Here's What People Who Ditch Chicago For New York Miss Most
By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 13, 2016 3:00PM
Last week, we put out a call for stories from people who made the move from Chicago to New York, and we got a novel's worth of replies. Below, we've rounded up readers' most interesting, heartfelt and caps-lock-y thoughts on why they left, how they feel New York surpasses Chicago (ugh), and what they miss about Chicago (a lot!). We'll let the ex-Chicagoans take it from here.
WHY THEY LEFT CHICAGO
Drew, 28: “I didn't have much of an education beyond high school, and I felt very limited by the options available to me in Chicago. Also, in my opinion, Chicago was not as progressive as I would have liked as a gay man and a liberal.”
Grayson, 32: “I moved to New York for a girl. We got married this past summer.”
Lauren, 35: “When I found out that New York was the only city that was bigger than Chicago, I wanted to go there. (Sorry LA, I love you, but you are a group of suburbs.)”
Bob, 28: “I work in media, and the fact of the matter is, New York has so many more opportunities in that field than Chicago. There are many media companies in New York that aren't going out of business or in financial ruin.”
WHAT THEY LIKE BETTER IN NEW YORK
The freedom
Katie, 28: “E.B. White said, ‘On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.’ And this feels distinctly true. By the token of near-constant anonymity and ability to drift into a crowd, I feel empowered to make bolder choices. No one is looking and no one cares.”
The music scene
Gina, 33: “I am a person that obsessively follows bands and music, so it's nice to live in the usual stop for rare performances and one-offs, instead of swearing at my computer in Lakeview realizing I can't fly across the country 50 times a year to see Björk play residencies or Michael C. Hall do a one-night-only performance of Radiohead covers.”
The walkable layout
Sebastian, 41: “New York is much more walkable. You can walk for hours, all the way from Brooklyn to Central Park, and never stop having cool shit to look at.”
Bob, 28: “In Chicago, I would rarely if ever walk for more than 30 minutes at a time. Now I do it at least like once per day. “
The tolerance
Alyson, 37: “Being out and open with my partner (we are two very feminine women) in NYC is much more comfortable here than it ever was in Chicago, aside from being in Andersonville or Boystown. Having children here seems better to both of us because there are so many other families that look like just like us and no one bats an eye at them.”
The weather
Ruella, 30: “Four seasons! Lighter jackets in March!”
Tina, 39: “More sunny days here!”
Phillip, 23: “Winters are reasonably tolerable in New York. It's seriously the reason why I moved. Winter is a frigid bitch in Chicago and doesn't end until May.”
The “energy”
Eight separate people: “Energy”
The integration
Alyson, 37: “I will never forget taking the subway when we first moved here in rush hour and seeing a lot of older black men. Seeing older black men was not something I was used to in Chicago, and that is extremely sad for too many reasons.”
Sebastian, 41: “New York City feels a lot less segregated than Chicago.”
Gina, 33: “At any given moment, I will be sharing a train car or sidewalk with people from 20 different countries and backgrounds.”
The transit
Katherine, 33: “Better (but dirtier) subway system.”
Bob, 28: “You can go east to west AND north to south on public transit in New York.”
Tina, 39: “Waiting for the train in the winter is WAY better when you're underground”
Rob, 34: “I recently came back to Chicago for a wedding. The first time I used the Blue Line during this trip I was coming down the stairs to get to the platform, and as I was thinking to myself how much cleaner the subway stations are in Chicago, I nearly stepped in a huge pile of feces.”
The style
Tina, 39: “If I had a dollar for every fucking North Face fleece I saw in Chicago, I could actually afford to OWN in New York. People put more effort into personal presentation in New York.”
The thin people, if you care about that?
Morgan, 25: “Everyone is skinny in New York.”
The produce
Tina, 39: “Don't get me started on the farmer's markets. The heirloom tomatoes will make you shit yourself.”
The safety
Alyson, 37: “I have never felt unsafe here in NYC, ever.”
Quintin: “In New York, I don't feel like I'm going to get murdered when I go to unfamiliar neighborhoods.”
Tim, 26: “On three different occasions someone had someone try to mug me in my last two months in Chicago.”
WHAT THEY MISS ABOUT CHICAGO
Lake Michigan
Gina, 33: “That lake creates so much air and space—I had no idea how important it was to my daily sanity until I left.”
Tom, 30: “Lake Fucking Michigan.”
The transit
Hayley, 23: “I feel like I'm cattle on its way to be slaughtered when I take the subway in New York.”
Alleys
Alex, 25: “The alleys for garbage,” which are way better than just "piling up smelly bags on the sidewalks of NYC.”
Hayley, 23: “In New York there are piles of garbage five feet high on the sidewalk.”
The skyline
Lauren, 35: “The perfect skyline, complete with a vagina.”
The sidewalks
Lauren, 35: “Walking on sidewalks without hate in my heart."
Gina, 33: “Being able to walk on a sidewalk without constantly bumping into people”
Tom, 30: “SPACE on the sidewalk”
The chill people
Garrett, 23: “People tell me all the time 'You're so Midwestern!'—like, does that have to be a bad thing? Not sorry I care about other people's feelings, sometimes more than my own. I miss being surrounded by people like that.”
Alyson, 37: “Not a day goes by when we don't talk about missing our friends: good hearted, funny, not so serious Midwesterners. Here in NYC, we are surrounded by Type A personalities.”
Kevin, 30: “There's an authenticity and lack of pretense to Chicagoans that I can appreciate.”
Gina, 33: “Chicagoans tend to be humble and hardworking.”
The Mexican food
Rob, 34: “It is nearly impossible to find good, cheap Mexican food in New York. Virtually any authentic place you go to in Chicago is at worst mediocre. In New York you have to scour the boroughs just to find the mediocre.”
Timothy, 35: “Late night burritos. Sadly, the drunk food in NYC is pizza, and it's near impossible to get good drunk Mexican after hours. I miss drunk burritos so much.”
The sports
Matthew, 25: “Being able to root for the Bears, Blackhawks, and Sox with strangers.”
Mike, 27: “I really miss the White Sox and Cubbies, especially this season. I used to go out and see a game at either park up to three or four times a week. I've only been to one game so far in New York. It's not as convenient and inexpensive as it is in Chicago.”
Bob, 28: “Almost every bar in Chicago has a TV and will put the game on if asked. Only sports bars have TVs in New York, for the most part, and they're few and far between. (And frequented by finance bros.)”
Two different people: “Tamale guy.”
The pizza
Rob, 34: “I will never understand New Yorkers' claim to great pizza. There are really good pizza places to be found, but they're few and far between. The average pizza is bushit. Every time I visit back home I make sure to get some good Chicago thin crust. “
Dhaval, 32: “I miss my deep dish pizza from Lou's.”
The spacious gay bars
Drew, 28: “I have broad shoulders which makes it next to impossible to physically get through the tiny, crowded gay bars they have in New York. ('I don't care if Madonna comes here sometimes, I can't take it!')"
The cost of living
Alyson, 37: “NYC is INSANE!!! There is so much money here and for what we paid for our 1500 square feet in downtown Manhattan, we'd have a single family house in Lincoln Park.”
Katherine, 33: “In Chicago I had WAY cheaper rent in a full-service building that didn't charge for extras like gym.”
Grayson, 32: “New York is for bankers, heirs of estates, and people whose parents were able to buy brownstones in Fort Greene before the neighborhood was gentrified.”
Ruella, 30: “My studio in Lakeview was cheaper than my bedroom in a five-person share in Brooklyn!”
The beer and bar scene
Bob, 28: “Good beer in New York isn't nearly as plentiful as it is in Chicago, and it's way more expensive. It's also perfectly fine to get plastered any night of the week in Chicago.”
Katherine, 33: “Chicago has so many fun bars that aren't a mob scene,” like Happy Village, California Clipper, Hopleaf, Map Room, Old Town Ale House.
Ricky, 25: “The Midwest truly has the best beers”
The biking
Mike, 27: “Biking on any New York street is a deadly free-for-all.”
The dating scene
Ashley, 29: “What can I say? I have a soft spot for the broad, beardy boys who love The Bears and their ma. There also seem to be more instances of actual relationships in Chicago, whereas New York feels like a constant competition to see who can be most detached in an effort to eventually find 'someone better' than they're currently with.”
The Art Institute
Susie, 49: “The Art Institute was my favorite place to go for exhibits and just to walk around where it was quiet.”
DO THEY REGRET THE MOVE?
Lauren, 35: “Not at all, but I'm Chi 'til I die.”
Rob, 34: “We will most definitely move back to Chicago eventually, but for the time being I get to experience the second greatest city in the US.”
Mike, 27: “ Absolutely not. I am my best self in New York."
Gina, 33: “New York offers immense employment opportunities and can at times be a very fun place to live—but it's certainly not a city in which I can reside forever and I very much consider it a temporary place for me. Chicago is home.”
Timothy, 35: “My career and life are pretty awesome right now. But, if someone waved a magic wand and said I could have the same career opportunities in chicago as I do in NYC, I’d move back in a heartbeat.”
Hayley, 23: “Without question, I will move back to Chicago at some point and stay there.”
Katie, 28: “I miss Chicago, but when I've gone back I know that this was the right move. Chicago feels small in a way it never felt before I left.”
Responses were lightly edited for clarity.