When @85bears46 says that it can take 40 minutes to get downtown by train or bus (post #1), he must be talking about the CTA “L” or non-express buses (available at rush hour). The CTA can get you most anywhere in the city, although a bit slowly. But you can catch a Metra train at the UChicago stop next to campus that can have you at the end-of-the-line Millennium Park Station in as little as 16-18 minutes! This is Michigan Avenue, lakefront, Chicago River and downtown all rolled into one. Get off a stop early and you are at the Art Museum, the historic Auditorium Theater and a short walk to the Museum Campus consisting of the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Adler Planetarium. All the employment possibilities of downtown Chicago (see @HydeSnark’s post, above) can be easily accessed from these two stations. Not to mention Soldier Field, where the '85 Bears themselves made Chicagoland proud! So downtown can be easily and quickly accessed from campus, albeit around a time table since the Metra trains run according to a published schedule.
Well, our respective perceptions might be similarly relevant to this discussion if you were thinking of attending college in Boston. But you’re not, right?
You’re responding to someone who’s thinking of attending college in Chicago but isn’t sure he likes Chicago with the assertion “well I don’t like Boston.”
Um, ok.
@boringusername wrote “All good. Let’s drop the Chicago thing.”
It is your thread, but it is titled “City of Chicago” in the “University of Chicago” cafe. Difficult to just drop “Chicago” from the conversation. UChicago has easy access to the best the city has to offer. Though it will take longer to get to Wrigley Field than Sox Park, and the north side has the best ball team! Boston is a fine town as well, though Yankee sullenness is celebrated by Bostonians themselves at Durgin-Park Restaurant where the servers are encouraged to exhibit rudeness and sullenness to all the customers. That didn’t happen by chance. Boston is known for it … and no doubt you had a keen eye out for it… and knew it when your saw it on your stroll around Chicago. The architecture around the Loop, and the size and grandeur of the Chicago Lakefront at Millennium/Grant Park compares quite favorably with the parks and Charles River of Boston.
Well, BUN, you also got asked where you went when you visited Chicago, because posters don’t know what experiences prompted certain impressions. Your response was basically “compared to Manhattan and Boston.” Since that’s a frame of reference most (if not all) of the posters here seem to share, it (a) didn’t help much in locating the source of your impressions/the disagreement and (b) it, not unpredictably, led to comments about Boston and Manhattan.
I don’t think you laid out the “reasoning” behind your impressions (not that there needs to be reasoning – no accounting for taste) or even the experiences that prompted your characterizations (Chiraq, grimy senescence, enervated), so perhaps you’ve misjudged your own agency wrt establishing the tone of this discussion.
Chicago has great food, it’s a city of neighborhoods, with lots of good theater and music, it has kept its waterfront public, it still has working class residents and viable mom-and-pop businesses, though if you want skyscrapers and international luxury brands, it’s got that too. I like (and my college student-aged kid loves) that it’s a relatively affordable city and has viable public transit. Great museums in US cities were generally built more than a century ago so that’s par for the course rather than a sign of stagnation. Art Institute has added a new wing and MCA built its museum in the past 20 years. I’m not a sports fan myself but if you are, you’ll certainly find others, LOL! If you’re into architecture or history, AIA, CHS, and the Newberry Library have interesting programming.
Re Hyde Park itself, some of its pleasures are relatively hidden from a first-time visitor. Cafes are often in other buildings and may not have a streetfront presence. Check out Plein Air in the Seminary Co-op if you haven’t already. There are multiple bookstores. While Chicago seems under-movied to me, you’ve got doc films on campus (which would certainly keep me busy (and downtown there’s the Gene Siskel Film Center at SAIC). Promontory Point is a nice place to picnic and, if you run or cycle, the lakefront trails are good (and there’s a convenient bikeshare stand on 55th).
Long story short, there plenty to love and lots to do in Chicago if UChicago is where you want to go for college. Chicago may never become your favorite city and it certainly doesn’t have to be for it to be a fun and interesting place to go to school.
exacademic Most helpful reply yet. Thanks.
Sam-I-am yes the waterfront is truly breathtaking. Thanks for your perspective, as well.
Boston can be brusque, for sure. But sullen? Never seen that. I wish I could put my finger on it, but I picked up a “Tale of Two Cities” vibe in Chicago unlike anything conveyed by the urban stratigraphy of other cities I’ve known.
Lol. This entire conversation reminds me of the storm that Jon Stewart generated when he went after the revered Chicago deep dish pizza and compared it unfavorably to “New York Pizza”
Deep dish “pizza” is not pizza: It’s tomato pie.
That’s the final straw, @boringusername. Now you are insulting Chicago Pizza? I guess you will now edit that post, as you have been doing your other posts after people respond. Just go to Sarah Lawrence College. It really is a fine school. It seems that Chicago is not a place that you would be comfortable living for 4 years.
I don’t edit my posts after people have responded: The time limit prevents me from doing so. The reason I edit my posts at all is that my thumbs are clumsy (I’m thumbing this out on an iPhone 4s with a cracked screen) and I hate typos, which I always seem to see only after-the-fact.
As for Chicago Tomato Pie, it’s delicious. Just don’t call it pizza.
@boringusername you must have missed the point of “choosing over Cambridge” when you referred to a “dog” ??? To be clear, we chose Hyde Park over two peer Universities in Cambridge, MA for many reasons including the city.
On any other forum, I would discount your newly created account characterizing “Chirac” as a common troll.
With all respect, I flat out don’t believe that someone would choose UChicago over Harvard and MIT, in part, because s/he preferred the South Side of Chicago over Cambridge.
There certainly could be reasons to choose UChicago over either institution, but that can’t possibly be one of them.
Well, I suppose anything is possible, but it strains credulity. In fact, I’ve just shared your post with two other people and we’re now doubling over in helpless laughter.
As for your last paragraph…I’m unable to decipher it.
@Sam-I-Am I was trying to be conservative in estimating the time from Hyde Park to downtown. I include the time the student has to walk from South Campus to 59th Street and then wait a few minutes for the train to arrive. Yes, the actual travel time between 59th Street Station and Millennium Station is only 21 minutes.
To OP I repeat my advice: if you think the City of Chicago is “Chiraq”, a sullen and sad place, then I strongly recommend you to decline the admission offer from the U of C. I am quite sure you are an accomplished young person with lots of offer from other elite universities. There is no reason for you to suffer for 4 years in a city that you deem unworthy. In the meantime, literally there are thousands of other eager and happy students more than willing to take your spot at U of C.
Chicago is a world class city with Midwest flavor. I would never forget my first CSO concert or my first Cubs game. For sure she is not Boston or NYC. And yet neither is SF or LA. Each city has its own charm and excitement. You may fall in love with one and hate another. It is your choice. I am not trying to change your mind. I think you need to find a place that fit your own preference.
“Chiraq” is not a dysphemism I coined. I’m just reading stuff. And I hardly think Chicago “unworthy.” I can’t imagine what would constitute “unworthy” in this context.
It just wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s all. But, again, I’ll go back.
I just spent the weekend in Chicago celebrating my birthday with my wife and friends.
We spent the entire day and a half in the South Loop, checking out the Bean and the beautiful park it’s in, eating outstanding food at places like Giordano’s and 11 City Diner, and going to see “Hedwig…” at the Oriental Theater. It was awesome.
This is not to say that you can’t do similar things or eat similarly good food in other cities – though where you’d get stuffed pizza to match Giordano’s or a reuben to match the one at 11 City in another city, I don’t know… maybe Katz’s in NYC for the latter – but Chicago is a world city and truly one of America’s best. (I have spent time in LA, San Diego, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, Denver, DFW, NYC, the Twin Cities, St.Louis, Nashville and DC among other cities, for comparison.) The city of Chicago shouldn’t be a negative point when considering schools in Chicago; it should be seen as a positive.
I lived in the city for a year in the Lakeview section and the north side has its charms also.
There are rough areas in Chicago, like there are in any other city… but the impressive architecture, parks and sights, and entertainment/cultural opportunities make it an impressive city overall – the good outweighs the bad, IMO. (though if you decide to live there, get ready to be taxed heavily… hehe)
@boringusername your comprehension is extremely selective.
Again best of luck.
If someone dislikes the City of Chicago, it will be difficult to have a good college experience at UChicago or any other college in the metro area. Its location in a large city is one of differentiating points of UChicago over schools located in more rural or smaller cities, just like being in sunny California is one of the differentiating aspects of Stanford over UChicago, HYPM and many other east coast schools.
I went to visit Stanford and couldn’t stand it. Like going to college at a country club. And I’ve caddied at country clubs. They’re heinous places. Wouldn’t want to go to college in one.
Weather monotony is not my thing, either.
If it were a choice between Palo Alto and Chicago, I would choose Chicago. But everybody says I’m an eccentric. Which is one reason why people said I’d like UChicago.
Oops, it’s CAF rather than (maybe in addition to) AIA that sponsors some of the cool architectural stuff e.g. https://www.architecture.org/experience-caf/programs-events/detail/open-house-chicago/
I don’t get preferring Hyde Park to Cambridge as a college neighborhood either; I do get a preference for Chicago over Boston – maybe that’s what fbs meant. And I think you actually can have a good college experience in a city you don’t really like. But then I taught at Hopkins, LOL! (Personally, I like Baltimore, but many undergrads seemed to hate it.)
@exacademic you are correct.