chicago: discovered
For me as a New Yorker, walking is second nature. Walking is the thing to use to get around, and it’s treated as a commonality. However, something so common is often stopped by external factors, based on race, community, gender or even physical things like bridges or highways. Something so plain and civil that becomes much more when used, is often stopped, and walking as a multi-faceted tool should be encouraged and accepted by all and used for all. It should not only be used as a tool to get around, but to transcend communities and neighborhoods to discover areas and engage in the true cultures cities have to offer.
Since we’ve been here in Chicago since the quarter started, I’ve been able to see these effects firsthand during the Mexican independence day festivals, with how the police presence forced groups out of certain areas. Apart from physical enforcement and street closures, the Mayor opened some bridges, effectively closing them off opposite sides of the river to restrict movement and gatherings and contain the “chaos” downtown. A quote in an article from ProPublica references this in another instance during Lori Lightfoot’s tenure as Mayor: “Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered most of the bridges up at night to limit access to the Loop, Gold Coast and surrounding areas after an outbreak of property destruction and unrest.” While referencing a different issue, this same strategy was implemented during the festivals. This similar physical use of something to prevent walking and development overall can be seen in the past with new construction of highways cutting directly through residential neighborhoods, creating divides in rich and poor like here on the southside of Chicago. These divides are also directly accessibility related, and in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway cuts directly through Cobble Hill and Downtown Brooklyn, making it difficult to cross from side to side.
Walking as a concept overall is something primitive. Outside of cities, walking is merely used to walk to and from your car, in and around businesses or restaurants, and that’s about it. It’s something of human nature, but not used a lot. To some, it seems as something boring and not useful, as other methods of modern technology and innovation have surpassed merely walking to get places, but when visiting or living in cities, walking transforms into a tool to transcend cultures, neighborhoods, and different areas. It can take you in paths of history, on both streets and neighborhoods and gets transformed from a subconscious thing to a method to explore and discover. Walking straight down streets for long stretches, whether guided or unguided is a great way to see how neighborhoods change. During immersion week, we did this as a class and saw the neighborhoods change from a strong Puerto Rican presence in Humboldt park, industrial areas moving east towards the city, both branches of the river around Goose Island, into the now non-existent Cabrini Green area where a park honors its history, moving into Old Town and later into the Gold Coast neighborhood.
While still walking down the same street, we saw such diverse changes within the city, only something possible by walking. Things like the extra wide sidewalks down DIvision street, the lack of accessibility underneath the highway and train tracks, and the details in the steel cross-sectioned patterns of the bridges above Goose Island are all things that are only seen from walking, something that cannot be replaceable by any other method of transport. No matter the distance or route, driving will never replace walking in terms of what you can see and notice. Walking allows you to be present in the moment and while you still may miss certain things, you are overall much more focused on your surroundings. On my own walks, when matching colors, I was so focused on the things around me and finding a match to the color of Razzberries, I failed to notice a match to it that had been with me the whole time, on my uncles shirt since that morning, showing that not always are you focused on the right things, but always getting your attention drawn back and forth. A quote by Solnit from Paris, Or Botanizing on the Asphalt applied a lot to the situation: “His gait had something unmistakable about it, something pensive and tentative, which was probably due to his shortsightedness.”
Walking in cities is so essential, described by Leo Hollis as a right, to which I agree. Not only a right in and of itself, but it also brings questions of who has a right to the city. After being in New York again recently, I’ve seen the situation firsthand of immigrants being shipped to the city in droves, and needing to find their way. The debate about public spaces in New York in my eyes has shifted somewhat, and everything is accessible for everyone. When working at the restaurant in Chelsea, Manhattan, I get a minimum of 10 people per day coming in and asking me if we have space for jobs. I always have to give the answer of no, because it’s the truth, but our owner doesn’t let us take names down at all. These immigrants are often the hardest working people you will meet, and certainly behind every kitchen door of our owners’ restaurants, he has nothing but immigrants working. The denial of immigrants seeking asylum, kicking them off the streets and out of public spaces is treated the same as if a disruptive person on drugs, as if they don’t belong. The city of New York, as well as Chicago shows that they are cities for everyone, and their treatment as ones who don’t have the right to the city because they are not from there is heartbreaking.
The idea of the flaneur flourished in Paris in the 1870s, after Paris’ overall renovation and redesign in the mid 19th century. After this renovation with the other liberal arts like philosophy and photography flourishing as well, the idea of the flaneur was born, the idea of walking without an occupation, and observing your only job. As much as I’d love for this to still be an option in today’s society, it is not because of how society has changed, but certainly after learning about this concept, I think there is definitely a lot to take from it as an idea, and many others can learn from it too. The idea of observing what is around you and being completely immersed in the environment you’re in, and living in the present is incredibly important to do whenever you can. Scheduling time for this is something to look to do, and I haven’t scheduled specific time to do this, but when I am out on walks for both this class and on my own, I have always brought a piece of the flaneur with me. When an overhanging worry crosses my mind, I try to ignore them as much as possible and live in the moment, as I am out walking and exploring. It’s almost a privilege in today’s world, and I try to appreciate it as much as I can. Things like this essay hung over my head, as I was pushing it off and knowing that I needed to do it. One day out with my girlfriend, I thought of the dread of having to do it, but then took into account the point of view of the flaneur. I tried eas hard as I could to live in the present, take into account our surroundings on the lakefront, and not think about anything in the past and enjoy quality time with my girlfriend, as it was a really important thing for us to take a moment of calm together after the week that we had just had. When I did have the sudden flash of thought towards this essay, something clicked in my head about how we were drawing out our own path of walking through Chicago. Both of us moved to the city unfamiliar with it, and as we were walking through Millennium Park, the lakefront, crossing Lake Shore Drive, and looking at the fountain, we were trying to remember the other time we had come here. It was right when we had started dating, and we had already weaved our big ball of yarn around the fountain down towards the lake. This time we were looping back on ourselves, but that line hadn’t been taken back with us.
That line will and always be permanently laid down for us. Now I have the film pictures to anchor that line, and that really summarizes the idea of you drawing your own line when you walk through the city. The commercial for Victoria Tourism in Australia put this idea into my head on the first day of classes, and I haven’t forgotten about it ever since, and I think that video could even be considered as the modern day flaneur. People don’t have time to specifically pay attention to how they walk and what exactly they do, but they still are conscious of where they are without thinking, and will always be laying down their big ball of thread as they go. The people they meet on the way, the neighborhoods, communities, observations they have, can change any and every time, but the ball of thread that they lay down behind them will always be there. This ball of yarn can be laid down by anyone, regardless of who they are, where they come from or how they see things. In cities, experiences will always be defined by the story you leave behind, and the story that you seek to tell by using the most effective way to discover: walking.
