I’ve been travelling to the Windy City for five years now. During my first two trips into Chicago I mainly stayed outside the downtown area. Traffic is a killer in&out the city, so I was only able to have an appetiser taste of the downtown area. No worries though, on my third trip I managed to house myself in the downtown-area, close to Millenium Park (famous for it’s Bean-sculpture, you can see parts of the park in Kanye’s Homecoming vid). It was during this trip, I fell in love with the city itself. I’m a sucka for Chicago, great architecture: marina-building, Gotham City’s police office (which in real life is a post office), nice walktru city, canals, airtrain transportation, bulls,… Anyways, since this was my fifth visit to the city I decided to leave the usual area’s (which I had explored before) and have a walk tru and around Wicker Park.
Wicker Park used to be home to the Puerto Rican community. Since the neighbourhood was described as being unsafe, housing values dropped and at that point it became attractive again to artists, students,… The inflow of arty peeps and students did revive the area but not always without frictions with the original inhabitants. The neighbourhood never lost it’s appeal though. Nowadays Wicker Park is one of the hipper areas within Chicago’s city centre.

When I started walking around I passed by a small burrito-joint. It’s parking was packed with some dope-ass OG lowriders. Old dude was sitting on a flipped plastic bucket, holding guard. Now I like those old cars and couldn’t help myself checking out these rides. Within a couple of hot seconds three Puertoricans were standing next to me, still wearing their workshirts, lined up, posing. I continued to check the rides, walked up to them and complimented them with their rides. Everybody smiling and I could take my picture ;-).

Not too far from the restaurant you can find the Dusty Grooves America recordstore. Bananas inside. Secondhand and new shizzle, great collection, rarities, shitloads of originals being kraut, funk, jazz, soul, hiphop, reggae, psych,… Not cheap, but correct. Only advantage you have while shopping for secondhand records in the US is the selection itself and some of the more expensive records over here, you can find them at “fairer” rates. Very neat store.

Since it was a sunday and weather conditions were superbe, lots of peeps were just hanging out, sippin coffee,… At one point I walked into a big Artcrafts fair, which had nothing really “wow” to offer, except for a couple of crates stacked with 45′s and lp’s. I started diggin (had to stop that itching feel in my fingertops) and found out these were Reckless Records’ crates. Now Reckless Records is a sort of household name in Chicago. Right next to it, they shot the John Cusack movie “High Fidelity”. tru the grapevine I was told that the setting of the rec store was built after the original setting of Reckless Records. this store is niceness. Not a fancy place, but just the way a digger likes his secondhand stores : dusty, stacked with records loads of history and not that expensive. Vinyl still rules is the motto of the store, large selections of jazz, funk, hiphop, kraut, psych, classics,…When browsing tru the bins, I stumbled into the belgian B9 Mr Complex and El Fudge 12-inches. Belgium always representing, right. Right across the Reckless Records store you will find St-Alfred’s, which is one of Chicago’s finest sneakerstores. Sneakerheads better be ready…

As I mentioned earlier, over the years the Wicker Park area started to attract more students and artists & performers. Especially these last cats, you can find proof of them living over here. You can not walk through Wicker Park without noticing the stickers, stencils, pieces on walls, billboards, whatever. It definitely colours up the neighbourhood. Lots of fixies and old sporting bikes locked on to the curbs as well. Dope.

As goes with every area populated by younger cats, you can find bars, restaurants, hangout spots all over the bario. My last night I spent in the DoubleDoor, a venue with a serious legacy. Since Chicago is home to the blues and jazz, everywhere throughout the city you can find jazzcats playing etc. The DoubleDoor no longer sports blues-artists but in this venue, dudes like Muddy Waters had jammed with the younger Rolling Stones for instance. Jim Jones was performing during my visit together with a psychobilly band. Crazy.
Oh yeah, the famous deepdish Chicago styled pizza’s are yummy, but a straight attack to your health…

Un saludo,

JayErving
ps : flying into the US on 9/11 ain’t a good idea :-)