We wrote in a Monday post that residents and businesses on Rockwell St between Wilson and Lawrence avenues were nervous about the Feb. 20 shutdown of the Rockwell station on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Brown Line, a temporary closure that could last up to six months. Today we bring you some photos from Rockwell, a quiet, almost hidden neighborhood commercial strip of the kind so common before shopping became inextricably linked to the mighty automobile and city neighborhoods began to decline for all sorts of reasons.
The rebirth of Rockwell during the last few years has been amazing to watch. That’s partly because patronizing third-tier commercial strips on quiet neighborhood streets like this has come to seem about as quaint and anachronistic as weaving your own clothes (hippy sources tell us, by the way, that this too is on the rise). And it’s partly because Rockwell has such great character. The Rockwell stop is the first one on the Brown Line where the elevated train ain’t so elevated. It runs at street level here across a thoroughfare lined with vintage mom-and-pop storefronts, new trees, planters and lampposts. Rockwell is big enough for shops and pedestrian traffic but small enough — and mostly residential enough, nearby — that traffic remains comparatively light.
The best way the CTA can help the fledgling businesses on the strip is to shorten the duration of the station closure. In the meantime, it’s created a Web page encouraging commuters to support businesses on Rockwell and on Kedzie Ave, which is also temporarily closed.
Rockwell’s Neighborhood Grill, 4632 N Rockwell St, has good food and great beer for cheap. Did we mention they have great beer for cheap?
The name tells you everything you need to know about Scents and Sensibility, 4654 N Rockwell St.
We’re pretty sure that Bloom, a yoga studio at 4663 N Rockwell St, is offering the first infant massage classes ever taught on this stretch of Rockwell, as well as midnight yoga, breastfeeding basics and more.
Of course there’s been a boom in new and converted condos, such as Rockwell Crossing, at Leland and Rockwell.
