I revisited Chicago’s North Kenwood neighborhood today for the first time in nearly 15 years.
In many ways the area has changed dramatically. The volume of new construction and renovations is enormous, and new residents are being attracted there from many parts of the city. More on this topic in a later post.
In other ways, some important and some not, North Kenwood is unchanged. The important part: the streetscapes are still beautiful.
The unimportant: I was invited 3 times in the span of 3 hours to get my “white m**f**king ass out of here.” The first invitation came loudly and angrily on Drexel Blvd as I was photographing a row of houses. The second came casually from a slow-moving car on 43rd Street. The third was from two nine year old boys who couldn’t imagine that I had any function other than as a spare change dispenser.
Fifteen years ago these encounters would have been more frequent and more threatening. Today they seemed a dying gasp, more pro forma than prefatory. There was no “or else” quality about them.
The mural says more about the current tone of North Kenwood than the curses. Streetscapes to die for has a different meaning today than it would have the last time I visited.