CK Link - Theatre of Dreams for Calvin

The Windy City

I have been residing in Chicago, Chi-town or the Windy City for about a little over 2 months now, I guess it is the time for me to pick up some observations I have for it:

1) What about downtown?
Chicago, the City itself has about 2.8 million inhabitants. (versus the 9 million people living in the metro area, or Chicagoland if you will) The downtown area to me, is really divided into two rings. The inner circle is the welknown Chicago Loop in which the skyscrappers like Sears Tower, commercial areas, museum and theatre districts locate. There are mostly office buildings and sighseeing spots; where the outter circle, which extends just outside the busy O'Hare International Airport, is the residential area. Just like New York City, or Boston, it has quite some nice neighborhood for good restaurants in the city. However, one major difference as compared to NYC will be - the downtown area is so quiet during weekends and after hours, sometimes it could even be deadly silent...

2) Enthnic Compositions
Well, Chicago belongs to the Midwestern area, one might think it would be all Caucasians; it is not necessarily true. Indeed, Chicago has a lot of famous minority groups - Irish and Polish are famous, not to mention the Hispanic and Italian communities (just like th town I live in!), Korea Town, Greek Town and Chinatown! On our apartment building, one will actually understand more of people's conversations if you speak Eastern European languages instead of English or Spanish! Likewise, you can find a variety of enthnic cuisines in the city, though not as convenient as in NYC - you ought to drive to the restaurant more often!

3) Chicago Pizzas
If you have been to Chicago and NYC both, you will recognize the major difference with the pizzas in the two cities - the New York style is always with huge slices; versus the Chicago-style pizzas are thin-crust (great size and yummy for me!) and deep dish (a lot of cheese!!!). Then there is this competition for the best pizzeria in town - Gino East vs. Giodano's...

4) The Commute in the "city"
Well, Chicago has a great metro system - the L train/subway with many colored lines running basically from the suburb or various neighborhoods into the Loop. However, people would normally own a car and drive to work. However, for certain reason the commute between the suburbs and the downtown area is not fun at all; a lot of time, people have to spend about an hour or more to go to work or get back to their homes in rush hours. We lived right off from the inter-state, man, it is horrible to look at the lines everyday...

5) Entertainment/Advertising
Being the second largest TV market and top advertising and entertainment market in the US, Chicago has a lot of innovations in terms of the way companies promote their products and services, to name a few, plentiful outdoor advertisements, TV display on escalators and painting companies' logos on the roof of buildings, etc. If you visit the downtown area, you will see a lot of towers with media companies, as well. Of course, not to mention that Chicago is famous for its arts, architecture and music!

Lastly, I do have a disclaimer here though, the ones listed are really some key findings for someone who actually live in Norridge, the northwest suburb, but not the actual downtown area. I could possibly add in more, or even amend some of the captioned descriptions about the city.

posted by CalvinCK @ 9:48 PM