our journey in Chicago, at the top of the 360 Chicago Tower, looking out into the city from all directions. One can see Chicago mapped out before them. That view is magnificent in of itself, but that is its limit. That is just a way to see Chicago, not a way to know it.
Yet when walking out into each neighborhood, something becomes distinctly clear. That when taking in the surroundings and happenings of the area, each area is uniquely stimulating to the eyes. Each place has a different feel, a different story, a different ambience, sometimes so engulfing, that it can feel detached from the world around and beyond it.
Take Gould Coast for example. The buildings feel accented in a way, not in design, but in look, as if they’re veterans of lasting time. The streets are less dense, oddly void of foot traffic. The buildings are lavish, with flourishing plans, flowers, and trees surrounding them. The ambience is entirely separate to the beach and the bustling Lake Shore drive nearby. Walking through Gould Coast I felt mesmerized, calm, and detached from the rest of the world. Trees casting shadows over the sidewalks make me feel hidden from the world above and around.
Which is completely contrasted by the ambience of West Garfield Park. Having to take the Green Line out to Pulaski to reach it from Lincoln Park, West Garfield Park is detached to what many know as “Chicago” yet is still part of it. It juxtaposes the entire experience of Gould Coast. West Garfield Park’s skies are silent. Walking in the area I feel a sense of danger and weight in the air, lingering ire and dread. The area tells a story of a community that has suffered by gentrification pushing them further out, entrenching a cycle of disrepair. I frequently saw trash on the ground, on the walkways, in bushes, trees, and houses. There were even closed off lots of junked cars, who knows how long they’ve sat there rotting away…
Both are part of Chicago. Both count as living in Chicago. Yet the two environments are so drastic in difference.
Despite the experiences of immersion week, I can’t claim to know all of Chicago. Perhaps that’s what makes Chicago so special.
Maybe no one knows all of Chicago.
