Looking at apts and totally overwhelmed (Chicago: price, place, community)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by kodaka

A person who isn't familiar enough with the neighborhood to know these things probably shouldn't be making recommendations about it.

Heed your own advice, buddy.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

So I guess Metromix, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, Wikipedia, and pretty much every other recognized publication in or about Chicago are filled with "rubes".

Evidently. No doubt many of those writers came from the sticks. Bright Lights Big City and all that.

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The tendency of some Chicagoans to set ridiculous criteria for being a "real Chicagoan" is really provincial. You all sound like southerners complaining about "Yankees" and "Carpet Baggers".

I don't think it's being provincial to refuse to be bull****ted by real estate hucksters and PR men. Actually I think a refusal to be hoodwinked is kind'a sophisticated. And being cynical about such things is.....dare I say it....the sign of true Chicagoan.

[kodaka]

Never mind. Its not worth it.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by kodaka

Never mind. Its not worth it.

And you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Evidently. No doubt many of those writers came from the sticks. Bright Lights Big City and all that.



I don't think it's being provincial to refuse to be bull****ted by real estate hucksters and PR men. Actually I think a refusal to be hoodwinked is kind'a sophisticated. And being cynical about such things is.....dare I say it....the sign of true Chicagoan.

I'm just saying that, like it or not, the "Little Italy" name is here to stay--kind of like "Wrigleyville" and the newfangled spelling of "Lakeview" as one word (verses the older "Lake View" spelling). And "New Town" is pretty much extinct.

[Avengerfire]

^ There are still a large number of people that use Lake View. I am one of them of course. I think it is a fight that can still be won. ^

[bryn89]

Originally Posted by Avengerfire

^ There are still a large number of people that use Lake View. I am one of them of course. I think it is a fight that can still be won. ^

A fight over the name of neighborhoods? I didn't think it'd escalate to this!

[NearWestSider]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The tendency of some Chicagoans to set ridiculous criteria for being a "real Chicagoan" is really provincial. You all sound like southerners complaining about "Yankees" and "Carpet Baggers".

You are totally not getting why some find the term "Little Italy" is so obnoxious.

So I am going to explain it to you. Not to you, Lookout, personally, but to all those who wonder why "a rose by any other name...":

Do you know how many "Little Italy's" there used to be in Chicago?

Let me just name a few:

China town (yes, it was once Italian)
26th Street in Bridgeport
Taylor Street East
Taylor Street West
Oakley/Cermak
Grant Works and the Roosevelt-16th corridor in Cicero-Berwyn

There are many more, but I am intentionally leaving out the main formerly Italian area in Chicago, which is along Grand Avenue. Grand avenue to Italians is what Cermak Road is to Czechs, so if you are going to artificially bestow the crown of "Little Italy" to one area, don't you think it at least ought to be the right one?

Getting Taylor Street renamed "Little Italy" was a coup for the University Village Association and UIC in terms of reputation, because the single thing that made Taylor Street's Little Italy "special" was the extent of mafia influence and control, dating all the way back to before the Capone era. Google "John D'Arco", "Fred Roti", and, if you want to go further, "Genna Brothers", just to name a few of the infamous characters that once worked Taylor Street. Now, if you are going to artificially bestow the crown of "Little Italy" to one area, don't you think it ought to be one that does not have quite such a violent and sleazy history?

When the expressways and UIC were built, there was a substantial dislocation of residents. Not anywhere near as many as the bleeding hearts like to claim, but substantial nonetheless, for many years, much of the neighborhood was openly hostile to to UIC and UIC students. The rebranding of Taylor Street does, in some ways, represent a kind of reconciliation, a split with the past, an acceptance. Some would call it surrender. Call it whatever you want, the presence of UIC is a HUGE benefit to the Chicago metro area, but it was "Taylor Street", not "Little Italy" that got hacked in order to make that happen. It is benign to coin a term like "East Village" to describe a segment of West Town undergoing piecemeal gentrification. It is another thing altogether to bulldoze a sizeable portion of a neighborhood, and then rename the rest of it in the hope that everybody forgets what was there before. To me, it smacks of the kind of stuff Nicky Cocescu was notorious for back in the days of the cold war, and Wally Netch's utopian buildings adjacent to the concrete spaghetti of the circle interchange only reinforce that perception.

So There! Three valid reasons why the old name for the neighborhood, "Taylor Street", is preferable to cheezy "Little Italy" name dreamed up by the University Village Association, none of which have anything to do with where you or I or anyone else were born. Shall I recap?

1. It is historically inaccurate.
2. It is disrespectful to the Italian-American community.
3. It is disrespectful to the people who are or whose families are from Taylor Street.

But there's one more, and this one DOES have to do with natives vs transplants:

"Little Italy" sounds like the name of a theme park food court, the one just past Alladin's Castle a quarter mile down Mickey Mouse Lane from TomorrowLand. And in fact, Lettuce Entertain You named one of their theme-restaurant franchises exactly that. Next time you are out at the Oak Brook shopping mall, after you get done with Abercrombie, Aeropostale and Lucky Brand, you can stop by "Little Italy" for lunch. "Taylor Street", on the other hand, sounds like a real place - because it was and still is.

It really comes down to this: is the city a playground for nouveau-riche and nouveau-riche wannabees, or is it a place where real people lead real lives in real neighborhoods? By referring to Taylor Street by its theme park food court name (which is EXACTLY what the restaurant owners and real estate brokers on Taylor Street want you to do, as you know), you are stating that you see it as the former rather than the latter, and in doing so are content to disregard the 100+ year history of the neighborhood.

[Lookout Kid]

^^You've convinced me. I shall never mutter "Little Italy" again in reference to Taylor Street. Not that I did much before.

But it is quite obvious why this re-branding has happened. There is very little left on the West Side that harkens back to the formerly massive Italian presence there. Sure, there are still a handful of Italian restaurants on a mostly desolate stretch of Grand, but Taylor Street is the probably most intact stretch of "Italian-ness" left over there, as diminished as it is. So in fairness to all involved in the "Little Italy" rebranding, I think they just felt the need to re-group and start a new beachhead.

[ImaloneJill]

Oh, the Oakley/Cermak neighborhood has some great restaurants. Last time I went to Bruna's was about 10 years ago. Are these places still there?