Forty: an epic walk from Logan Square to Aurora

By John Greenfield

[This article also appears in New City, www.newcity.com.]

It’s a Sunday night in Aurora and a fiberglass dinosaur wearing the #34 jersey of Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton smiles down at my friend Eric and me as we clink glasses of Sweetness Stout, toasting the end of another epic walk. We’re at America’s Brewpub at the Roundhouse Complex, formerly co-owned by the late running back. The massive circular limestone structure was built in 1856 as a railroad maintenance workshop.

The dark beer helps kill the pain in my weary shoulders and blistered feet. I’ve just finished a forty-mile-plus hike from Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood across the entire width of the western suburbs. For two-and-a-half days I’ve traversed a landscape of cul-de-sacs, strip malls, parking lots and freeways, mitigated by miles on the lush Illinois Prairie Path trail system and multiple stops at brewpubs and tiki bars. In a half hour I’ll catch a Metra commuter train home from the station next door—I’m eager to return to the city and its dense, pedestrian-friendly grid.

Why did I subject myself to this death march across DuPage County? I love to walk. It’s a form of transportation that shows me details of my surroundings that I’d never notice on a bicycle, my usual travel mode, let alone in an automobile. So after my fortieth birthday this spring I decided to mark the occasion with a forty-mile pilgrimage to the Fox River, the western boundary of the Chicago metropolitan region. I hoped walking across the suburbs would reveal the redeeming qualities of a land built around cars.

After work on a Friday in late April a group of friends showed up to walk out of the city with me from my apartment in Logan Square. I live on the Albany Home Zone at the 2400 block of North Albany Avenue, a block where the needs of residents trump drivers’ desire to speed. My activist neighbors recently lobbied the city to create the home zone by reconfiguring the street with diagonal parking and large, landscaped bump-outs. This slows down traffic and provides additional green space, making the block a nicer place to walk, bike and hang out.

I’d stuffed aloha shirts, a raincoat, toiletries, snacks, water and more into a two-strap backpack. I’d learned my lesson from other long treks when I carried an overloaded single-strap messenger bag which threatened to cut off all feeling in my left arm. For a few blocks my entourage includes Kevin, my boss at a nearby bike shop, his wife Karen, and their little daughters Louisa, in a stroller, and Hazel, pedaling along with training wheels.


After Kevin takes the kids home, the rest of us continue west on Fullerton Avenue out of Logan Square, passing by taquerias, carnicerias, panaderias and paleterias. Outside a dive bar called the Levee, 4035 West Fullerton, a large shrub has been trimmed into the shape of a longneck bottle. “Do they serve Busch beer?” asks my buddy Jonathan.

At 6500 West, Fullerton merges with Grand Avenue; the Radio Flyer Company office stands at this juncture, with a twenty-seven-foot-long red “Coaster Boy” wagon out front. At Harlem Avenue, 7200 West, we leave the city limits and enter Elmwood Park, stopping at Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market, a giant Italian grocery store, to pick up cannoli and cassatina, an incredibly sweet Sicilian confection made with sheep’s milk ricotta.


When we reach the Des Plaines River, the April showers have flooded the riverbanks, and nearby trees look ghostly in the moonlight with their trunks submerged in a few feet of water. Yellow lights reflecting off the river draw us to Gene and Jude’s, a River Grove hotdog stand in business since 1946. A long line of patrons waits to buy their minimalist take on the Chicago-style dog—mustard, relish, onions and sport peppers only—wrapped up with fresh-cut fries on top.

Ketchup on a hotdog is taboo in Chicago and Gene and Jude’s refuse to even stock the condiment. So in the parking lot I pull out the bottle of Heinz I brought for the occasion—for my fries only, I swear. A beefy guy with a camo-print doo-rag witnesses my transgression. “Hey, this guy brought his own ketchup,” he says to his buddies. “Gene must be rolling in his grave.”


Just north of the stand is our evening’s destination, a multi-room tiki lounge complex called Hala Kahiki, which means “House of Pineapple.” I trace my obsession with Polynesian pop culture back to my childhood when my family used to visit my dad’s cousin Leo’s tiki-themed motel, the Hawaiian Isle, in Miami Beach, Florida. Using the guidebook “Tiki Road Trip,” by local writer James Teitelbaum, I’ve visited all nine of the remaining tiki bars and restaurants in the region—a great way to beat the Chicago winter blues.

Opened in 1963 by Rose & Stanley Sacharski, Hala Kahiki is the granddaddy of them all, with what Teitelbaum calls a high TiPSY (Tikis Per Square Yard) factor. The place is packed with the carved wooden idols, fishing nets and puffer-fish lamps. There’s an outdoor garden with large Easter Island heads and a gift shop in back. My group is seated by a tinkling fountain with palm trees and a carved wooden heron.


Hala Kahiki doesn’t serve food but when a friend pulls out a bag of leftover fries, the sarong-clad hostess runs over scolding, “Guys, no Gene and Jude’s here.” We’ve walked almost eight miles and after tipping back multiple rounds of Mai Tais, Suffering Bastards and Fog Cutters, most of my entourage is starting to nod off. They hitch rides home with other friends who’ve driven to the bar—all except for Eric, who staggers with me four more blocks north along the river to crash at a Super 8 motel.

The next morning we walk southwest under a cobalt sky, following walking directions I’ve printed out from Google Maps. We cross the blue-collar, inner-ring suburbs of Franklin Park and Melrose Park, passing by modest homes, factories and churches offering services in English, Spanish and Polish.

The cue sheet takes us on a stairstep route mostly on quiet streets but the sidewalks often disappear, forcing us to walk on the left side of the road with gravel and crabapples crunching under our feet. It seems the city planners never considered that someone might want to travel these towns by foot and, in fact, we don’t cross paths with any pedestrians for the first hour and a half.

Walking conditions get downright dangerous when we head down North Avenue beneath the spaghetti-bowl interchange of the Tri-State Tollway and the Eisenhower Expressway. There are no sidewalks so we walk on the highway facing high-speed traffic, darting Frogger-style across several freeway off-ramps. Google Maps has let us down, although in fairness the site warns, “Walking directions are in beta. Use caution—This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.”

Things improve as we head into Elmhurst, an upscale village that poet Carl Sandburg and labor leader Eugene Debs once called home. We grab lunch at Jim’s Hamburger Heaven, in business since 1948, a neon-lit shack that looks straight out of “Happy Days.” The lady behind the counter tells me that McDonald’s, based in nearby Oak Brook, stole the idea for the Big Mac from Jim’s tasty little double-decker burgers.


We continue down residential streets lined with stately homes and lovely pink magnolia trees. Eric stops at a drugstore to buy Dr. Scholl’s shoe inserts for his already-aching feet—his green suede boots don’t seem to be working out. “I wish I’d done this earlier,” he says. “It’s like laying your head on a pillow after someone’s been whacking it repeatedly with a fraternity paddle. It feels better but it still hurts.”

Our next destination is Villa Park, originally built as a factory town for Ovaltine, now home to another beverage producer, Lunar Brewing Company. This small brewpub looks like a typical neighborhood tap except that moons and stars dangle from the ceiling and signs for craft breweries from around the country hang on the walls.

As planned, three of my cycling buddies show up sweaty on bikes to meet us for a cold one, having pedaled out from Logan Square via the Prairie Path. I order a Jumping Cow cream ale but the barmaid mishears me and pours me a Lunar Raspberry cream ale, which tastes like dry, fruity soda. A regular smirks at me, saying, “That stuff’s strictly for the strippers.”

After saying goodbye to my pals, Eric and I detour a couple miles south to another tiki venue, a Chinese and Polynesian restaurant in a strip mall called Tong’s Tiki Hut. While the TiPSY factor here is lower than at Hala Kahiki, Tong’s has plenty of fun “exotic” décor: murals of beach scenes, monkeys carved out of coconuts, a Buddha statue and a nearly six-foot-tall carved idol.


Hawaiian music plays softly in the nearly empty restaurant as the middle-aged ladies who run the place converse in Mandarin. Co-owner Diane Yung tells me the place opened in 1981 and she took over in 1990. Eric and I order a pu-pu platter, the classic tiki-Chinese appetizer with deep-fried and barbecued tidbits arranged around a small bowl of fire. We wash these down with potent Zombies in mugs featuring voluptuous, grass-skirted maidens.

Our directions tell us to walk west from here on Roosevelt Road, but it’s a nasty highway lined with big-box stores and no sidewalks, so we detour north onto residential streets. We get confused by the non-contiguous street pattern and have to navigate with Eric’s smart phone.

As we walk past silent ranch houses Eric says, “Notice how even on a nice day there are no people outside doing anything.” “Yeah,” I say. “It’s kind of creepy here. You can see why so many of Chicagoland’s famous mass murders happened in the suburbs, like the John Wayne Gacy killings, the Tylenol poisonings and the Brown’s Chicken massacre.”

We stairstep northwest into ritzy Glen Ellyn, formerly home to performance artist Laurie Anderson and Weathermen co-founder Bill Ayers. As we pass big, beautiful old homes on Park Boulevard, we see yard signs reading “Save our neighborhood / Say no / vote for the referendum.” An older couple out gardening explains that neighbors started a campaign to block the conversion of a small church nearby into a Montessori elementary school. “It’s a classic case of NIMBY-ism.”

After dinner at a Thai restaurant in downtown Glen Ellyn, we walk a bit further west to Wheaton, where we’re hosted by my boss’ mother-in-law, Margaret. Exhausted after walking twenty miles, Eric and I flop down on her couch with Fat Tire beers and watch “Saturday Night Live.” By coincidence, the opening sketch is Mike Myers and Dana Carvey reprising their roles as Wayne and Garth, two metalheads from Aurora, our final destination.

Sunday is another beautiful morning and I’m raring to go, but Eric decides he can’t walk much further. Since he’s taller and brawnier than me, his feet have been taking more of a beating. “Every step is agony,” he complains. “My feet are swollen and puffy, pretty much everywhere they’re in contact with my shoes.” He decides to catch Metra back to the Loop, then ride another Metra line out to meet me in Aurora.

Wheaton College

Wheaton is nicknamed “The Button of the Bible Belt” since it’s home to dozens of religious organizations. On the other hand, the very profane John Belushi attended Wheaten Central High School. The largest religious school here is Wheaton College and evangelist Billy Graham is its most famous graduate. The preacher, now 92, has met with every U.S. president from Truman to Obama. I stop by the Billy Graham Center Museum but it isn’t open yet. I’ve read that the exhibit focuses on Graham’s humanitarian work and skips over his fire-and-brimstone rhetoric.

In downtown Wheaton, I pick up the Aurora branch of the Illinois Prairie Path, the sixty-one-mile network of trails that fans across the western suburbs. I come to a boulder with a plaque honoring May Theilgaard Watts, a Morton Arboretum naturalist who first proposed converting abandoned railroad right-of-ways into the trails system in a 1963 letter to the Tribune. The villages of Wheaton and Glen Ellyn wanted to turn the land into parking lots, and in the letter Watts cautioned that “bulldozers are drooling.” The plaque includes a quote from Watts, “Footpaths are defended with spirit by their users.”


The Prairie Path soon becomes a green tunnel of budding maple and walnut trees and the crushed limestone surface of the trail crunches pleasantly under my sneakers. Birds are singing, the air smells like pollen and the sunshine feels good on my face as I walk southwest. There’s a steady stream of joggers and bicyclists in DayGlo Lycra. I stop and chat with an older man with a large backpack who’s training for a long hike in the Swiss Alps.

The trail passes by the Warrenville Grove Forest Preserve, an appealing green space with a large sledding hill and a lagoon where families fish for trout on this lovely afternoon. I soon encounter three horseback riders and have to step carefully to avoid the fresh manure they leave in their wake.


Detouring off the trail in Warrenville I arrive at Two Brothers Tap House, located in a bleak industrial zone. The brewery has little in the way of decor besides posters for house beers like Domaine DuPage French Country Ale and Prairie Path Golden Ale, but the brew and the food are tasty and the place is packed with young suburbanites. I belly up to the bar for a pint of Bitter End Pale Ale and a plate of bacon-wrapped meatloaf.

Next to me are Mary and Richard from Glen Ellyn, hardcore beer geeks. Mary receives a text that Three Floyds brewery in Munster, Indiana still has a few bottles of Dark Lord Russian Imperial stout left over from yesterday’s Dark Lord Day release party. The couple immediately get in their car and drive fifty-five miles to claim their prize.

Back on the trail for the final leg of my suburban safari, I pass a small pond where frogs are croaking, a flock of red-winged blackbirds perch on nearby branches and a beaver scurries by. It’s a treat to encounter wildlife you don’t normally find in Chicago, but I’m getting really sick of walking. I sit down on a bench, take off my socks and massage my throbbing feet, dotted with multiple blisters.

As I trudge the last few miles, I think about my journey so far. While the Chicago suburbs are not the cultural wasteland that city dwellers make them out to be, the interesting places are few and far between, it’s hard to live there without a car, and the lack of human interaction on the streets is alienating.

If I ever get married and have kids in Chicago I’ll face a dilemma that has confronted many of my friends with children. Unless Jean-Claude Brizard, the newly appointed CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, is able to fix our city’s educational system, it will be tempting to leave the city for the better public schools and cheaper, bigger houses of the suburbs. Will I sell out, abandoning the diverse, social, walkable streets of Chicago for what Oak Park native Ernest Hemingway called the “broad lawns and narrow minds” of the auto-centric western ‘burbs?

I hope not, having experienced suburban isolation firsthand on this walk. My friends with kids provide good role models for me—almost all of them have chosen to stay, proving that it’s possible to build a rich family life in the city. Most of them don’t even own cars. Instead they take advantage of Chicago’s many green transportation options, traveling with their children via the CTA, Metra, I-GO Car Sharing, taxis, bicycles and on foot.

Now I’m descending bluffs to the Fox River, a broad waterway where Canada geese swim against the current. I turn south down the Fox River Trail, a paved path that runs fifty miles from Aurora to McHenry, Illinois, at the northwest corner of the metro region. McHenry is the hometown of Alkaline Trio singer and guitarist Matt Skiba, a bike-messenger colleague of mine from the late nineties whose band went on to become one of Chicago’s most successful punk acts.

After rounding a bend in the path I catch sight of downtown Aurora, the Hollywood Casino and Walter Payton’s roundhouse. The suburb is nicknamed the “City of Lights” because it was one of the first U.S. municipalities with electric streetlamps. As I march triumphantly towards my finish line, one of Skiba’s anthemic songs plays in my head:

And all your lonely nights in the City of Lights are much like
All these crowded bars I so often find my stupid self stumbling through…
Fuck you Aurora, you took my only friend.
You won’t catch me behind the wheel of a Chrysler ever again.




DuPage Dossier
Suburban milestones and diversions

America’s Brewpub at the Roundhouse Complex
205 North Broadway, Aurora, (630)892-0034, www.rh34.com/content/2.html

Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market
2400 North Harlem, Elmwood Park, (708)453-0155, caputomarkets.com

Billy Graham Center Museum
Wheaton College, 500 East College, Wheaton, (630)752-5909, billygrahamcenter.com

Gene and Jude’s
2720 River Road, River Grove, (708)452-7634

Hala Kahiki
2834 River Road, River Grove, (708)456-3222, hala-kahiki.com

Jim’s Hamburger Heaven
281 North York, Elmurst, (630)832-3535

Lunar Brewing Company
54 East St. Charles, Villa Park, (630)530-2077, myspace.com/lunarbrewingco

Tong’s Tiki Hut
100 East Roosevelt, Villa Park, (630)834-7464

Two Brothers Tap House
30w315 Calumet, Warrenville, (630)393-2337, twobrotherstaphouse.com

Walking Lawrence Avenue

A stroll down Chicago’s most international street reveals delicious diversity

By John Greenfield

[This article also runs on the website Gapers Block, www.gapersblock.com.]

I’ve hiked the lengths of many Chicago streets over the years: Milwaukee, Western, Halsted, Archer, Grand, 63rd, Kedzie, Belmont, 79th and King. So it’s surprising that it never occurred to me to hike Lawrence, with its wildly varied strips of shops and restaurants, representing countries from all over the world.

But recently, on my way back from staying in a shack by the Wisconsin border, I took Metra south to the Ravenswood stop and then bicycled west on Lawrence at night. I needed to visit Flo’s Algiers Lounge, a dive at 5436 W. Montrose with a flashing Vegas-style sign and support pillars disguised as palm trees, for a magazine blurb. On the way I was dazzled by the neon along Lawrence in Albany Park, with signs in Spanish, Arabic, Korean and maybe a dozen other languages. The street definitely deserved a closer look.

Lawrence runs 10.5 miles across the city from Lake Michigan to Chevalier Woods, by the Des Plaines River. According to the book Streetwise Chicago by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee, real estate developer Lazarus Silverman was walking with his friend Bradford A. Lawrence through Silverman’s new Montrose subdivision when the developer reportedly said, “Let’s call this Lawrence Avenue.”

I get up painfully early on a Wednesday in early November to catch the 7:26 am sunrise at the lake at Lawrence. As I’m riding the Red Line north to the Lawrence stop the sky is striped cobalt, magenta and gold.


I walk east from the station to the lakefront and dip my fingers in the icy water at Montrose Beach as the fiery ball rises over the horizon. Seagulls, mallard ducks and crows chatter around me. Aside from the dull roar of traffic on Lake Shore Drive and the Hancock faintly visible to the south, this could be Cape Cod.


Heading back west, I come to an odd little house at 915 W. Lawrence with a sign that says “Hana To.” There are wavy, Asian-style shingles on the roof, boulders and a lion statue in front and a Buddha in the window. When I Google the address later it comes up as Hana to Yoko, a florist specializing in ikebana, Japanese flower arrangements.

The day has turned gray and chilly as I approach the Aragon Theater, 1106 W., where I notice architectural details I’ve never noticed before – colorful, mosaic-like designs on the windows and carved heads of maidens and jesters. On the west side of the adjacent el tracks there’s a colorful, surreal mural I’ve also never really looked at. My favorite element of the painting is a guy in a yachting cap with a pipe fishing at the lake.


The intersection of Lawrence and Broadway, 1200 W., filled with neon lights and theater marquees, is one of my favorites in Chicago. It’s surrounded by venues like the Aragon, the Kinetic Playground, the Green Mill, the Riviera and the shuttered Uptown Theater. Back in the 1920s when Charlie Chaplin was making films at nearby Essanay Studios the neighborhood must have been even more exciting.

I stop for a breakfast of potato pancakes with applesauce and sour cream at the Golden House, 4744 N. Broadway, a cozy greasy spoon with red vinyl booths and mirrors on the walls with swirls printed on them. Next to me a thirty-something guy with graying hair and a hoodie strikes up a conversation, telling me his name is Binh and he’s from Vietnam.

I can barely understand him but I follow that he’s been in Chicago since 1989 and has also lived in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. He seems to have a mild mental disability. “I don’t eat here,” he says. “I just only drink coffee. “I eat at home – fried steak, noodles and rice. My grandfather says, ‘Eat rice, stay long.’”

A light rain begins as I continue west down Lawrence, past St. Bonifacius Cemetery, stopping to check out St. John’s Assyrian Church, 1421 W., and Manigua Academy of Dance and Music, 1756 W. offering classes in djembe, guiro and talking drum, Brazilian, Puerto Rican and Cuban dance. I stop into Sears, 1900 W., to take a break from the rain.

As I’m looking at boots, a guy with a Spanish accent says, “Oh, so you’re shopping for boots for the winter?” At first I think he’s an employee but then I turn around and see he’s a tall young man in a knit cap wearing Kelly-green running shorts. “Are you Jewish?” he asks. “Uh, why do you want to know?” I reply. “Well, I attended services at a synagogue recently and you look like the Jewish people I saw there,” he says. “Say, my apartment’s right behind the store – do you party?” “No I don’t, but thanks anyway,” I respond, walking away towards the jeans section. “Come on, fifteen minutes,” he calls after me.

The guy follows me to the stacks of Levis and explains, “I walked up to you because I’m gay and you were the handsomest guy in the store.” At 10:15 am I’m pretty much the only other guy in the store. “Look,” I say. “I’m flattered but I’m not interested.” “OK,” he says. “You know, I went to that synagogue because I wanted to learn about Kabala. They believe you can use spirituality to control God. You see, I’m a Satanist. I’ve seen Satan four times.” “OK, well, I think I’m going to shop for jeans now,” I say and he finally walks away.

Next I stop into George’s Deli, 1964 W., a Serbian place that sells roasted lamb and piglets, big jars of pickled peppers and fig jam, thick Bosnian sausages and slabs of dry bacon that look like spareribs. I duck into Farmers Garden Market, 2242 W., hoping to find a functioning farm stand but the shelves are almost bare except for a few seed packets. The old couple speaking to each other in another language at the counter tells me the growing season is over, but I later read that the place has been shut down for code violations.

I pass by the gateway to Lincoln Square’s semi-pedestrianized shopping area on Lincoln south of Lawrence, and stop at Avard Fairbanks’ 1956 statue of Honest Abe standing at Western, 2400 W. He’s standing at a podium with top hat in hand, gazing down his namesake avenue.


Isla Filipino restaurant, 2501 W. Lawrence, features some interesting sounding dishes like Kare-Kare: oxtails, tripe and green beans in peanut sauce with a side of shrimp paste brine; and Inihaw na Pusit: grilled squid stuffed with tomato and onions. Spaghetti Delight - ground beef, pork, hot dog, and Parmesan cheese in tomato sauce over noodles, served with fried chicken – seems to reflect the American influence on the archipelago, a former U.S. territory.

The incredible mix of ethnic eateries and shops has begun. TBS Restaurant, 2541 W. offers a buffet of Nigerian rice dishes and stews, plus American soul food. It’s just after the mid-term elections and the Olympic Club, 2615 W., a café catering to Greek immigrants, still has a sign for failed senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias in the window.

I duck into Nhu Lan, a Vietnamese baker and sandwich shop at 2612 W., and munch a shrimp and pork roll while watching Obama discuss the recent election on TV. The shop also offers a wide selection of Banh Mi, sandwiches on French bread with pickled daikon and carrots, jalapenos and fillings pate and cold cuts, shrimp cake and meatballs. A big, yellow Buddha grins from atop a pastry case.


It’s just after Halloween, and there’s a sign up on the field house of Cross Park, 2700 W., “The supervisor has gone to Peterson Park to take down the Trail of Terror.” I continue past Sarajevo Restaurant, 2701 W., a Bosnian place specializing in Cevapcici, ground beef mini sausages served on fluffy bread with onions and melted cream cheese. Aden Live Poultry, 2731 W., slaughters chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, pigeons and quails in the Zabiha / Halal way, according to Muslim dietary laws.

Just east of the Chicago River, the headquarters of the Cambodian Association of Illinois, 2831 W., features intricate bas-relief designs and images of deities on the façade. Since 1976 the nonprofit has assisted refugees from the Khmer Rouge genocide. The museum is closed at the moment, but two non-Cambodian women filming a documentary outside the building tell me an exhibit about survivors’ journeys from healing to productivity just closed.


As I cross the river I see old, half-sunken boats tied to the banks, and a Brown Line train passes on a bridge a block south. North of Lawrence on the river, the North Branch Sewage Pumping Station is a remarkably nice “Industrial Gothic” structure, when you consider its humble function.


The sun’s out again, lifting my spirits as I head into Albany Park. There’s a nice muffler man sculpture at 3 Stars Auto Body, 3011 W. Huaraches Restaurant, 3021 W., is one of many Michoacan-style Mexican restaurants along this stretch, offering a torta Cubana whose long ingredient list doesn’t have much in common with a traditional Cuban sandwich. Cuscaleco, 3125 W., is a Salvadorian and Guatemalan restaurant specializing in pupusas, thick discs of corn dough stuffed with various combinations of pork skin, beans, cheese and pumpkin.


As I approach Kedzie I start seeing business with signs in Arabic – Kedzie south of Lawrence is one of the areas major Middle Eastern business districts. Iraqi-owned Baghdad Kebab offers a $3.99 chicken shewarma or kefta kebab lunch special.

I duck into Novidades Latinas, a shop selling Ecuadorian products and other Latin American goods: groceries, soccer jerseys, wrestling masks and mini flags of many nations. Andean music plays on the sound system as I check out a DVD of a gangsta flick called “Cholo Americano.”

I come to the Brown Line’s Kimball stop, the end of the line, its awning supported by pillars shaped like giant femurs. Kids are sparring playfully outside the station – a girl picks a boy up by the wrists at spins him around. “Elise, what are you doing?” asks a woman who walks by, possibly their teacher.


Intrigued by a sign advertising Middle Eastern and Mexican baked goods, I drop into the Pita House, 3441 W., but find that so far the shop only stocks the former, although the clerk, a tall, soft-spoken African man with dreads, tells me they’re trying to hire a Mexican baker. I tell him about my project and asks him what he thinks makes Lawrence special. “It’s a melting pot,” he says. “You see the diversity, you see all different nationalities going to the train. On Kedzie it’s more Middle Eastern but here it’s a mixture of every race.” I buy some hand-shaped cookies from him.

A lingerie store at 3546 W. has the charmingly ESL name Sexy Girls of the Hollywood. Across the street Golden Linens, 3601 W., has a giant pink tapestry with the Playboy logo hanging outside. The name of a store at 3647 W., selling toys, handbags and adult DVDs, catches my eye: Chicago John Imports.

I stop into Dok-Il Korean bakery, 3844 W. Lawrence, and pick up a white bean doughnut and a piece of goroke bread, a croquette stuffed with egg, carrot, cabbage, onions and potato. When I ask the Latina clerk what’s inside, she has trouble recalling all the English words for the ingredients, so she tells me in Spanish instead.

The Admiral Theater, 3940 W., which opened in 1927 as a vaudeville venue, has operated as an adult movie house and gentleman’s club since the early ‘70s. It recently hosted a “Night of the Stripping Dead,” with dancers made up to look like zombies. Just a couple storefronts west, El-Jeeb Hajib and gifts, 3944 W., sells the head coverings traditionally worn by Islamic women.


Continuing west past Pulaski, 4000 W., pillars with Prairie-style ornamentation alert me I’m in the Mayfair neighborhood. Ssyal Korean Ginseng House, 4201 W. specializes in ginseng-infused chicken soup that’s supposed to be good for everything from high blood pressure to impotence. I make a note to come back next time I have a cold.

Across the street Kim’s International Music, 4200 W., sells pianos and orchestra instruments and offers lessons. I go inside and chat a bit with a well-dressed young man behind a desk there who tells me he’s been suffering from vertigo lately, dizziness due to inner ear problems. There’s an interesting display of the complex mechanism that leads from a piano key to the hammer that hits the string. An ad on the wall for Yamaha band instruments shows a blonde boy playing clarinet, his eyes aglow.

I stop into the Mayfair Public Library, 4400 W. Lawrence, to use the restroom. School is out by now and there are plenty of people there, including half a dozen girls and women in Muslim headscarves.

The Dog House 2, a trailer at 4501 W., sells Chicago classics like hotdogs, Italian beefs, Polishes, gravy bread and tamales on a bun. There’s a nice folk-art rendition of a Chicago Dog on the side of the trailer.


I’m just north of the 90/94 split at Wilson, so at about 4800 W. I cross the Edens Expressway and then the Kennedy four blocks later. Entering the Jefferson Park neighborhood, I pass by the Copernicus Foundation, 5216 W., a Polish cultural center with an onion-domed clock tower, then come to Sportif Importers, 5225 W., home of the second-grumpiest bike shop owner in Chicago.

Years ago on a cold winter afternoon I dropped in and asked if they stock fleece skullcaps to wear under your helmet. “No,” replied the owner, and proceeded to ignore me, even though there was no one else in the shop. I grew more sympathetic to him in 2004 when the local alderman Patrick Levar tried to seize the property via eminent domain so that one of his developer friends could build condos on it.

Song’s Martial Arts, 4800 N. Milwaukee has a cool logo of a praying mantis superimposed on a yin-yang painted on the window. Inside I see Korean and American flags and lots of shiny armaments: dagger-like sais, spears, battle-axes and nunchucks.


There are a lot of Polish businesses along Lawrence now, and I also notice the headquarters for the Independent Order of Svithiod, 5518 W. Lawrence, a Scandinavian fraternal society founded in 1880.

The street soon becomes largely residential, with occasional businesses popping up like Brigadoon Tavern, 5748 W., with the slogan “A place like this … happens once every hundred years,” a reference to the eponymous Broadway musical in which a magical Scottish village appear only once a century. Muzyka and Sons funeral home, 5776 W., has a nice Grecian statue next to the parking lot.

There’s a cluster of diverse shops and restaurants near Austin Avenue. I stop into Sandy’s, a Serbian bakery and deli at 5857 W., to buy a slice of burek, a chewy, savory cheese pastry. Inside a display case a fried pig’s head grins up at me. A middle-aged guy is talking to the clerk in Serbian. When she invites him to sample some pork cracklings in a bowl by the counter he says, “I don’t eat that stuff,” but I try a chunk and enjoy its salty greasiness.


Sicilia Bakery, 5939 W., specializes in cannoli, Sicilian fried, tube-shaped pastries filled with sweet ricotta cheese. Displayed on the counter there’s a giant cannoli shell the size of a sewer pipe. The shop’s version of the sweet features chunks of dried fruit and it’s absolutely delicious.

At Austin, Lawrence jogs half a block north and is temporarily called Gunnison. The sun is now setting rosily over the simple, postwar two-story houses that line the street. I stop for a quick MGD at the Friendly Tavern, 6124 W. Gunnison, where beefy contractors in work boots and hoodies sit around the horseshoe-shaped bar, debating the merits of doing a paving job in concrete or brick.


Crossing Nagle, 6400 W., I’m in Harwood Height a village that, along with Norridge, is one of two suburbs that are almost completely surrounded by Chicago communities. I’ll have to cross these on my way to Schorsch Forest View, a Chicago neighborhood next to the forest preserve marking the terminus of Lawrence in the city.

By now it’s dark, the street is poorly lit and there’s no retail as I pass by the ½ mile-long Ridgemoor Country Club. The street jogs south again at Harlem where it becomes Lawrence once more. I stop for dinner at Old Warsaw, 4750 N. Harlem, a Polish buffet in a glitzy dining room where schmaltzy oldies like “Moonlight in Vermont” play soothingly on the sound system.

Pleasantly stuffed with pierogi, roast chicken, stuffed cabbage and hunter’s stew, I continue west on the dark suburban street. There’s almost nobody else out on the sidewalk, but when I overtake three middle-aged woman strolling together, they switch their conversation from English to Polish.

It’s a pretty dull walk at this point, enlivened only by the sign for Lazer Knights bar and grill, 8540 W., featuring a guy in a suit of armor firing a ray gun. When I duck my head inside the bar doesn’t look like anything special, so I keep walking.


A couple blocks later I reach the forest preserve at 9200 W. and the end of my walk. After a pit stop in the woods I head east again, then sprint to catch a CTA bus at Cumberland, 8800 W.

As I’m relaxing on the ride back to the Jefferson Park Blue Line stop, I think about all the different cultures represented on my walk along Lawrence: Japanese, Serbian, German, Filipino, Nigerian, Greek, Vietnamese, Bosnian, Cambodian, Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Iraqi, Ecuadorian, Mexican, Korean, Polish, Scandinavian, Sicilian and more. It’s a mix that makes our city, and our nation, a great place to be.

Pulaski Daze: Walking Chicago's Pulaski Road

By John Greenfield

[This piece also runs at Gapers block, www.gapersblock.com.]

When I was choosing the next roadway to tackle as part of my project to walk the lengths of all of Chicago’s major thoroughfares, Pulaski Road sprang to mind as one the city’s iconic streets. So far I’d hiked Milwaukee, Western, Halsted, Archer, Grand, 63rd, Kedzie, Belmont, 79th, King and Lawrence, discovering a wealth of tasty eats, historic sights and friendly folks.

Named after Casimir S. Pulaski, the Polish-American hero of the Revolutionary War, known as “the father of the American Calvary,” Pulaski Road stretches 21.7 miles across this city, said to have more Poles than any town but Warsaw. But the street was originally named Crawford Avenue for early Chicago pioneer Peter Crawford, and the name change created a controversy that lasted almost two decades.

In 1933 Mayor Ed Kelly, wishing to gain favor with the city’s largest ethnic voting block, agreed to a request from a Polish group to honor their countryman, and the City Council approved the change. But Crawford’s descendents objected, and businesses along Crawford didn’t want to have to change their addresses on signage and advertising. Legal battles continued for years, Pulaski Road signs were frequently stolen, and a streetcar conductor who announced a stop as Crawford was punched out by a Polish passenger. After much back and forth, the Illinois Supreme Court decided the case for once and for all in 1952 and the name Pulaski has stuck ever since.

After deciding to observe my own private Pulaski Day, I wake up early on a bitter cold Wednesday morning in early January and catch a couple of CTA buses from Logan Square to 115th and Springfield, a block east of Pulaski. My friend Kristen Ostberg, a fellow freelancer who writes the Bridgeport blog the Hardscrabbler (thehardscrabbler.blogspot.com), is joining me for the walk and we’re meeting for breakfast at George’s Diner, 11750 S. Pulaski in suburban Alsip. As I head south on Springfield into Alsip there are small houses but no sidewalk - it feels like I’m in a small town.

Kristin’s waiting for me at the diner, a small Wild West-style building, and there’s a free amuse-bouche of mini doughnuts sitting on the table. It’s just after New Year’s and the place is still packed with tinsel and Santa cutouts, plus numerous baskets of multicolored silk flowers. On the way to the restroom there’s a shelf filled with ceramic and soft sculpture chickens; a sign above it featuring three hens says, “STUFFED WITH GRATITUDE.”


Stuffed with my Caribbean omelet (tomato, mozzarella, avocado and fake crab) I begin my march north with Kristen. At 116th we see looks like an abandoned drive-in with cool old signs for “char-co burgers” and root beer. An Internet search shows this is the Frosty Mug Drive In, which was once featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” but the main sign is missing. Hopefully it’s just closed for the season.


So far, Pulaski is a busy four-lane. At 115th we enter the city’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood and come to the Chicago Agricultural High School, located on 72 acres where the city’s last traditional farm once stood. The school teaches agricultural skills to city kids and includes a functioning farm and golf course. We walk across the frozen, furrowed fields and visit a livestock pen next to the school building with horses, sheep, cattle and goats.


At 111th, Ranch Manor shopping center flies the U.S., Illinois and Irish flags and there’s a sign for Quigley’s Irish Pub featuring a fiddle and a pint of Guiness. North of here there are modest homes with sloping, lopsided saltbox roofs, and soon we start seeing banners for St. Xavier University.

A postwar apartment building at 10216 S. features a huge, Piet Modrian-inspired abstract design in terra cotta brick on its side. At 99th we temporarily leave the city – we’ll be walking past Evergreen Park, Oak Lawn and Hometown for 1.5 miles.

We’re surprised to see Wojo’s, 9851 S., a fast food joint advertising “bison dogs from Wrigley Field,” turkey, ostrich and elk burgers. Ken Wojcicki, who’s owned the place for 30 years, tells us he started serving exotic proteins during the Atkins craze. “These meats are lower in fat and cholesterol than beef or chicken,” he says. “Bodybuilders love the ostrich – it’s all protein.” He asks if we know why Wrigley Field serves bison dogs. “This is not a joke,” he says. “It’s because Mr. Rickets owns a buffalo farm.”


We pass the Shibui condo complex, 9720 S., which has Japanese-looking wooden pavilions, then come to Trinity Evangelical Covenant Church at 93rd, which looks a bit like an Alpine lodge. After walking by St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery at 91st, we arrive at the Hometown Veterans Memorial, a small circular plaza with artillery guns ringed with flag. A box of TNT Pop-Its noisemakers lies on the ground nearby.

Crossing 87th back into the city we come to Rosario’s Sausage, 8611 S., in business since the ‘50s. The shop is notorious for its neon sign, featuring pigs happily jumping into a meat grinder and coming out the other side as encased meat links, spelling out the word “sausage.” The store also sells a nice selection of Italian groceries, plus Chicago-made Tom Tom Tamales. I laugh at the vintage cartoon on the tamale wrappers, with a little girl begging a boy, “Oh, give me a bite.”


At 81st Pulaski is bigger than ever with four travel lanes and continuous turn lanes. A fire station at 78th has its flags at half-mast in honor of Edward Stringer and Corey Ankum, two firefighters who recently died battling a blaze in a South Shore warehouse when the roof collapsed. At 76th we come to the bleak campus of Richard J. Daley College, which seems difficult to access unless you park your car on the south side of the street and take a skyway to the classroom buildings on the north side.

At 74th we pass by an Army Reserve center with trailers parked outside, ominously labeled “Hazmat Recon.” The road rises to clear some railroad tracks and a young man on a BMX bike speeds down the hill on the sidewalk towards us. The weather has grown gray and murky but we get a ghostly view of the Loop from the summit. To our left is the sinister-looking industrial complex of Grace Davidson, 4099 W. 71st, a chemical company with the slogan, “Enriching lives, everywhere.”


Richard Tan, a foodie with a seemingly photographic memory who joined my on my Kedzie walk, sent me a long list of recommended eats along Pulaski. This included the torta ahogada, a “drowned sandwich” that’s a specialty of Guadalajara, Mexico, and a popular snack at soccer stadiums. So when Kristen and I see them advertised at La Picosas, 6430 S., we stop for lunch. I get a jolt of happiness when the sandwiches arrive, shredded pork and pickled onions on a bolillo roll, drenched in devil-red chili de arbol sauce, delicious but so spicy I can barely finish mine.


Afterwards we stop at Andy’s Bowling Pro Shop. 6358 S., selling balls emblazoned with Chicago sports teams and Harley logos. A clear ball with a skull inside seems inspired by Jeanine Garofalo’s superheroine the Bowler from the 1999 flick “Mystery Men.” An old man wearing a “Black Bowling Association” jacket is buying a ball for his grandson as a birthday present.


At 63rd the legendary Eyecare Indian greets us, and Pulaski is a six-lane road. We soon pass by a real estate office wear a woman is hanging signs on the window for bungalows for sale as low as $30,000. “This is probably the foreclosure belt,” says Kirsten. Sure enough, we soon encounter several more offices shilling cheap homes. At 55th, Mi Casa Real Estate has a big LCD sign reading, “Interest rates are at an all-time low. Don’t pass up this opportunity.”

El Portero Western Wear, 5312 S., sells alligator boots with fake eyes, making your foot look like the head of the gator. Boots made of stingray skin are for sale for $500.


We’re in the largely Mexican- and Polish-American West Elsdon neighborhood, and at Archer, 5100 S., we pass Marie Sklodowska Curie High, named for the Polish-French scientist who discovered the elements radium and polonium, named for her homeland.

Korona Lounge, 4710 S., has signs posted on the window, covering recently inflicted scratches and congratulating the vandal: “Certificate of Upgrade to Complete Asshole – just be yourself.” When we sit down at the bar, a drunk old man leaves the gambling machine to yell at me for taking his seat, but the attractive Polish barmaid scolds him, pointing out he left his jacket on a different stool.

At the corner of the bar a bunch of blue-collar guys in flannel and baseball caps are discussing snowmobiling and a recent proposal to privatize the Taste of Chicago. I tell them about our project and ask Rich Szkarlat to characterize Pulaski Road for me. “It’s an awesome north-south throughway,” he says. “From 59th to 43rd, the last residential stretch, it’s peaceful but once you get closer to 26th, watch out for the gangbangers.”

As we continue, the ped-friendly retail is replaced with strip malls and big box stores after 43rd, and soon we’re crossing the Stevenson and approaching red brick Crawford Station, a coal-fired power plant, which environmental activists are trying to shut down. We walk several blocks past industrial areas and vacant lots until Pulaski becomes residential again at 31st with a series of modest brick “one-flats” that seem to have garden apartments below. We’ve entered largely-Mexican Little Village, and most of the businesses have signs in Spanish.

It’s getting dark, and we decide to stop walking for the day at the Pink Line, a few blocks north. First we walk a couple blocks west on 26th to check out businesses on Chicago’s busiest neighborhood retail strip. We hit up Delicias Mexicanas, 4148 W. 26th, for a Acapulco-style hotdog con tocino (“with bacon”), wrapped in the smoked meat and topped with grilled onions, stewed and roasted jalapenos, mustard, mayo and – gasp! – ketchup. Very tasty.


Continuing north on Pulaski we cross under Metra tracks at 23rd, after which we’re in Lawndale and the neighborhood changes abruptly from predominantly Mexican to African-American. The Goodie Shop, 2100 S., sells custom-printed t-shirts and other hip-hop gear. Owner Willie Porter, who runs the shop with his son Willie II, tells us the space used to be a bar called the Texas Lady, popular with transplants from the South. “When I first opened here it was really rough,” he says. “Guys would be sitting in chairs in front of my store and challenge me, but I got to know them and now we get along fine.”


The recently rehabbed Pulaski Pink Line station has futuristic stainless-steel canopies above the platform and mosaic-ed quote from Muhammad Ali downstairs: “The man who has no imagination has no wings.”

Kristen and I meet back at the station the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. to resume our walk as flurries flutter in the air. At 1859 S. we come to a series of brightly-colored murals by students from the city’s after School Matters program showing families from the community with encouraging slogans like “Building Wisdom,” “Love Your Neighborhood” and “An Hour a Day [of helping your child with her homework] Keeps the Streets Away.”


We stop at the New Original Pine Valley Family Restaurant, 1600 S., a lunch counter with images of King, Obama and the Clintons on the walls, for cups of coffee and a slice of sweet potato pie. Grillman James Johnson, 61, tells us the restaurant has been here 57 years and has served musicians from funk bass pioneer Larry Graham to R. Kelly.


Johnson moved here from near Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1963, initially working as a paperboy. He lived down the street from King when the reverend moved into an apartment at 15th and Homan to call attention to conditions in northern slums. “He was like the new guy on the block,” Johnson recalls. “Quiet and laid back.”

Continuing, we come to an abandoned luncheonette at 1442 S. with signs advertising catfish and raccoon. Really? The Chicago West Side Christian School, 1241 S., has a mosaic featuring Billy Holiday, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman and Barack Obama, and images of youth dodging drugs and violence to get their diplomas and move towards careers.


Richard Tan recommended Mary’s Bar B Q, 606 S., with the motto “Where the sauce is boss and every bone is well worth eating,” as being the most atmosphere BBQ shack in town, but it’s not open yet. We cross over the Ike and Blue Line into Garfield Park. The Mirador, a castle-like building at Jackson, is boarded up, and there’s a cool old sign at a shuttered restaurant called “The Place to Eat,” 140 S.

There’s a bustling shopping district along Madison that’s home to many stores selling hip hop fashions. When we stop to check out some colorful old row houses east of Pulaski on Ontario Street, a car pulls up and the driver is curious about what we’re up to. He says he grew up around here and went to the army, then got into the construction business. He says his wife doesn’t like him coming around to the old neighborhood. “It’s gotten pretty bad here, but the young men know me,” he says. “A lot of these kids, their mom is out drinking and smoking crack, but I was blessed – I had a father and a mother.”

Orr High, 800 N., has a big, colorful mural titled “Urban World at the Crossroads” on the side of the gym. The work features images of hands typing at a keyboard, playing chess, gardening and other performing other constructive activities.


We duck into the 939 Club, 939 N., intrigued by a sign that says, “No gym shoes, no Timberlands, no white Ts, no sagging pants.” Inside there’s a big, horseshoe-shaped bar, the walls are paneled with mirrors, and a photo of a man in a white, furry pimp outfit hangs above the bar. It’s Dwayne “Doc” Anderson, the owners’ son. He tells us the club has been open for 40 years and has hosted celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Crucial Conflict and Bishop Don “Magic” Juan, and that part of the film “Dr. Detroit,” was filmed here. “So you like walking Pulaski?” Anderson says, “After you cross Division Street you’re going have to run.”

The neighborhood does change after a few blocks, and Spanish signs appear again. We stop into El Sitio, 1253 N., one of the city’s few Dominican Republic-style restaurants. “We opened right after Sammy Sosa left town,” says owner Peter Jimenez, holding his young daughter Ana. He says on weekends the place turns into a nightclub with merengue, bachata and reggaeton music. Paco Arez, the cook, offers us a sample of Bandera (“flag”), the national dish of stewed chicken with beans and rice. When I ask about a typical Dominican drink, Arez pours us shots of Brugal Rum.


Continuing north we duck into Jimmy’s Red Hots, 4000 W. Grand (1400 N.), with an elegantly simple menu of red hots, Polish sausage, fries and Supreme tamales. An old sign on the wall shows a bottle of ketchup in a circle with a line through it reading, “No ketchup, never ever. Don’t even think about it.” I pick up one of the calorie-dense Chicago-made tamales to eat as we stroll.


Mosaicos Jaliscos, 1513 N. Pulaski, sells the colorful decorative tiles you often see at Mexican restaurants. Photos of Zapatistas and mariachis hang on the walls. The old Pioneer Trust Savings Banks building, 4000 W. North, features bold bas-relief images of miners, construction crews and steel workers. There's a nice mural under the viaduct at 1800 N., including the image of a beautiful female guitarist.


North of Fullerton is a building supply district, including Green Depot, 2500 N., “Your source for environmentally friendly living and building. The mural outside of El Cubanito, 2555 N., features a young man staring at the ample backside of a lady who’s eating one of the shop’s signature Cuban sandwiches. “Mmm… Que rico!” (“How rich!”) he says, licking his lips.


At Diversey we come to the former site of the Olson Waterfall and Park, at the northwest corner of the intersection. The owner of the Olson Rug Company opened the 22-acre green space next to his mill in 1935. With its 35-foot waterfall, modeled after one in the U.P., duck pond, flowers, teepees and statue of a Native chief, it was a picnic hotspot. But after Marshal Field bought the factory, in 1978 they paved this paradise to put up a parking lot. Macy’s now owns the building.

We stop to warm up at the Belford Tavern, 3200 N., the name an amalgamation of its former cross streets, Belmont and Crawford. Nowadays it’s a liquor store / taproom, but the bartender, a Greek immigrant, brings out a yellowed menu from the 1940s, back when a steak was fifty cents. “That guy used to fight in the Greek resistance,” jokes Ed Gale, a veteran of the Marines sitting to my right. An Anglo, he says used to run with Puerto Rican gangs when attended nearby Schurz High and got kicked out for fighting. “My old man said, ‘If you ain’t gonna go to school you’re gonna go to work,’” Gale tells me. “I got sick of stirring mortar so I joined the service.”


Continuing up Pulaski, we stop at La Humita, 3466 N., another Richard Tan-recommended eatery that serves Ecuadorian food in a slightly upscale setting, and we pick up the restaurant’s eponymous specialty, yet another style of tamale, incorporating cheese and whole corn kernels. The sign outside is shaped like a giant ear of corn.

I want to give Kristen a quick look inside La Villa, 3638 N., an old-school Italian place with some of the best deep-dish pizza in town. When the extremely friendly, Sicilian-born owner Christina Petrancosta hears what we’re up to she insists on giving us a full tour of the place including the giant kitchen where cooks are shaping ground beef into massive meatballs. Petrancosta invites us to come back on Friday for a free dinner with longtime customers to watch a new “Check Please” episode featuring the restaurant.


We’re in the Old Irving Park community and we detour west on Grace Street, 3800 N., to check out some of the neighborhood’s famous Victorian architecture. We pass under a Metra viaduct with a colorful mural of neighbors raking leaves, barbecuing and shoveling snow with the legend, “A country home within 15 miles of the city.”


The intersection of Pulaski and Elston, 4300 N., is home to a number of North African businesses. We stop into Pomera, an Algerian bakery at 4304 N., to sample chabakia, a cookie that is fried in olive oil and dipped in honey and sesame seeds, traditionally served during Ramadan. Nearby Tassili, 4342 N. Elston, a restaurant named after a Saharan mountain range, is known for its tagines - slow-cooked Moroccan stews.

Tres Américas Books, 4336, is Mecca for Chicago’s Latino intelligentsia, a cozy, Barbara’s Bookstore-like space with hundreds of volumes of fiction and poetry in Spanish, plus all kinds of other books, from children’s literature to cookbooks to manuals like Sexo: La Mejor Guía de los Amantes.

Kristen needs to finish some writing that evening, so she begs off and backtracks to the Blue Line. I continue north towards multiethnic Lawrence Avenue – I notice the first sign in Korean sign at 4539 N. I duck into El Jeeb Grocery, 4805 N., a small store with a good selection of Middle Eastern staples: rice, chickpeas, spices, nuts and pickles. The freezer holds bags of okra, green fava beans and Jew’s mallow.

It’s been dark for a while now and snow-covered Gompers Park, 5100 N., honoring American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers, looks ghostly under lamplight.


I cross the north branch of the Chicago River and head past the castle-like gateway of Bohemian National Cemetery, located between Bryn Mawr and Foster. The graveyard, founded by Czechs in 1877, holds many of the victims of the Eastland disaster as well as assassinated Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who took a bullet for FDR in Miami in 1933.

In 2009 the cemetery added a monument for Cubs fans. It’s a brick wall, a replica of the ivy-covered wall at Wrigley, with niches for 288 urns of funereal ashes, featuring a stained glass image of the scoreboard. Stadium seats and a bench from the team’s bullpen are installed nearby. Says Dennis Mascari, who spearheaded the project, “I've helped give die-hard Cubs fans a way to forever support their team.”

I trudge through four inches of snow past North Park Village Nature Center, 5801 N. Though it’s only three blocks long, the 46-acre center seems much larger. Its hiking trail is a great place to escape the city as it climbs a man-made hill, circles a pond and provides views of the tame deer that live in the preserve.

St. Odisho Church of the East, 6201 N., flies the Assyrian flag, representing an ethnic group from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey that traces its origins back to the early Fertile Crescent civilization. Across the street from the church is a small store which sells Assyrian-themed gifts, like ostrich eggs painted with the image of an ancient winged lion sculpture, reproductions of cuneiform tablets, statuettes and “Hug me I’m Assyrian” t-shirts.


After Devon, 6400 N., Pulaski becomes Crawford as it enters the suburb of Lincolnwood at the Bryn Mawr Country Club. Before heading home, exhausted but satisfied, I retreat to the Backyard Grill snack shop, 6355 N. to refuel with a pulled pork sandwich and thaw out my wet, frozen feet.