Neighborhoods: Gold Coast

I've been putting this one off for a little while, because I feel like the Gold Coast is one of those neighborhoods I'll learn more and more about as the year goes on. The Gold Coast is just north of the Loop, so it's in a very central part of town. It's also where Fourth Presbyterian Church is, so I go there three days a week.

The picture on the left was taken while standing outside the sanctuary of Fourth Church. We're hemmed in on all sides by office buildings and stores, which makes the Gothic architecture of the church a welcome break from its surroundings.

It's hard to feel like any part of the Gold Coast is residential, despite the fact that there are high-rise apartments all around. That's because the Magnificent Mile is within the neighborhood, so walking through the area just makes you feel seeped in consumerism. I've seen tiny dogs being walked near the church (and carried in Baby Bjorns), so that's some proof there are homes in the Gold Coast. There are people EVERYWHERE, but I assume most of them are tourists or people who work in the Gold Coast. It's an extremely well-to-do neighborhood, full of shops and offices and mostly just droves of people walking all over the place. I understand that I'm emphasizing the crowds a lot, but walk through the Mag Mile on a Saturday afternoon and you will understand some of the elation and terror which are brought on by having that many humans crammed onto a sidewalk. One time I went to the Gold Coast on a parade day (accidentally!) and was completely unable to move for a few minutes, as I was surrounded by chipper shoppers.

Although you see plenty of live people on the Gold Coast, there are also plenty of dolls. The American Girls store is very close to Fourth Church, so my typical walk to work involves passing a couple families with tiny girls clutching their large American Girl dolls, usually in matching outfits. It's adorable.

I've mentioned before that Fourth Church and my home church in Lincoln had the same architect, but here are some pictures that really help illustrate that. For people that haven't been to First Presbyterian Church but are still reading this blog, you're just going to have to trust me that the church buildings are scarily similar. I used to be unsettled by the similarities between Fourth Church and my home church, but I'm getting used to it.


Fourth Church still feels like a Bizarro First Church sometimes, with the same vaulted ceiling and patterned windows as home, but with a raised stone pulpit from which you could probably defend the church against Orcs. The church is about ten times the size of First Church, so sometimes the sanctuary makes me feel like Alice in Wonderland, shrunken and having to navigate in a comically oversized world. The more I worship there, though, the more it becomes a place of solace. I sneak down to the sanctuary every once in a while during the work week, to listen to the organist practice and soak in the calm.

Neighborhoods: Boystown

Boystown is one of those definite neighborhoods which definitely isn't one of the officially designated community areas within Chicago. It's technically part of Lakeview, which is a sprawling area of general Northside. I'll try and do a more general Lakeview post, but frankly, most of Lakeview's personality comes from its inner neighborhoods.

In Nebraska, Boystown is a center which welcomes runaway teens into a caring environment away from their (sometimes abusive) homes. In Chicago, Boystown has plenty of teens but isn't so strong on the therapy or religious contexts. Instead it's a center of gay culture (and also where my roommate Tad's church is). Boystown is a few blocks full of things like vegan diners and adult stores and thrift stores, along with enough bars that the place lights up at night. Boystown also hosts the Center on Halstead, which is a huge building which acts as a community center and general hangout spot. The Center contains a theatre that performs GLBT shows, as well as a gigantic Whole Foods store and plenty of gathering spaces for sitting around.

Boystown is demarcated through a series of lampposty things down Halstead street, as shown in this picture. When I took the picture, the friend I was with said that I was giving the wrong impression of Boystown by showing the pillar next to a medical center and some apartments instead of boutiques or bars. But frankly, that's one of the cool parts of Boystown; it has plenty of things for the casual visitor, but also enough mundane places that people can actually make it their home. Then again, it also has enough different stores and cafes that you can be a casual visitor over and over without getting bored. It's definitely one of the places I'd take tourist-friends after hitting up more traditional places like the Magnificent Mile.

Neighborhoods: Austin

A few days ago somebody mentioned vacationing in Austin, and I had to think a bit before I realized they were talking about a city in Texas instead of a neighborhood on the edge of Chicago. Although Austin the neighborhood is perfectly nice, it would make for a pretty mundane vacation. Austin is the most populated neighborhood in Chicago, smack dab in between Garfield Park, where I live, and Oak Park, where I work. This means that I travel through Austin pretty often, but don't usually stop and take pictures. Austin is large enough to be its own suburb, but feels like Chicago. I understand this sounds like a very wishy-washy way of determining where Chicago ends and its suburbs begin, but our group drove from Garfield Park into the suburbs and could each figure out the city limits within a couple blocks of the switch. Garfield Park and Austin are both mostly African American neighborhoods with relatively low median household incomes, whereas the surrounding suburbs are mostly white and affluent. Austin is also the only major neighborhood in Chicago which is served by Sarah's Inn, which means I'll probably spend more time there in the future.
A few weeks ago we went to MacArthur's restaurant for our community day. MacArthur's is a soul food restaurant, the sort of place where the only menu hangs over the counter and the woman scooping your food onto a plate will give you an eyebrow if you don't order enough (she silently challenged me to get a large dessert, which is how I ended up with leftovers). The food is fantastic, and the place is usually packed. I admit this is not the best picture, but a picture of my plate would have been just me taunting the people reading this who can't get to Austin, which seems rude.

Happenings at Fourth Church and Sarah's Inn

At this point I'm halfway through Domestic Violence Advocacy training at Sarah's Inn. The training is required by the state so that I can actually work with clients. Although I mostly work with the volunteers, I'll be filling in shifts on the 24-hour Crisis Line as well. The rest of the training class is made up of our newest volunteers, as well as new staff. It's been fantastic getting to know the volunteers. We're all women in this class, which is something I find vaguely disappointing -- although I can see how women might empathize more with domestic abuse victims, we only have one male volunteer within the entire organization. In our dream world (which is something I feel most non-profits have), we would have male and female volunteers working with each support group so that clients could have examples of healthy gender relations. Our groups currently have male and female leaders, but they're almost always staff.
The training is a combination of very nice friendly things and very upsetting, tragic things, which I suppose is only logical. Colleen leads the training, and she always bakes cookies for the class and is careful to answer all of our questions. However, since we're spending hours a night (and Saturday morning) to learn about domestic abuse, there are moments each training period which just leave me speechless. Possibly the most upsetting thing is that we learn about trends of domestic abuse, such as different types of abusers or times when victims are in the most danger. The simple fact that there is enough domestic abuse that we can map these trends hurts.
At Fourth Church, I'm starting to hit my stride. My class usually averages at about 20 kids a Sunday, which is a much smaller class than the attendance sheet indicates, but about as many people as I can handle. We've had a lock-in, which included some very, very spirited dancing to Bon Jovi and Survivor. Since so many of the youth live in neighborhoods or suburbs far from the church, our Sunday morning lesson is the main part of the youth group. We also have either a fellowship or service activity about every month, which is a lot of fun to plan.
The next service activity for my youth group is called the Walk in My Shoes Homeless Experience (http://ffchicago.org/experience/). An organization named Facing Forward is hosting several youth groups on Halloween to simulate what it's like to be homeless. The youth will go through several stations, going through steps like getting documentation, applying for public housing, and other processes which people go through to get permanent housing. Facing Forward is doing this event both to raise awareness and raise funds. As such, that means that I have to raise a minimum of $50 before the event on Halloween. If anybody reading this blog would like to contribute, you can donate online at http://www.active.com/donate/experience10/katiejasa.

Neighborhoods: Hyde Park

Lots of things have been happening recently (most notably beginning Domestic Violence Advocacy Training so that I can staff our 24-hour Crisis Line), but giving any amount of sufficient attention to these things is difficult when you get home later than usual. So instead of sharing my days with you guys, I'm going to talk about neighborhoods again! Two quick updates, first:
1. We have a cat! Krista and Jim have kindly gifted us with their cat, MJ, in order to scare away mice. It's both awesome and disconcerting to have a nice furry animal around the house.
2. Here's a picture of my office at Sarah's Inn. It's silly of me to be proud of an office, but since it is my very first private grown-up office and also full of sunlight and windows, I think that's okay. Since the building was originally residential, my office is a re-purposed sun room which looks identical to most of the sun rooms in college student apartments, but with more desk and less bed. I also get to house other people's plants when they need some sun therapy.

Okay, now on to Hyde Park. Hyde Park is on the south side of Chicago, and definitely the neighborhood I am the most familiar with. It is probably also my favorite neighborhood, simply because it holds both the majority of my favorite Chicago residents and my favorite Chicago coffee houses. Hyde Park houses both the University of Chicago, where I went to undergrad, and a plethora of seminaries. I'm including a picture of McCormick Seminary, which is the PC(USA) seminary right across the street from my old campus. It's also currently my top pick of places I'd like to go to school next year, but that list is pretty large. It's definitely cheating to only post a picture of one building, instead of the Point (a huge park by the lakeside), or various parts of the UChicago campus, or even just something I've spent more time near. However, the most memorable pictures I've taken in Hyde Park are all of other people, who will probably not be in the same pose if you were to visit. The seminary tends to stay put.
Hyde Park is defined in many ways by the University and surrounding seminaries, which makes the neighborhood demographics fairly diverse. It also has many of the sorts of amenities students want: coffee shops, restaurants, and some absolutely fantastic bookstores. The Chicago Reader referred to the University as an 800-pound gargoyle, in that it does pretty much whatever it wants in the area. While this is not quite true, the university's influence was enough to keep train lines off campus for a more quiet school experience. The nearest train station is in Garfield, which means that anybody who wants to leave Hyde Park via public transit has to want it enough to take an extra bus and then probably a train or two. As a student, I only left the neighborhood a few times a month. That's fairly sad in terms of taking advantage of everything Chicago has to offer, but also completely feasible without getting bored (if you have classwork to do). There are lots of fun places to go, including the Museum of Science and Industry and the tiny but friendly Smart Museum of Art. Or, if you go to school in the area, you can just hole up inside the nearest library.