I had to go to Chicago on Wednesday to meet with the advisor and do some other U of C stuff. Hyde Park was at its least bleak with the spring flowers and cheery students holding classes outside–the grass was still brown and it was kinda cold, but they were determined, I guess.
\nA few changes have taken place in the old neighborhood since my time. A Starbucks has gone in where a dry cleaner used to be. A Borders bookstore has gone in where a park used to be on 53rd street across from the Metra station. Hopefully this will bring new life to that “borderline” area, which was controversially granted tax breaks a few years ago, much to the dismay of many who wanted to see it well and truly blighted before the government intervened.
\nJacobs Brothers Bagels, where I used to purchase Rocky Road flavored coffee and toasted blueberry bagels with lowfat cream cheese; as well as the site of a few Hyde Park experiences, has closed. It looked like a couple of other businesses might have been closed also, though I couldn’t tell for sure because I was busy dodging maniac drivers (see below). One of these was ArtWerk, an art shop, which is too bad. 53rd St. isn’t particularly scenic and looking at the art was a nice enhancement to my walk to church.
\nThe Meridian Movie Theater closed a year or two before I moved away. It’s still closed. How does a movie theater, the only one within a 45-minute travel radius of a densely-populated university neighborhood like Hyde Park manage to run itself into the ground? Living in Hyde Park was a little like living in a small town–you had to travel a couple of hours to get to stores, movie theaters, etc.–only with more crime.
\nI even had a genuine Hyde Park Experience while I was there. I was stopped at a stoplight getting ready to turn left onto 53rd. I had the left turn light, but two people appeared to be about to walk in front of my car, so I stayed stopped. This drove the driver behind me into a frenzy of frantic horn-honking. When I was sure that my turning left would not end the innocent lives of two human beings, I turned left onto 53rd, a narrow road with one lane in either direction, cars parked on either side of the road; and obscured by much double parking, stop signs, and people strolling casually into the street. I proceeded down the street, but not fast enough for the guy behind me, who decided to pass me. By driving into a lane with oncoming traffic. Traffic oncoming directly at him. Which fortunately slowed down to avoid a collision.
\nThe trip turned out to be rather unnecessary, but I did get the books I needed to finish my Egyptian Cthulhu adventures. Here’s hoping my profs never find out the uses to which I am putting my education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had to go to Chicago on Wednesday to meet with the advisor and do some other U of C stuff. Hyde Park was at its least bleak with the spring flowers and cheery students holding classes outside–the grass was still brown and it was kinda cold, but they were determined, I guess. A few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingpoint.com\/michele\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}