The sidewalks were packed and people were taking photos of everything....for so many people trying to make Chicago scary.......it seems the tourists did not get the message......so many good restaurants and in the fall the lakefront and Michigan Ave are stunning.
gangbanger violence has nothing to do with downtown. You are safer in Downtown Chicago than you are in most cities in America. Now if you want to buy an eight ball and you are driving around the south side.....drugs are the economy and violence is certain.
The south loop is booming. It is the new "hot" spot. I love driving under the elevated line on Wabash in the old South loop. I remember taking a train from the south loop to Birmingham. The station is gone, but there are twenty colleges or technical schools in the south loop and you see many students. Crime in the South loop like the MAG mile are non existent. What is funny is that Capone had his headquarters in the south loop area when his gangbangers were shooting up Chicago, and now the gang headquarters are a hundred blocks south. The University of Illinois medical school and the great hospitals are located just west of the South Loop. The most exciting thing in my opinion is the old post office is being upgraded. It had deteriorated pretty badly and there were rumors that the new Amazon location would be in part in the old post office. My son sells real estate in the south loop area down to Pilsen and has not seen a downturn in the boom area.
Posts : 6466 Join date : 2012-06-14 Location : Pensacola Beach, FL
Thanks, Sea. Just wanted your opinion. That's where my son and d.i.l., who just moved to Chicago, are now living in their rented condo (nice place with a good view of the lake). They did their research before selecting that neighborhood but it's good to hear it from you.
My father owned a business on wabash and Jackson in the late forties and through the late fifties when CNC insurance put a skyscraper within a block from where the big Democratic convention riots of 68 took place on Michigan Ave. If you visit your son you have to visit the art museum. It is an amazing once in a life time experience. I am brought near tears when I visit it now. Such a celebration of genius. I used to work for Borg Warner corporation which had its corporate headquarters across the street from the Art Museum and next door to the best American Orchestra hall and the world famous Chicago Symphony. I worked in a plant in the suburbs, but they would send me downtown to fly to New York as a courier when they had acquisitions....it was pretty cool for a young kid to have that opportunity. I was going to work there upon completion of my advanced degree, but they sold our division to Emerson Electric, and they offered me an opportunity to transfer to St. Louis, but I passed and actually went into an entirely different field. It was cool that they would take me to the prestigious Union club for lunch where all the heavy hitters in Chicago business and politics would eat lunch. Power suits and lots of money, as I was on the cutting edge of new MRP and capacity planning systems which were powered by computers which cut our inventory in half and saved millions.....it was an exciting time, but I never lived in the city. Also, check out greek town which is only about a mile away. Buckingham fountain was a favorite as a kid. Grant park is simply full of people now as tourists gobble up the lakefronts beauty. In the seventies Chicago had real crime rates, now they are about half of the all time highs, but the propagandist forget to tell people that simple fact......Chicago is not a town for sissies.......as Carl Sandburg so aptly said I have seen the gunman go......
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