Chi-Urban Excursion

After what was hopefully a decent night’s rest for most of us, we began our first excursion into the Chi. The day started with some complimentary continental breakfast and an intro to the CTA—the Chicago Transit Authority. Our guide for the day, Tiffanie Beatty, broke down Chi-Town’s streets for us, making the city’s navigation a whole lot more comprehensible. Apparently after the Fire, Chicago rebuilt itself more strictly on a grid system, utilizing horizontal and vertical axes that ascend and descend depending on the cardinal direction. So far, no one’s gotten lost (although Junior’s napping did get the best of him a bus-stop’s-distance).

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Getting a taste of the CTA experience firsthand, we bussed to a near-by Puerto Rican neighborhood—Paseo Boricua—and learned of the complexities and challenges offered to this community by the city of Chicago. Our guide and trivia-donor, Eduardo Arrocho, grew up in el Paseo and currently serves as the executive director of the Division Street Business Development Association (DSBDA). The community-minded organization seeks to preserve the area’s successful businesses and institutions, as well as foment some new (concurrently community-minded) other ones. For me, one particular brutal bit of history dealt with our host neighborhood, Lincoln Park. The quarter once provided the locale for Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. As capitalism will have it, though, gentrification forced these people out of their home of more that fifty years and into what has become el Paseo. Today, Lincoln Park claims the most expensive (neighborhood) real-estate in Chicago. Foresightedly, la comunidad del Paseo Boricua has—as the DSBDA might imply—left some unmovable marks; a Puerto Rican flag  made of steel and concrete—and weighing 45 tons—provides one example.

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After a brief repose at the hostel, we departed for the South Side to experience the predominantly African-American Catholic community of St. Sabina. We showed up early (but not in vain!) and sort of crashed a youth-led panel on violence. The depth of the conversation inspired me, to say the least. I think I can speak for the group when I say that the dialogue was a welcome result to our preemptive tardiness. The church’s faith-leader (and perhaps less “traditional”) Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger then followed up the discussion with a history of the community’s struggle (and subsequent successes), which sadly lacked the help of the Archdiocese of Chicago. A basketball game between rival gangs, and eventually a sort of intramural “Peace League,” exemplifies the community’s ability to provide unique solutions to real problems.

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Thoroughly stirred, we returned to the hostel among conversations of questions, insights, and a growing appetite. With the Zags’ game soon on, some of us took to a sports bar, enjoying a thorough victory and some pub-style (albeit electronic) trivia. A nice stroll’s-worth later, we returned to our lodging.

Here’s to a good night’s rest.

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Oh, and I almost forgot, we experienced a first-hand lesson in Chicago’s namesake meteorological phenomenon. The Windy City, indeed.

-Ryan Healey

Junior