Hmmm, strange. It's about $700 per month for a studio in Lakeview in Chicago, Lakeview being a desirable/hipster/white professional neighborhood. Probably 90% of Chicago is cheaper than Lakeview. So ... Chicago's % of income spent on rent is the same as New York and San Francisco? Say what? That seems to be implying a pretty terrible level of income for Chicagoans, because surely the rent bills are massively different.
San Francisco median household income is $71k, New York is $50k, Chicago is $45k. So that doesn't really get at it, especially for New York.
It's been over a decade, but I used to live in a studio at Clark and Montrose. Luckily for me, my landlord considered it Uptown. If he'd've got it into his head that we were Wrigleyville, I would've had to move. I lived on the second floor looking northwards over an alley and the backsides of Montrose Ave. buildings. Every ********ing night game, at least one, sometimes as many as four, idiot suburbanites would park an SUV under the "No Parking" sign on the wall. Inevitably it (often they) would be towed, so between midnight and 2:30 I could count on hearing drunken morons lamenting their fate. The best night was when three groups got there at the same time after the bars closed and proceeded to get in a fight over whose vehicle had actually been parked there. Took multiple cop cars to clear that one up.
A few months ago an assistant district attorney got herself into trouble by wandering drunk into a Wrigleyville shop, abusing the staff and other patrons, then eventually biting somebody in the leg (!). The press asked the shop owner about this incident. He said, "I knew she was trouble when she opened the door. I've owned this store since 1986. I've seen it all." His litany of riff raff concluded with "drunken Cubs fans." Nice final touch, that.
My last couple of years in Chicago I lived in a studio at Wilson and Damen. No problems with drunken Cubs fans waking me up. However, one morning when I was doing my laundry in a laundry mat, I decided I wanted a cup of coffee and a muffin. The coffeeshop wasn't open, so I went to the Dunkin Donuts on Foster. Cop cars filled the parking lot, so I thought, great, a line. Turns out they were working. The staff was efficient, but they all looked stricken...not like they'd just been robbed, though. More like they'd seen something they wish they hadn't. Well, when I caught the WGN news at noon, I found out why. Some guy decided he wanted cream in his coffee, only not in the way that's usually intended. The guy stepped back, openned his trench coat, and proceeded to whack off into the cup. Not sure how long it took him, but according to WGN, police were called about 40 minutes before I got there. Luckily for me, it was a slow enough news day that they had the story on for the 9:00 newscast. Oh, for a recording of Jackie Bang setting up the reporter and transitioning to the next story when the clip finished.
Jackie Bang, good name for that lady as I recall. Speaking of Chicago sex deviants, Maine West high school soccer in trouble these days. Apparently it's a tradition that the upperclassmen would sodomize freshmen who made the Varsity squad. Classy tradition that.
you wouldn't want those kids growing up wondering why they were never sodomized by the upperclassmen. wondering if it was because they weren't good enough to be sodomized. that would just create all kinds of psychological issues and feelings of inadequacies later on in life, you see.
Bing tells me it's Jackie Bange. But since it shouldn't be my mistake stands. Speaking of traditions, a college rugby team I played on had a tradition that I personally and singlehandedly killed off by refusing to do it. I don't think team harmony was destroyed because we didn't get drunk, then naked, then form a line, then reach between the leg of the guy in front of us, then grab said guy's wang while some other guy grabbed yours, then form a circle while chanting the team's pregame chant and walking in circles. And a quick news search has me saying "holy shit" about Maine West.
at the end of the 80's we were paying $595/mo. for a little 1BR in the tenderloin of SF. when my wife got a better job we went looking in nicer neighborhoods w/ $750 as a budget and only got to look at hovels, so we stayed in the 'loin... the apartment was surprisingly, even shockingly nice on the inside, so we decided it was worth stepping over a couple of winos to get into the building. out of curiosity i just did a little search and found a nearly identical place for rent for $1600. if the discrepancies 1) between WYS and WYG that existed in those between the classifieds and reality and 2) between the TL and hipster haven are both still operative, it means that pretty things after alles gut schön und wahr in the city have to shell out between $2000 and $2500 a month for nothing special. one of the things that keeps SF so hip is that no mundane family element is ever present in the population. it's all young couples and singles and not so young arty types at the bottom, lifestyles of the rich and famous at the top, and a spectrum of more or less arty and/or fabulously well-to-do in between.
They're for MSAs. Also, the report looks at data between 2006 and 2010, so the places hit hardest by the real estate bust will show up as expensive.
Hardened NY'ers walk right by like they're a part of the scenery. That's what made the photo so stunning. And apparently the man who got pushed on the tracks was arguing with what appeared to be a psycho. Rule #2 - stay away from the nuts as best you can and stand in the middle of the platform. Do not engage them.
That front page is kind of a low even by NY Post's standards. Also: The platform is deceptively high. Your best bet - depending on the station - is to lie flat or go under the platform (if there's room).
Actually, your best bet is to run to the end of the platform opposite where the train is coming. Even if you don't make it all the way, it gives more time for the train to stop.
4 sure, next step is gun violence and that person winning NWSL or WNBA MVP the same year. Come on ladies, smash that glass ceiling.