Discovering My Own City
“I’ve lived close to Chicago my entire life, what more could there be that I haven’t seen yet?” This is what was going through my head prior to this week and now I realize that there’s a whole lot more this city has to offer than meets the eye. By going through the many different parks and neighborhoods I realized that there’s a whole lot more to Chicago than The Bean, Willis Tower, and Lake Michigan.
On Tuesday, we went to the John Hancock Center which had amazing views of the city and the lake but what amazed me even more was how different everything looked as we started walking on the ground as to when we were looking from above. The lake was one of the most fascinating views to me as from above the beauty comes from its juxtaposition to the city but when you’re on the ground you can truly admire the waves, the sun rising/setting, and the sounds of the water crashing against the dock. The perspective from below gives you an entirely different view of the lake that you wouldn’t recognize as the same from the view above which made me reflect on how truly important perspective is.
As we walked through wealthy parts of the city and came across parts that weren’t doing so well financially, it opened my eyes to the vast diversity of the city and how there were two neighborhoods within such a close proximity to each other yet were vastly different. While walking I used to try to keep an eye out for the quality of the architecture, the condition of the street and sidewalks, the age of the buildings, etc. and I found that Chicago is outstanding when it comes to having all different types of environments. We could be walking down a street with well built apartments and come across low income housing on the same block or sometimes even in the same building. Chicago isn’t completely separated by financial status like most cities are rather it does a good job to tend to the needs of all the people living in a neighborhood making a good effort to stop gentrification and keeping the original residents which I find to be fascinating.
Overall, this was an exhausting, tiring, fun, exciting, and long first week of college and I’m still recovering from it through rest and sleep but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Although this was a one week crash course of Chicago, I think I may have learned more about Chicago in this week than I had in my entire life. Now I realize what I know of Chicago is just the tip of the iceberg and that Chicago has a lot more to offer which I hope and plan to learn more of within my next four years of college as I get lost and discover my own way around this beautiful city.
