Just when we thought Lincoln Park had ventured beyond gentrification straight into la-la land (multimillion dollar homes, restaurants with cell phone booths and catwalks, stores that sell ski parkas for dogs), we hear something about the old hood that is refreshingly down-to-earth.
One local who lives in one of the beautiful new condo-converted highrises in exclusive East Lincoln Park tells us she likes the L.P. because it is a neighborhood of “many people”, pointing out that her building is a neighbor of Clayton Residential Home, a service for the mentally ill at 2026 N Clark St, and that residents of both buildings frequently exchange “good morning”s.
“I love that the mentally ill and developmentally disabled are part of our community. You never know if somebody is talking on their cell phone or talking to themselves, and what difference does it make?” she says.
But if you thought maybe the frat-element was subsiding, fear not, it’s alive and kicking. The boys are just getting older and starting to suffer from golfing injuries and the like. YoChicago overheard this snippet of a conversation between two men in their early thirties walking along Armitage Avenue one recent evening: “Dude! So I went to this lady chiropractor and she had the best hands.”
Miller Lite’s going to have to update its advertising themes.
And maybe, just maybe, these aging fratboys will end up in the residence for the mentally disabled someday. I’m sure the never-ending parade of recently-graduated sorority girls in Lincoln Park is bound to trigger some sort of flashback in these grizzled veterans of daring high-stakes panty raids carried out under cover of night. I doff my soiled, backwards white baseball cap and raise a lukewarm can of Milwaukee’s Best to them.
I would raise the beast with you, but I’ve got twenty bucks in the Golden Tee and I’m three under par right now.
Exclusive “East Lincoln Park?”
You’ve got to be kidding – or you need to get out more.
For starters, I don’t know where you get the term “East Lincoln Park.” New to me, but then I don’t get out that much any more either.
The area of Lincoln Park you’re writing about (I’ve lived thee and owned properties there) has never been and never will be “exclusive.”
It’s not just the Clayton. Most of the highrises have a heavy mix of second-rate studio and one-bedroom apartments.
The courtyard and corridor buildings, and there are quite a few of them in the area, are almost 100% crummy little studios and not much larger one-bedrooms. I’ve owned several, and half my tenant base wasn’t easy to distinguish from the residents of the Clayton. Don’t imagine that’s changed much. Yeah, we had some aging frat boys there, but they were recovering alcoholics or recently-divorced bustouts.
The area’s expensive, relative to other areas, because it has so much to offer. It’s not exclusive, and its housing stock ensures that it never will be. Those courtyard and corridor buildings are too profitable as rentals to convert to any other use.
Nat: I hear you, bro. Next to Pledge Week with the Tri Delts, Golden Tee is my second favorite way to do eighteen holes. Those chicks are sooooooo hot!