Walking around Lakeview
I got off Belmont Station around 3:45 p.m. and followed a stranger as soon as I got off the train. The stranger turned right onto Belmont Avenue, and from there, my journey began. It was a gloomy day and the air smelled like rain. Surprisingly, I only saw about 2 people carrying an umbrella. Everyone else, including my stranger, walked at a normal pace and got soaked with no problem.
I was on Belmont Avenue for less than a minute when my stranger turned right onto N Clark Street. I saw a lot more people on this street probably because there were more businesses on it. Something that stood out to me was a tiny strip of a DSW, Marshalls, and Micheals. Where I’m from, these stores are the size of warehouses but here they looked like little dollhouse stores. Much of what I walked past on the right side of North Clark was the Advocate Hospital, its facilities occupying almost 5–6 blocks in length. I never paid attention to hospitals in cities, so it was cool to see a different center on every block rather than one big hospital. The last thing I wanted to mention about North Clark that I thought was funny was a donation bin for clothes and shoes by the GreenCity Project, but someone peeled off the ‘s’ in shoes, making the phrase slightly more inappropriate.
My stranger eventually turned left onto W Wellington Avenue, going into a bar on the corner of Clark and Wellington called “Parrots Bar and Grill.” I couldn’t help but notice the Carole King song playing in it because I’d never expect to hear Carole King playing in a bar of all places.
I found a new stranger walking down Wellington and decided to follow them. Much of what I saw on the street was a mix of houses and apartments. Some of the apartment complexes had courtyards which made them look like they could be in England, and it somehow reminded me of the complexes in Hyde Park, Chicago. A pattern I noticed was that the plots of grass in front of houses were much more green than those in front of apartments. I guess the apartment landlords aren’t too worried about the beautification of their sidewalks.
My stranger turned right onto N Broadway Street, where I saw a lot of East Asian and Mexican restaurants. All I could hear was loud music from 2 restaurants on opposite sides of the street and sounds of loud construction. I also passed by a lot of people speaking Spanish so the Spanish population of Lakeview must be bigger than I thought.
My stranger turned into a crepe restaurant on N Broadway, so I decided to follow one more stranger before heading back to the station. I turned right onto W Oakdale Avenue where I followed stranger #3 down the sidewalk. Like Wellington, there were a lot of houses and apartment complexes, but I noticed that almost all of the front gates of the houses I walked past were open. I guess homeowners trust the people walking by because their front lawns are still intact. Another odd thing I noticed was the smell on W Oakdale. I can’t exactly describe it, but it miraculously cleared my nostrils.
My stranger went into their apartment complex on W Oakdale, and I had an 11-minute walk to the train station, so I documented the rest of my journey on the way there. I turned right onto a street that would lead me back to Wellington, and every single store on that street had an LED sign. I would like to see that street at night and all its colors. When turning left back onto Wellington, I saw what looked like a stationary/decoration store called “Foursided.” The store was packed with a line going outside of it and I saw people walking out of it with Halloween decorations. I’ve been so busy with school that I forgot Halloween was right around the corner. Meanwhile, all these adults were already preparing to decorate their houses in mid-September. I waited in line for about 10 minutes because I wanted to see what all the commotion was about and saw something interesting inside: mini food trucks with some of the local Lakeview food businesses’ logos I saw on my walk printed on them.
When I left the store, I continued down Wellington, which was occupied by the same hospital from earlier. I made it to the Wellington Station, concluding my journey at 4:52 p.m.
A pattern I saw on the sidewalks throughout Lakeview was a quote that printed, “FAT MONEY, MONEY GOT WINGS, ALBUM OUT NOW.” I don’t believe this quote had any meaning pertaining to Lakeview, but I saw it about 3 or 4 times on my walk. I’m guessing a musician printed it on multiple sidewalks to promote their new album. I wonder how long it will stay before it fades.
Map of my walk around Lakeview:
In “Paris, or Botanizing the Asphalt,” by Rebecca Solnit, she quotes Walter Benjamin who writes about “losing oneself in the city.” I believe that to lose oneself in the city is to go out and live with no worries; to explore new places without any fear or doubt of something going wrong. I’m usually a cautious person in the city because I’m scared of the possibility of being kidnapped, mugged, attacked, etc. One night, my friend and I were walking down Michigan Avenue, talking about many random topics, and somehow I wasn’t scared. It may have been because I was lost in conversation, but I’ve been lost in conversation before while still being quite cautious. All I remember from that night was the many pictures we took on our almost hour-long walk. Looking back, it may not have been a good idea to laugh as loud as we did in a dark alleyway, but we were having so much fun I didn’t even realize that we were in a dark alleyway at all. We lost ourselves, which may not have been a good idea, but it certainly was fun (189).
