Chicago is home anew now. I managed to both come home and come to a new and magical land.
My excuse for not writing recently is that I moved in last week to my new home on Webster Ave. in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Lincoln Park, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the more happening neighborhoods in the city. I’ve been here for over a week now, and I’m starting to get my bearings. True, the uppity nature of the place makes me second guess myself, but as far as I am concerned, I have come to a wonderful place, and I am very blessed, yuppies and all.
All you Hyde Parkers and South Side folk might turn up your noses, but frankly my dears I don’t give a damn. Go ahead and think I’ve betrayed your precious South Side uniqueness for the Northface-wearing Northerners. I’m still me, but a much less aggravated me, so woot. You can say what you want, but it won’t change the fact that you probably never go north of 47th street, south of 61st, or west of Cottage Grove, no matter how much you may feel one with South Side culture. Even if you did venture out of Hyde Park, it is probably on the weekend to come to places like Lincoln Park. I know this doesn’t apply to everyone, but this is certainly true of many. If you want to live in that bubble that gushes with that strange combination of south side, university and hippie cultures, I’ll leave that to you.
I never was much of a fan of Hyde Park, in case you couldn’t tell. HP has its fans, I know, and I can kind of understand why. Hyde Park, to be sure, is unique and full of character. Hyde Park Produce still amazes me with the quality and prices of its fruits and veggies. HP’s location right on the lake with the lovely park at the point is a delightful feature and it ought to be treasured. But Hyde Park is a weird place, and you notice this as soon as you need something. Let’s say you needed a pair of shoes. You’re not up for paying $100 for a pair at that place next to Treasure Island. You just want a Payless. Well, fortunately for you there is one…downtown on Michigan Avenue. Running errands in Hyde Park is never a picnic…it nearly always means leaving and going very, very far away. And getting to anywhere else from Hyde Park is way harder than it ought to be. The Metra is surely the fastest method downtown, but you need a schedule and at non-peek times there are, at most, only two trains an hour if that. The #6 bus is the next best option, but everyone knows it, which means everyone takes it, which means it is very crowded. The best method of transportation, alas, is a car. Living in a city should mean that we can live without cars, but Hyde Park makes you feverish for vehicular freedom.
To be fair, a great portion of my frustration with Hyde Park lies in my own impatient nature, and that is not Hyde Park’s fault. I love to go walking, running, and biking, basically getting outside as much as possible. But because Hyde Park is a bubble, and a small bubble at that, I know every street, every house and apartment building, even some cracks in the road, and I’m tired. I’ve exhausted Hyde Park’s charms, and I thrill to be in a new place.
And what a place.
I went for a run the other day. Not only is everything new to me and therefore intriguing, the neighborhood overflows with character. Every building had its own flourishes, and there were interesting restaurants and bars and shops and, best of all, a cupcake store right across the street from my new place. My apartment is a little over a mile from the lake, so it made for a fantastic running loop, running up and down streets of row houses of all colors and materials, across parks, past little ponds, the zoo and the botanical gardens, under Lake Shore Drive and out to Lake Michigan. People seem happier here, there is a much more cheery atmosphere about the place. Though this might have a good deal to do with Christmas cheer, I think it extends further. I feel as though I’ve come to an urban paradise of sorts, a place where everything you may need is in walking distance, right at your finger tips. I have several grocery options, a movie theater, a gym, a book store, a Potbelly’s, an Einstein Bagels, and a series of thrift stores right down the street. I feel living here will be a completely new life experience, living in a land of plenty. I am about an 8 minute walk from the Brown Line train, and a 12 minute ride to the loop. Not too shabby. The red line and the Metra are also quite close. What luxury! I can barely handle it. I’m so baffled by the ease of it all.
Oh, and did I mention, it’s cheaper than my old apartment in Hyde Park?
Now I understand. When people say that they love Chicago, they are really thinking of places like Lincoln Park.I get it now.
November 26, 2009
Tales from Car Shopping
In preparation for my move back to Chicago, I made the decision that having a car in the city, and especially during the winter, would be too wonderful to do without again. I’ve been through four winters in Chicago now, all carless and all bleak. But, as time went on and more friends brought their cars, the less bleak it got. On my last visit, I borrowed my grandmother’s car, and it was hard to miss the leaps and bounds in quality of life I experienced by having such a luxurious mobility. Having a car there permanently would allow me to freely roam (provided I learned a few tricks about finding parking places) more than the CTA allows. Though I intend primarily to continue using a bike, the car would do what the bike cannot: let me leave the city when its urban confines begin to induce claustrophobia. Yes, I am certain buying a car is the right course.
And so, over the last few weeks I’ve been obsessively car shopping. I’ve learned quite a few things in the process. I began by looking at a sight my dad introduced me to called Edmunds.com. It proved an invaluable resource. It is helpful and entertaining. Check out the essay series entitled “Confessions of a Car Salesman,” in which a writer describes his undercover work in the car sales industry. His discoveries are illuminating and oh so helpful as the naïve shopper begins negotiations with these goons. Reading that essay series was probably one of the best things I could have done in preparation for this purchase, because it increased my awareness of the things that motivate car salesmen and the ways in which they try, in some cases, to pull some shenanigans. I almost laughed at some of the stereotypes I’ve come across—they fit the author’s descriptions so well it seemed comical. The white shirts, the firm handshakes, the expensive watches, the ways in which they try to milk more money out of you by telling you how low your monthly bill will be…it was all there!
Mind you, not all the dealerships fit the stereotypes the author describes. Even he writes that not all dealerships are like that. Just today I visited a dealership where the salesmen did not work on commission, and the change was drastic and refreshing. But the reason I found today’s experience so comforting was because I had something to compare it to. Car salesmen are characters. How does one ever say to himself, “Hey, I’m pushy. I’d make a great car salesman,” I wonder?
For one thing, they all had interesting names. One guy had the last name Dragon. I asked him if that were his real name. I doubted it because Dragon seemed like a name a salesman would conjure up to make himself simultaneously more memorable and intimidating. He swore it was his real surname. Another guy’s first name was Luciano. He had a thick European accent and clearly tried to appeal to the wealthier side of the Westchester public. He wore shiny shoes and fluffy hair. He donned a fancy sporty jacket that clearly cost way too much at outdoor apparel store. I wondered if he had different jackets he would put on to make the buyer think that he had similar interests and tastes i.e. since I was buying an athletic car, he put on an athletic jacket; were I buying an Audi or BMW perhaps he would have put on something made of leather or goat hair. I couldn’t help but feel like I couldn’t trust him from the beginning; he fit that snobbish Euro-chique stereotype so well. Then, by contrast, there was the guy at the Bronx Honda dealership. I won’t use his full name, but it was very similar to Michael Michaelson. Now HE should have gone with Dragon. He needed something to spiff up his act, because he was just dropping a bunch of lines all over the place in hopes of making a quicker sale. For instance, when I said I needed to think about it, he said, “What’s there to think about? Someone else might buy the car in the meantime.” When I pointed out how that particular car had been on their lot for months already, he made up some BS like, “Well, it’s a funny thing. Once one person looks at a car, a whole bunch of other people do too.” I still wanted to go think about it (I wonder why). Then he said, as many of the others had done, that he would go talk to his manager. I had told him that I needed to finance the car if I bought it because I was on such a tight budget, going into ministry and all. He originally didn’t think that the banks would do that since the car was older than 2004. But when he came out of his manager’s office, he said, “You’re going into ministry? Well someone must be looking out for you because we found a bank which will finance you.” Nice.
I still have this gut feeling that I will bump into someone who is selling their car real cheap. Now I’m hoping for this even more so I don’t have to deal with any more of this.
Leave a Comment
Filed under Running Commentary on whatever tickles the fancy, True Stories