Old Town Chicago Part 4 (May 2023)

In this blog series I am exploring the sights and scenes of Old Town, a Chicago neighborhood where I have my second home:

The prior posts (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), described the major North-South streets that connect the Division and Armitage boundaries of Old Town. This penultimate post of the series takes a different tack and describes an area known as the Old Town Triangle:

Source: adapted from Google Maps

Observe the Old Town Triangle corner of the map above. Two of the 3 sides of the triangle are actual streets: North Avenue and Clark Street. But the third side, which used to be formed by Ogden Avenue, no longer exists! In the Bermuda Triangle, airplanes and ships disappeared. In the Old Town Triangle, one of the streets that formed the triangle disappeared! The city government built over Ogden Avenue in the 1960s because the stretch of Ogden that formed the third leg of the triangle was considered to be an ugly eyesore. If the objective was beautification, the city government definitely succeeded. Today, this part of the Old Town neighborhood is among the most prized real estate in the city.

The first blog on Wells Street alluded to the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to the national register, the city of Chicago also assigns a local designation, known as Chicago Landmarks. In 1977, most of the Old Town Triangle was designated as a Chicago Landmark by the City Council of Chicago. This designation has some practical impact on home owners. Any alterations, new construction or demolition require review from a city government appointed body. Home owners, in return for this loss of flexibility, get some property tax benefits.

Below is a zoom-in view of the streets in the Old Town Triangle:

Source: Google Maps

Since the three big streets that cut through this area (Sedgwick, Cleveland and Larrabee) have already been covered in a prior post, this post focuses on the shorter streets. I began walking from Wells into Eugenie Street (as shown above).

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Street 1: Eugenie Street (East-West)

The anchor building of the Old Town Triangle is St. Michael's Church (though its official address is on Cleveland):

The outer walls of the church survived the Great Fire of 1871, one of the few buildings with that distinction. The German immigrants, whom we encountered in the first post of this series, were predominantly Catholic and this Church was built to cater to them. It is challenging for us to empathize with immigrants from the past. When I came to the US in 2003, staying in touch with family and friends back home was relatively easy and affordable. Despite this, there was still a considerable amount of friction—calling cards were needed for phone calls, and video calls were not yet common. In contrast, immigrants of the 19th century faced much greater isolation and dislocation. They must have found significant comfort and community in places like St. Michael's Church.

The interior of the church is ornate and matched the expectations set by the majestic exterior:

It’s intriguing to consider how people from the 16th to 19th centuries reacted to new scientific discoveries that contradicted their religious beliefs. Today, science education starts early, so we're accustomed to integrating scientific concepts into our understanding of the world. However, in the 17th century, learning that Earth was not the only planet might have felt as shocking as Jim Carrey discovering the nature of his reality in The Truman Show. Perhaps I underestimate the intelligence and adaptability of our ancestors. In the absence of compelling evidence for a divine order amidst the apparent randomness of the world, they may have been more agnostic than we assume, grappling with these revelations and their implications in their own ways.

St. Michael's church also has a very nice courtyard, which is not accessible to cars:

Opposite to the church, across the courtyard, is a beautiful Parish Center:

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Street 2: Crilly Court (North-South)

You know that Crilly Court is special from the fact that it is a CT instead of the humble ST or the somewhat more pretentious AV. This street is considered to be one of the quaintest in Chicago.

The street gets its name after the property developer Daniel Crilly. Daniel Crilly had four children- Isabelle, Edgar, Eugene and Erminie. Their names are etched on top of the four doors of an 80 unit apartment building which were completed in 1893 and inhabit one side of the street. The Edgar gate is pictured below:

The other side of the street consists a row of town homes, which were completed in 1885, a decade earlier than the apartments:

The home below (1710 North Crilly Court) looks like all the remaining homes on the street. But it has a special significance:

In 1920s, the above home was occupied by a German immigrant renter called Henry Gerber who founded the Society for Human Rights, which was the first gay rights organization in the US. Gerber had arrived in Chicago in 1913 at the age of 21. I was surprised to discover that Germany had a thriving LGBTQ community from the 1890s. In my ignorance, I think of everything German prior to World War 2 as Bismarck and Hitler! Gerber was inspired from what he had seen in Germany. Like Victor Hugo Green, whom we encountered in the previous post, he worked in the post office. He was eventually fired from the postal service because of his homosexuality but strangely found employment in the army, which turned a blind eye to his past.

When we reflect on people from past centuries, we often don't feel their suffering as acutely as we do when confronted with images of contemporary suffering on TV. However, if we were to draw a timeline from the creation of the Earth and place every human being's birth on it, the entire population from a few thousand years would be represented by a mere dot. Therefore, ostracized individuals like Henry Gerber, slaves forcibly separated from their families, and women in India burned on their husbands' funeral pyres are all contemporaries on a relative scale of time. Believing that we have moved far beyond such cruelty may lead to complacency.

A piquant question is about people who are not yet born. The latter question is not merely philosophical. When evaluating the cost-benefit of public policy, economists talk of identifying parties who have standing i.e. people whose welfare should be incorporated into the analysis. Do people who haven't been conceived in the womb yet have standing? Apparently, this is a hot topic of debate in public policy, with real consequences. For instance, should currently existing human beings bear the cost of mitigating climate change when many of the rewards will be reaped by people not yet born.

By the 1960s the Crilly family had exited their ownership of these buildings but their names are all over this very short street:

Daniel Crilly had the term Private etched on the pillar pictured above, though the land where it stands is public property. The term Private was meant to signify exclusivity. The fortunes of Crilly Court reflect a pendulum. Daniel Crilly wanted Blue Book listed families to live here. In the late 19th century, most American cities had a publication, which listed the names of the elite families in the city. Many of these society registers went with the title Blue Book. But by the first world war, Crilly Court had become very downmarket and some of the row houses pictured above were brothels. Today, Crilly Court is back to the gentrified character that Daniel Crilly wanted this place to have.

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Street 3: Hudson Avenue (N-S)

I am no architecture connoisseur but one cannot help but do a double take at the Schmidt Mitzgerei on Hudson Avenue:

This was a butcher's shop that started its life in 1903, though it no longer serves that purpose. I could visualize Herr Schmidt cutting chunks of meat for the German immigrants who inhabited the neighborhood. As per Google Translate, the word Metzgerei means a Butcher's Shop in German. But the spelling on the building is Mitzgerei (the second letter is an i instead of e). Perhaps this is a misspelling or maybe an older spelling. Talking of spelling, during the course of writing this narrative, I was surprised to discover how bad my spelling has become. Below is a baker's dozen of words I could not spell without software assistance:

1. Artifact

2. Propagate

3. Illegitimate

4. Succinct

5. Transferred

6. Installment

7. Travelers

8. Sizable

9. Continuously

10. Curious

11. Poignant

12. Connoisseur

13. Conceived

One might argue that learning to spell correctly is becoming less important in the digital age, given that word processors and tools like Microsoft Word with integrated ChatGPT can easily correct errors. Despite this, I find it disheartening that I can't spell properly in the language I know best.

Similarly, the importance of handwriting is diminishing. When I joined a Jesuit school in the sixth grade, teachers were surprised that I didn’t write in cursive. With hindsight, I can see that it's been two decades since I handed in anything handwritten. While mastering a skill might not be crucial, its outcomes still matter. For instance, incorrect spelling in a management presentation can be perceived as a sign of negligence. Similarly, the art of calligraphy is reflected in our choice of fonts when typing, highlighting how the aesthetics of text still hold value.

The bigger theme here is that today we value everything, including ourselves, in terms of the market economy. Scholars who quote research studies about the importance of handwriting are effectively trying to prove that it will help you in some way economically. David Brooks speaks of the distinction between resume virtues and obituary virtues. Deep down, many of us do not truly believe that obituary virtues have any value. I would rather be praised for being intelligent than being kind. As I write this, I don't have a job or a title. Every time a friend does something kind for me, I am grateful but puzzled. After all, knowing me, confers no advantage to anyone.

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Street 4: Menomonee Street (East-West)

The erstwhile butcher's shop is at the intersection of Hudson Avenue and Menomonee Street. Luckily, it is no longer a butcher shop because right at this intersection, on the Menomonee side is a Buddhist temple!

I was introduced to the teachings of the Buddha in 2018 via the book Mindfulness-An Eight Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World . The problem with most self-help books is that they correctly identify what needs to be done but fail to explain how to achieve it. They often rely on our willpower to follow the recommended path. For example, when someone advises us not to compare ourselves to others, we understand that it's good advice, but how do we stop the habit of comparison? The Buddha, however, offered a practical solution. He suggested that we sit and observe our breath, and whenever our mind wanders, we should recognize that we are lost and return our focus to the breath. He claimed that this practice would lead to the end of all suffering. Those who have practiced meditation can appreciate the logic behind his seemingly unusual but definitive guidance.

Essentially, what meditation does is to train your mind to observe your thoughts, instead of living in them. A simple definition of mindfulness is know that you are knowing. For example, I often feel shame and inadequacy when I see a LinkedIn alert about a former peer becoming a CXO. However, when I practice mindfulness, I can observe that shame is being felt. The advantage of mindfulness is that I don’t need to reason away these thoughts; I simply observe and surrender to the process. I believe I wouldn’t have been able to quit my job and return to India without my mindfulness practice.

A short walk from the Buddhist temple, I landed at a beautiful yellow home with a red door:

This home at 314 West Menomonee was rebuilt after the great fire of 1871. Public real estate data notes the year of construction to be 1881! It is such a beautiful home and was a good spot to end my explorations for the day. Turning back from Menomonee Street towards North Park Avenue , I stumbled on a commemorative plaque relating to the Old Town Art Fair that was mentioned in the first post of this series:

You can see the extinct Ogden Avenue on one side of the triangle above.

I will sign off this post with a picture of a beautiful house on Menomonee street. The way the stairs go sideways and then turn direction is quite unusual. Click here for the final post of this series covering some of the major East-West streets including Division, North Avenue and Armitage.