Phil, I love your writing. Every week getting your newsletter is just a pleasure. This issue has so many interesting points.
1. Suburbs as compact
I love this observation of the suburbs as compact. It completely flips the view of the suburbs I've held has being expanse. But the sprawl is the overall view.
The user experience of suburbs is indeed compactness. You have these tiny little pockets. Little islands of activity. These islands are separated by large swaths of land.
2. Do we strive for rhythm
What are we reaching for? Do we strive for normal? Or do we strive for peace? Is normal a state of busyness? Is normal a rhythm of reaching a peaceful space? That notion of rhythm... At IWU, I explored rhythm in my art as a way of crossing the bridge from visual art to music to dance. Rhythms are so powerful, and I wanted my art to capture that power.
Rhythm being the very heartbeat of life. The rhythm of breathing keeps us alive. Rhythms in music encourage us to dance, to go with the flow. In visual compositions, repeated elements create a rhythm tha capture the eye and move us through the layout. Rhythms are so powerful.
And now you touch on another element of rhythm. That of our daily lives. The routines that keep us going. And the value of breaking that routine to enjoy the intrinsic qualities. Doing the sudoku for the love of the doing it. Not because we have to do it. The rhthym for what it is intrinsically.
That's an interesting idea that the rhythm can become wearisome when we do it solely for that repeated aspect, forgetting what the actually rhythm is comprised of.
I've done the same thing with the digital baseball trading card app, "Topps Bunt." Collect a certain card every day so I could get the "bonus" card at the end of the 10-day series. Log into that app and break open as many digital packs until I hit the daily needed card. It got stressful instead of enjoyable.
3. Worry
Yes, indeed. Worry takes anything good, and transforms into bad.
4. M streets
I lived on the other side of Milwaukee on Lawrence, I always enjoyed riding the bus westbound to the Jefferson Park blue line stop. Passing by all the K-streets between Pulaski and I-94. In the short area of eight blocks or so, all those K-Streets must be really confusing. But now I realize that after the K-streets are the L-Streets. Then come the M-Streets. How I never realized this, I don't know. But arranging the streets by letter is another way to help someone know how far east-west you are. "Oh, you are over in the M-street range". It's a bit like how on the south side, all the east-west streets are numbered, so you know how far north/south you are.
K, the 11th letter, starts after Pulaski. K 4000-4800, L 4800-5600, M 5600-6400, N 6400-7200, O 7200-8000 (!), P 8000-8400 (!!) At that point you're at Cumberland and a part of the city I think most Chicagoans have no concept exists. Nobody hangs out at Belmont & Cumberland.
Brookfield, meanwhile, has an extreme eastern edge of... 1st Avenue, which is the same thing (8400) as Cumberland. It's an interesting thing to consider: what's really sprawling? Brookfield only gets as far west as 9600. Suburbia is sprawl but most inner suburbs are even more like small neighborhoods than the neighborhoods of Chicago, arguably. Plainfield? Yeah, that's sprawl. But I'm not sure that anything in Cook County is sprawl anymore...
Of all the odd coincidences, my sister lived on Giddings St. until just a few months ago. She was the pastor at the Jefferson Park UCC church and lived in the parsonage.
Building off the Giddings fun, I lived close Giddings Plaza in Lincoln Square. The plaza used to be named Kempf Plaza. At some point, it became known as Giddings Plaza.
With Chicago's grid, we get these wonderful things where street holds the same name miles and miles away. Reading Phil's account of Giddings Street made me immediately look up to see where on Giddings he was referring to. And wow, it's 4.6 miles west of Giddings Plaza. I love Chicago grid.
Here's something I think about occasionally: when a plaza or park is named after a street. Are all parks and plazas prohibited from using that name?
In doing a brief lookup of the history of Giddings Plaza (to see when it got that name), I came across a 2014 Streetsblog post, "Kempf Plaza has all the right ingredients for a great public space". This made me realize I've been very lucky to have lived and worked by two great public spaces. Giddings Plaza for 13 years, and 18 years of working Tribune Tower next to Pioneer Court.
Now if the suburb lands only had more frequent great public spaces like these. Maybe they do. I'll have to keep my eyes open to seeing great public spaces in the burbs.
Doing a quick Google search for: "Glen Ellyn" plaza yields non-public plazas like Crowne Plaza, Trader Joe's Plaza, Market Plaza (the Jewel parking lot). All these plaza results are for parking lots.
Phil, I love your writing. Every week getting your newsletter is just a pleasure. This issue has so many interesting points.
1. Suburbs as compact
I love this observation of the suburbs as compact. It completely flips the view of the suburbs I've held has being expanse. But the sprawl is the overall view.
The user experience of suburbs is indeed compactness. You have these tiny little pockets. Little islands of activity. These islands are separated by large swaths of land.
2. Do we strive for rhythm
What are we reaching for? Do we strive for normal? Or do we strive for peace? Is normal a state of busyness? Is normal a rhythm of reaching a peaceful space? That notion of rhythm... At IWU, I explored rhythm in my art as a way of crossing the bridge from visual art to music to dance. Rhythms are so powerful, and I wanted my art to capture that power.
Rhythm being the very heartbeat of life. The rhythm of breathing keeps us alive. Rhythms in music encourage us to dance, to go with the flow. In visual compositions, repeated elements create a rhythm tha capture the eye and move us through the layout. Rhythms are so powerful.
And now you touch on another element of rhythm. That of our daily lives. The routines that keep us going. And the value of breaking that routine to enjoy the intrinsic qualities. Doing the sudoku for the love of the doing it. Not because we have to do it. The rhthym for what it is intrinsically.
That's an interesting idea that the rhythm can become wearisome when we do it solely for that repeated aspect, forgetting what the actually rhythm is comprised of.
I've done the same thing with the digital baseball trading card app, "Topps Bunt." Collect a certain card every day so I could get the "bonus" card at the end of the 10-day series. Log into that app and break open as many digital packs until I hit the daily needed card. It got stressful instead of enjoyable.
3. Worry
Yes, indeed. Worry takes anything good, and transforms into bad.
4. M streets
I lived on the other side of Milwaukee on Lawrence, I always enjoyed riding the bus westbound to the Jefferson Park blue line stop. Passing by all the K-streets between Pulaski and I-94. In the short area of eight blocks or so, all those K-Streets must be really confusing. But now I realize that after the K-streets are the L-Streets. Then come the M-Streets. How I never realized this, I don't know. But arranging the streets by letter is another way to help someone know how far east-west you are. "Oh, you are over in the M-street range". It's a bit like how on the south side, all the east-west streets are numbered, so you know how far north/south you are.
K, the 11th letter, starts after Pulaski. K 4000-4800, L 4800-5600, M 5600-6400, N 6400-7200, O 7200-8000 (!), P 8000-8400 (!!) At that point you're at Cumberland and a part of the city I think most Chicagoans have no concept exists. Nobody hangs out at Belmont & Cumberland.
Brookfield, meanwhile, has an extreme eastern edge of... 1st Avenue, which is the same thing (8400) as Cumberland. It's an interesting thing to consider: what's really sprawling? Brookfield only gets as far west as 9600. Suburbia is sprawl but most inner suburbs are even more like small neighborhoods than the neighborhoods of Chicago, arguably. Plainfield? Yeah, that's sprawl. But I'm not sure that anything in Cook County is sprawl anymore...
Of all the odd coincidences, my sister lived on Giddings St. until just a few months ago. She was the pastor at the Jefferson Park UCC church and lived in the parsonage.
Building off the Giddings fun, I lived close Giddings Plaza in Lincoln Square. The plaza used to be named Kempf Plaza. At some point, it became known as Giddings Plaza.
With Chicago's grid, we get these wonderful things where street holds the same name miles and miles away. Reading Phil's account of Giddings Street made me immediately look up to see where on Giddings he was referring to. And wow, it's 4.6 miles west of Giddings Plaza. I love Chicago grid.
Here's something I think about occasionally: when a plaza or park is named after a street. Are all parks and plazas prohibited from using that name?
In doing a brief lookup of the history of Giddings Plaza (to see when it got that name), I came across a 2014 Streetsblog post, "Kempf Plaza has all the right ingredients for a great public space". This made me realize I've been very lucky to have lived and worked by two great public spaces. Giddings Plaza for 13 years, and 18 years of working Tribune Tower next to Pioneer Court.
Now if the suburb lands only had more frequent great public spaces like these. Maybe they do. I'll have to keep my eyes open to seeing great public spaces in the burbs.
Doing a quick Google search for: "Glen Ellyn" plaza yields non-public plazas like Crowne Plaza, Trader Joe's Plaza, Market Plaza (the Jewel parking lot). All these plaza results are for parking lots.