We went on a 21-mile bike ride, starting around Grant Park and biking until the very north end of the Lakefront Trail. The Lakefront Trail is 18 miles long, which means it does not go along 8 miles of the actual coastline. Since we started at northbound mile 10, it also means that our 21 mile bike ride actually only covered 8 miles.
The city was crowded. The weather was nice, and (on Sunday) the Canadian wildfire particulates hadn’t streamed in yet. There were people everywhere. There were people on the bike path, the jogging path, the walking path. You could hardly see the sand of the Oak Street Beach. From there to Lincoln Park, the water was full of swimmers and every boat had people on it. Every park as we went up the shoreline was full to the brim of people, grilling, playing, listening to music.
And that was only the north coast of the city. The city continues inwards. We went out to eat at EuroAsia Restaurant (351 W Oak St), which turned out to be a Kazakh-Kyrgyz restaurant that served the whole suite of Central Asian meals. The owner looked Tajik, and the flavors perfectly matched the streets of Uzbekistan (I was there in April). EuroAsia Restaurant was across the street from Masala Magic (1011 N Orleans St), a Pakistani restaurant. Blocks earlier was a Yemeni place (Al-Diar, 939 N Orleans St), and two Somali spots (Mogadishu, 931 N Orleans St; and BULSHO, 211 W Walton St). We needed halal meat, so we went to Alliance Poultry Farms, Inc (1636 W Chicago Ave), a live poultry shop. It turned out to be ran by Yemenis and had some Latino staff. That Yemeni halal poultry shop was next door to Hoosier Mama Pie Shop (1618 ½ W Chicago Ave) and Flour Power (we hypothesized that this was either a fancy flour shop or an seller of illicit goods).
The absolute scale of Chicago is mesmerizing. All the places I described here were just from two quick trips, and I have not even described the whole neighborhoods. Every single neighborhood is huge. When we drove by the giant fancy Lake View Whole Foods (3201 N. Ashland), I commented on how even Ann Arbor did not have this fancy of a Whole Foods (I guess Ann Arbor has two). What I did not realize is that just Lake View has a population of over 100K (but only one Whole Foods).
The difference between the neighborhoods is also staggering. EuroAsia Restaurant is borders the grass patch where Cabrini-Green once stood, three blocks away from a cafe that will sell you a $15 Dubai Chocolate Cold Brew, and five blocks from a Michelin star restaurant starting at $135/person without meat or drinks.
I live just blocks from Roosevelt, and while I saw that the neighborhoods get noticeably dirtier once you cross, I didn’t fully understand why people said the North/South divide is so stark. I thought perhaps Chicago has changed, until I went on a brief stroll down the closest street (Burlington, starting at 730 W, 1900 N) to the Lincoln Park Farmer’s Market where I discovered a house goes for at least four million dollars. The Red Line doesn’t stop at Armitage, but it does pass through, perhaps with passengers who boarded in Fuller Park, where the median household income is $17,217.
The south coast of the city is super long. I went to Northerly Island, thinking that the nature area would be a nice place to walk, only to discover that it is a mile down and a mile back up. I let myself walk home and spared the bonus 2 miles of August heat discomfort.
To someone from a regular old place like myself, it might seem like Chicago could not possibly be that big. I mean, to drive across metropolitan Detroit could take at most an hour and a half. To drive from O’Hare (northwest) to East Side (southeast) would take at least an hour with regular traffic (also not a thing I am used to). In between those is nearly three million people, and you are ignoring the suburbs. Even the holes in Chicago are huge!