Neighborhoods: Little Italy/UIC

I'm starting to worry about how Chicago's tourism site has decided to differentiate between neighborhoods. Little Italy/UIC is definitely one neighborhood, so I can't complain about that. However, it looks like I'm going to have an entire post on the United Center directly above it, which doesn't personally sound all that interesting.

Little Italy has been a distinctive neighborhood (and a fantastic place to go out for dinner) for decades. There are lots of ethnically centered neighborhoods in Chicago, like Chinatown or Greektown. Some of these are extremely concentrated, whereas others have become more generic. Little Italy is still a great place to get Italian ice, but much of the neighborhood's identity is also formed by the University of Illinois at Chicago. UIC has been around for over a hundred years, but the campus only consolidated itself inside of Little Italy within the past few decades. Little Italy has become a neighborhood with enclaves within it, like UIC and the Illinois Medical District. Illinois Medical District is crammed full of hospitals, like Rush. I've been assured that ER was based on Rush, although as a non-ER fan that doesn't mean much. The picture above is of a new hospital being built, which I see from the train on the way to work.

One of the awesome places on UIC's campus is Hull House. Hull House is now a museum devoted to Jane Addams, who started up a wave of social justice work through settlement housing right here in Chicago. As somebody who's looking into social work as a career, it's pretty awesome having that kind of legacy in the city.

UIC is also where I went to register and vote in Illinois a few weeks ago. This is my fifth year effectively living in Chicago, but I've never bothered to change my voter registration. When I realized that I knew way more about Quinn than I did about any of Nebraska's candidates, I figured it was time to make the switch. I suppose this is also a sign that I may not be leaving Chicago at the end of the year - it'd be a pity to elect a governor and mayor and then not be around to see what happens.