Urban gentrification and the end of an era

I wrote this 11 years ago for a bunch of guys in a metalworking newsgroup. It seemed a fitting piece to start my blog.


This is long and doesn't have much to do with metalwork But I thought you guys would understand.

Fifteen years ago, having grown tired of hanging out in a college town with the dead heads and other aging hippies, I moved back up to Chicago.

Lured by cheap rent, I moved into a moderately seedy urban neighborhood. It was the sort of working class area where people would still get up early to sweep off their sidewalks before going to work. On a hot summers day your neighbors would stop by with a six pack and you'd sit on your stoop drinking beer and swapping lies. If your car was stuck on an icy patch, three guys would come out of their houses with their coats on over their bathrobes and push you out.

The neighborhood had small bars where they had Billie Holliday on the juke box, not because it was trendy, but because it made "Bob" down at the end of the bar cry, and if you ever showed up in a suit and tie, you better be on your way to a funeral or you'd get the bums rush.

Within walking distance was an industrial tool supplier, a foundry supply, two plastic suppliers, a lumber yard that stocked the odd sized doors and windows used in older buildings, a plating shop, several metal finishers, sheet metal shops, sharpeners, welders and a thirty year old hardware store which, although run by two old goofs and their crackerjack staff of hardcore unemployables, would let you rummage around in the back. Where, like some diy Noah's ark they had accumulated a breeding pair of every thing ever made by man.

In short it was as close to heaven on earth that anyone can find in a big city.

After a few years we bought a storefront building and set about trying to meek out an eager living.


Meanwhile the neighborhood got trendy.


Property values and taxes drove off most of the neighbors. Almost all the suppliers are gone, replaced by galleries and strip malls. Most of the factories have been turned into luxury loft condominiums.

The last vestige of what the neighborhood was, is a Polish restaurant called the Busy Bee. The kind of place where your eggs didn't come with parsley garnish, and your coffee tasted like coffee.

They served good food at a reasonable price and weren't scotch on the portions.

As a regular routine ( to assure myself that my life was reasonably normal) I would walk down every Friday morning for breakfast. I'd sit at the counter, read the paper and let the Polish girls keep my coffee cup full.

It was an oasis of normalcy.

They're closing their doors today. Someone made them a enormous cash offer for the building. They plan to turn it into luxury condos. I don't blame the owner. She's been making soup, pierogi and galumpki for 30 years. She's 85 and it's time to get a payday.

I don't know who to blame. I guess it's just the end of an era.


Thanks for letting me vent

Paul K. Dickman