What are some interesting neighborhoods to walk through? (Chicago, Evanston: apartment, crime)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by eating while walking

HI Marothisu, can you describe what 'interesting stuff' is?

Thanks everyone

Just different types of shops, some parks, public areas, some music stuff (i.e. Old Town School of Folk Music), restaurants, people, architecture, etc.

I think Andersonville is actually better for that though, but both are good and not terribly far from each other. If you want more of the art stuff, go to Pilsen. There's some cool art on some of the buildings.

[ChiNaan]

OP: Really, I think there are far more interesting neighborhoods to explore in the city than non-interesting ones. I'd recommend just getting out there and exploring. That's how most of us formed our opinions on which neighborhoods are interesting to walk through, and your opinion may or may not be the same as any of ours. Obviously you want to avoid the most dangerous neighborhoods when walking alone, particularly at night, but short of that it's kinda hard to go wrong exploring Chicago on foot, IMO.

You can use satellite mode on google maps to see where the industrial and railyard type stuff is, of course, since that seems to be of particular interest to you.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It goes by so quickly. Who knows why

I think it's because the stimulation is more dense/frequent. You pass more people and buildings to look at, for example, in that mile in the city. (I would say more interesting ones, too, though I realize that's subjective.) More sounds (conversations, music, etc.), more smells wafting out of restaurants and coffee shops (and dumpsters, I suppose), etc. It's like, "interesting thing, interesting thing, interesting thing, interesting thing, and I'm there," rather than "cricket sounds......a big yard....a big parking lot....another big parking lot....." etc.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I think Andersonville is actually better for that though,

Good call. I forgot Andersonville. It's another very culturally interesting place to walk through, IMO.

[marothisu]

^ agreed ChiNaan. Or instead of "a big parking lot".."a big open lot of grass that could be a big department store but isn't."

I kind of laugh when people say so and so suburb is walkable. Most suburbs to me are not walkable. Sure, they have walkable downtowns, but that doesn't make many parts of the overall suburb "walkable." The whole point of walkable is not that you have a downtown with few dozen shops/restaurants in it. The idea is that you have an area where people actually live that they can get their services without ever having to step foot in a private vehicle.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by marothisu

^ agreed ChiNaan. Or instead of "a big parking lot".."a big open lot of grass that could be a big department store but isn't."

I kind of laugh when people say so and so suburb is walkable. Most suburbs to me are not walkable. Sure, they have walkable downtowns, but that doesn't make many parts of the overall suburb "walkable." The whole point of walkable is not that you have a downtown with few dozen shops/restaurants in it. The idea is that you have an area where people actually live that they can get their services without ever having to step foot in a private vehicle.

Very good point, those areas are "walkable" after you drive there.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by eating while walking

Thanks for the quick replies guys. Just wanted to add that I am especially a fan of old-school industrial architecture like mills, storage silos, railyards and shipyards, so neighborhoods with those kinds of structures are especially good recs.

I don't do 13 mile walks very often, so most of these are in the 2-4 mile range, but you could easily extend them or link them together. If you want to stick to about 13 miles, you can always aim to end a walk near an 'L' stop or something to more easily facilitate getting back toward home without ending up walking 20 miles.

Specific walks you might enjoy.

I know you said you're familiar with LP and WP, but have you started at Webster and Lincoln and walked west on Webster then through Oz Park and Lincoln Park High to Armitage, west on Armitage to Racine, south to Cortland, west to Wood and south to Milwaukee? There's a great mix of different things along that route, from the park to commercial streets, to the industrial stuff on Corland, a river crossing, a big old church on Wood. You could extend this one by just walking south on Damen to Chicago, east the Halsted and south as far as you wanted.

More of a summer walk, but I used to love walking from Rogers Beach Park on the far, far, far north edge of Chicago, south along Rogers Ave to Clark Street, then south on Clark as far as I felt like walking. Usually either I'd walk to Devon and turn east (but you could turn west and walk into Little India) or Bryn Mawr and turn east, or walk all through Andersvile to Argyle and turn east the the Red Line. You can extend this either by just staying on Clark, by switching over to Ashland or even Ravenswood at some point around Andersonville. Or by walk west on Devon through Little India to River Park, walking south along the River until Lawrence, then jog east to Rockwell and south to Montrose then west to Kedzie or Kimball and south to get home to Avondale.

If you like industrial stuff, I'd recommend a walking tour circle around McKinley Park. From the Orange Line 35th/Archer station, walk south on Archer to Western, south on Western (or curve through the actual park McKinley Park) to Pershing, then go east along all the giant old warehouses there (if you walk on the park side, you can see them better than if you walk right next to them), continuing east basically as far as you want. I'd recommend turning north at either Ashland or Iron (for a real weird industrial experience), going to 35th and then continuing east again until Halsted. If you're still not tired out, walk north on Halsted to about 32nd Street, where (on Halsted) there's Ed's Potsticker House, a great Northern Chinese restaurant. From there, you're about a 10 minute walk to the Orange Line, and you should check out Palmisano Park on your way there entering from the corner of Halsted and 27th. You could extend this to your usually length of things by walking up Halsted through Greektown to Chicago Ave and then walking west through the Ukrainian Village turning north at California or Kedzie to get home.

Have you ever just turned west on Belmont and walked? With your distance capabilities, walking west on Belmont to Harlem, south to Fullerton, and back. That route has quite a bit of interesting variations, and you'll go right through a major Polish neighborhood.

Another suggestion is to walk from the Loop to Midway Airport by just walking south of State Street to Archer and staying on Archer until you get to Pulaski where you'd probably want to walk to 55th or 59th to work your way over to the Orange Line station. You go past Chinatown, Polish areas, Latino areas (including at least one Salvadoran place where you could get some pupusas), industrial areas.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Dear god, no wonder there are so many obese people in this country.

My kids walk 1/2 mile to school (each way) as they should. I walk a mile easily everyday just doing ****.

So did mine, and the fact is that STATE LAW allows schools districts that otherwise provide bus service to deny it to kids that are within A MILE of the school.

As I said in my I original post, when I worked in Hyde Park I would occaisionally jog along the south LSD lake front path A DISTANCE OF ABOUT 5 MILES, and although a FREAKIN' FRACTION of the 13 mile that the EXTREME OP has been walking, it ain't exactly culturally stimulating as the stretch is about as barren as can be !!!!

It is about population density.

Sheesh.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

If you're talking about me, you're mistaken.



That's my point. People don't walk as much in the suburbs, so someone like you thinks (as you stated) that "most people would consider a walk of more than a few blocks 'extreme'." In the city, where people walk places, it's nothing to walk a mile or more across the neighborhood any given day to a store, restaurants, bars, laundry, etc. I'd say few people in the city would consider anything under a couple of miles to be an "extreme" walk, unless they have a driver or a very limited "cocoon" (as you would say). 4-6 blocks is many people's walk to the train in the morning.

Ashland to Halsted, for example, is a mile, or Ashland to Western. The laziest of hipsters does that on a typical Friday night, and that's in the more walkable neighborhoods. Even the Near North or South Loop can be a mile or two to walk across.

Hmmmm. I think that would depend upon which suburb you are talking about. I walked down the lakefront from Evanston. I saw tons of people walking and biking both on the lakefront and in the neighborhoods. My kids walked to school most days at least in high school (about 1/2 mile each way). They walked to elementary and middle school too except for the two years when my dd went to middle school across town.

We had a walking club in Evanston that walked every Sunday from Dempster and the Lake up to the Bahai Temple in Wilmette.

Methinks, you are generalizing too much.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by nana053

Hmmmm. I think that would depend upon which suburb you are talking about. I walked down the lakefront from Evanston. I saw tons of people walking and biking both on the lakefront and in the neighborhoods. My kids walked to school most days at least in high school (about 1/2 mile each way). They walked to elementary and middle school too except for the two years when my dd went to middle school across town.

We had a walking club in Evanston that walked every Sunday from Dempster and the Lake up to the Bahai Temple in Wilmette.

Methinks, you are generalizing too much.

There are always exceptions to the rule. While Evanston is certainly a more walkable suburb than most, having bike paths and running paths doesn't make a city that much more walkable. It just means it's bike friendly and has walking paths. The suburbanish city I grew up in had hundreds of miles of bike and walking paths that people used, but that didn't make the city walkable for the most part. People still drove 99% of the time. The paths were seldomly used for anything other than exercise.

It may seem like a lot of people are out there, but in reality it's just a small percentage of the population. They're merely replacing the gym with an outdoor track. Most people just stop at a mile or what not. I know I do that when I'm in the gym. But if I'm out and about doing whatever, I easily walk far distances and it doesn't seem like a "chore." I walk a mile everyday just walking to and from the train stop and my office. Add in even more to get lunch and whatever else. For some people that's their entire workout and for me and thousands of others in the city, it's nothing. We still go to the gym after.

Actually sort of reminds me of when my coworker went to Europe for the first time last year. He came back and was like "yeah! I mean, all these old guys smoke and whatever and they still live until 90!" I told him it's probably because they walk 5+ miles/day and it offsets the 1 or 2 cigarettes they have per day.