Making Wicker Park "Gritty" Again

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 29, 2010 5:20PM

Hey, once upon a time, Wicker Park didn't look exactly like Lincoln Park. Just 15 years ago, artists and students were just beginning to push most of the families that had lived there for years out of the area, people did drugs involving needles in bathroom stalls, and if you stumbled home after last call from The Blue Note -- then located on Armitage -- you stood a good chance of getting mugged. Good times, indeed.

Over the years, the artists got pushed out by the yuppies, property values soared, coffeehouses closed down and the Real World moved in, banks appeared on every corner and -- this was actually a positive development -- storefronts long vacant finally held thriving businesses. It's called "gentrification" and it happens, no matter how much you whine and moan and bitch about the passing of "the good old days."

Well, the Tribune reports that it now appears as if the Wicker Park/Bucktown area is using tax revenue to try and return some of the "grittiness" to the area. But we're not so sure how, "increasing bicycle parking, encouraging public transportation by placing CTA bus tracker screens in 10 businesses, including Red Hen, and creating mini-recreational areas on dead-end streets" is bringing the grittiness back. In our opinion, that seems to be making Wicker park even more like Lincoln Park than it already is! Oh, maybe it's the commissioning of a couple murals to be display in the few vacant storefronts left? Is that "gritty?" Seems more like creating a Wicker Park Zoo where artists are on display for the public to ooh and ahh at.

That's gritty, yeah.