Miscellaneous and completely random brain farts about Chicago

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

15. Back to my discussion about State Street .... I drove down it today and went several blocks south of the library this time. And even the "nicer" parts of it as you get toward the river were really kinda ... meh. Clearly past its heyday. I also noticed a Macy's there which I didn't notice yesterday (even though I walked right past it). It looks like a street which was a bustling place back in the heyday of downtown shopping districts (like, prior to WWII) and has been struggling since. It occurred to me that maybe the Magnificent Mile has sucked a lot of its life out of it. The Magnificent Mile was bustling and thriving with all kinds of upscale stores and huge crowds even on a weekday night, while State Street was ... bleh. Maybe State Street was more of an ordinary, workaday shopping street (hence the Macy's, which used to be Marshall Fields I think?), while the Mag Mile was always the upscale, specialty street. Well, maybe in-city shopping has become more upscale and less workaday over the decades, so the ordinary, workaday shopping areas went downhill while the upscale areas thrived. Plus you get the shopping centers that have the Nordstrom and Bloomingdales and that gives you even more fancy places to put a store, so basically everything gravitates to the upscale Magnificent Mile and State Street goes bleh. Correct me if I'm wrong.

State Street to the South of the library had a…different sort of heyday.

It was one of the Skid Rows of Chicago.

But on the whole, State Street used to be full of discount retailers and department stores at its peak. Not so much luxury. Magnificent Mile was built with more tourism in mind from the start.

But for books and movies, the sleazier nature of State Street even from long ago meant it was more useful as a setting for storytelling than Michigan Ave.




1933 - Horrendous South State Where Burlesque Shows and Midget Radios


1944 - 600 South State


1959 - State and Jackson


1961 - 600 South State


1978 - 400 South State


1982 - 400 South State


1951 - State Street Map

[James Bond Agent 007]

20. The street name signs leave something to be desired. A whole ton of them are located in hard-to-notice spots on the street corners and are pretty small. A lot of the time I was driving I couldn't tell what street I was on because I couldn't manage to read most of the street signs. And at night it's practically impossible to read most of them. Elsewhere I've seen street signs that are this, like, glow-in-the-dark green which would be really handy here. Granted, this is an issue in a lot of cities, but anyway ... I was just driving north on Michigan Ave at night just past the bridge and wanted to make a left. I saw a street which looked like a big street so I slowed down and started signaling left. It looked like a street I could go on. But then somebody behind me started beeping at me and then I looked closer and ... oh, it's a one-way street going the other way. Well, I couldn't even see any one-way or do-not-enter signs. In fact I couldn't see a damn sign of any kind at all. Glow-in-the-dark signs would be real nice.

[James Bond Agent 007]

21. Almost forgot ... does anyone besides me think Abe Lincoln would have been embarrassed to have all this stuff named after him?

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

13. Related to #11, parts of that area appeared to be as white as ... I dunno, Minnesota or something. Maybe even North Dakota. Just an observation. At one point I stopped in this yuppie/hipster boutique grocery store about a half-mile south of Wrigley to get a cup of coffee, and while there must have been 200 or so people in the store, I think there was maybe 5 non-white people. Forget the name of the place and I can't seem to find it on Google maps. But as far as I can tell most of that area up there was kinda like that. Or at least the majority of it.

I finally found on Google maps where this grocery store was. It's this one here. I guess it's a little farther south from Wrigley than I remembered.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

21. Almost forgot ... does anyone besides me think Abe Lincoln would have been embarrassed to have all this stuff named after him?

Lincoln Avenue (one of the Northside's most prominent diagonal streets)
Lincoln Park (the neighborhood, with Lincoln Ave as one of its main arteries)
Lincoln Park (the park, along the lake and adjacent to the neighborhood))
Lincoln Park Zoo (inside said park)
Lincoln Square (another neighborhood a little further up Lincoln Ave and centered around the street)


That doesn't seem too egregious for what is likely the most famous person in all of IL's history.

And really, they're all connected by Lincoln Avenue.

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I finally found on Google maps where this grocery store was. It's this one here. I guess it's a little farther south from Wrigley than I remembered.

That's just south of diversey, so technically in the Lincoln Park Community Area.

Lincoln park is a little bit whiter than Lakeview, but generally pretty similar:

White - 78.7%
Black - 4.9%
Hispanic - 6.2%
Asian - 7.2%
Other - 3.00%

[Steely Dan]

Anyway, here's a good tract level demographic map of Chicago.

2000 is on the left, 2020 is on the right.

The areas of the Northside over 75% white are really centered on Lincoln Park(7), Lakeview(6), and North Center(5).

Also interesting to note that there is no longer a single tract anywhere in the city that is over 90% white anymore.

[/QUOTE]

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

21. Almost forgot ... does anyone besides me think Abe Lincoln would have been embarrassed to have all this stuff named after him?

The people of Illinois were naming stuff after Lincoln before he was even president.

His apocryphal answer: “You better not do that, for I never knew anything named Lincoln that amounted to much…”

[James Bond Agent 007]

22. I think I spent 3-4 hours exploring the Univ of Chicago/Hyde Park/Museum of S&I area today. I think that might be my favorite part of the city I've seen. It's got this really nice, old college town vibe to it. Almost seems like a separate city unto itself.

23. There is a building off of W Cermak just west of I-90 that looks just like the building in Seattle that now houses Starbucks' world headquarters. The one in Seattle used to be a Sears building, I'm guessing the one here also used to be the same.

24. I also visited the IIT campus. Those Mies van der Rohe (or is it Phillip Johnson?) midcentury modern buildings are really showing their age. And in a completely, utterly and totally random observation, I noticed there were a lot of squirrels on that campus. I wondered about these squirrels. In a place like that the population must be very reproductively isolated - it's not like there's places they can go to mingle with other populations of squirrels to mix up their gene pool ... it's surrounded by busy streets, railroads and whatnot. I wonder how they even got there in the first place? Maybe the descendants of the original squirrel population from back in the days when it was woods and prairie and farms, and they just hung around as it got developed? I really wonder if the squirrel population there is getting really inbred.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I wondered about these squirrels. In a place like that the population must be very reproductively isolated - it's not like there's places they can go to mingle with other populations of squirrels to mix up their gene pool ... it's surrounded by busy streets, railroads and whatnot. I wonder how they even got there in the first place? Maybe the descendants of the original squirrel population from back in the days when it was woods and prairie and farms, and they just hung around as it got developed? I really wonder if the squirrel population there is getting really inbred.

They should be genetically normal.

I mentioned before that Chicago wildlife uses the railroad easements and parkways to travel around the city. So the squirrels are very comfortable and mobile.

The two main squirrel populations are actually split by neighborhood income.

Gray squirrels are timid and prefer sedate wealthy neighborhoods, while Fox Squirrels are bolder and more comfortable with stray cats and outdoor dogs that are common in poor neighborhoods


https://youtu.be/95mrlmNpIEk?si=cJM_dtKpl2OgqjmC

Here’s a map of some Coyote territory to help visualize what some of the popular wildlife corridors are.

[James Bond Agent 007]

25. How does the street parking thing work? Three times so far I've parked in a street parking space and used those little kiosks to pay for my space. You enter your license plate # and then pay with a credit card. It doesn't spit out anything to put in your windshield, or anything like that. How do they enforce that? Do they have meter maids who scan the license plates of the parked cars and then check if it's in their system? Or something? If that's the case I wonder about it, because when I was entering my license plate # I could find no 'space' character on the keyboard and had to enter my license plate number all jammed together. Maybe that doesn't matter and they can tell anyway?

In Kansas City, street parking is free on the weekends so I've never actually had to use the city parking meters, except maybe a couple times and in those cases it's more like a regular parking meter and you put something in your windshield.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

They should be genetically normal.

I mentioned before that Chicago wildlife uses the railroad easements and parkways to travel around the city. So the squirrels are very comfortable and mobile.

You see, in this case I'm not really sure about that. Check out the area on an aerial photo:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8341521,-87.6273919,747m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

There is the freeway to the west, and everywhere to the north, south and east are busy roads. Some animals might be able to navigate those with difficulty (and high mortality) but squirrels are just too small and aren't going to want to venture too far anyway. A population of squirrels like that just has to be reproductively isolated.

The two main squirrel populations are actually split by neighborhood income.

Gray squirrels are timid and prefer sedate wealthy neighborhoods, while Fox Squirrels are bolder and more comfortable with stray cats and outdoor dogs that are common in poor neighborhoods


https://youtu.be/95mrlmNpIEk?si=cJM_dtKpl2OgqjmC

I actually think you have it backwards: Gray squirrels are the really common ones you see everywhere, including the aforementioned urban ones. Fox squirrels are much larger and live only in reasonably wooded and forested areas. We have Fox squirrels in KC as well but you only see them where there are some sizeable woods or forested areas.

[Steely Dan]

Squirrels are an extremely common fixture seen all across "neighborhood Chicago".

I very highly doubt that any population of them here is genetically isolated.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

You see, in this case I'm not really sure about that. Check out the area on an aerial photo:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8341521,-87.6273919,747m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

There is the freeway to the west, and everywhere to the north, south and east are busy roads. Some animals might be able to navigate those with difficulty (and high mortality) but squirrels are just too small and aren't going to want to venture too far anyway. A population of squirrels like that just has to be reproductively isolated.

Look closer.

The railroad easement easement runs right alongside the IIT campus and crosses over to the Lakeside through South Loop.

There are other passages for bolder animals during the quieter morning hours. And Chicago wildlife selects for boldness.

I actually think you have it backwards: Gray squirrels are the really common ones you see everywhere, including the aforementioned urban ones. Fox squirrels are much larger and live only in reasonably wooded and forested areas. We have Fox squirrels in KC as well but you only see them where there are some sizeable woods or forested areas.

Nope, that’s the pattern in Chicago.

In many areas, gray squirrels outcompete fox squirrels for nests and food resources, but they do try their best to avoid predator-dense areas like woods and forests.

Gray squirrels perceive many parts of the South and West side as being full of stray cats and coyotes, so the Fox squirrels are predominant.

[James Bond Agent 007]

^
Yeah, but in-between those strips of green along the freeway, they'd have to cross dozens of wide, busy roads. They would either have to pass under something like this or cross a road like this, both of which are doable (though dangerous) for larger animals like coyotes or raccoons, but for squirrels that's a no-go. Squirrels don't walk or run that fast and those roads are too wide and intimidating for them. 99.99% of any that tried it would get splat.

I suspect that in large urban areas like Chicago, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of small sub-populations of squirrels that are reproductively isolated.

Nope, that’s the pattern in Chicago.

In many areas, gray squirrels outcompete fox squirrels for nests and food resources, but they do try their best to avoid predator-dense areas like woods and forests.

Gray squirrels perceive many parts of the South and West side as being full of stray cats and coyotes, so the Fox squirrels are predominant.

Well, that would be pretty unusual, since Fox squirrels shy away from more built-up areas. I should note that when I was at the Univ of Chicago today there were tons of gray squirrels on the campus and surrounding neighborhoods. I didn't see a single Fox squirrel.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I suspect that in large urban areas like Chicago, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of small sub-populations of squirrels that are reproductively isolated.

As I said earlier, I very highly doubt it.

Crossing a big 4 lane city street at rush hour might be a challenge for a squirrel, but it'd be no sweat at 5:00am.

Besides, those little rascals can always use utility wires to get cross just about any barrier, and there are like 8 billion miles of utility wire runs coursing ALL over Chicago.

Which is probably why you see squirrels ALL over Chicago.


The notion that "pockets" of squirrels in the city would be genetically isolated from each other seems absurd to me.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I have indeed seen squirrels traverse overhead power lines, but from looking at the streets around IIT, the wider streets don't even have any overhead power lines:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8353143,...eX8xG---NdQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
^ Any squirrel that tries to cross that road is going to get hit. Maybe on a rare occasion one can be successful at 5 in the morning, but that's going to be extremely rare. Most squirrels wouldn't even bother trying. A street like that is basically an impenetrable barrier for a squirrel.

Maybe some cross the streets in spots using the railroad tracks.

However, all of the options for crossing streets around a place like IIT are so precarious, any attempts by any squirrels to do so are only very rarely going to be successful.

As I said before, I suspect that the squirrel populations that are there are descendants of the squirrels that were in that same area, like, 200 years ago. 200 years ago the area around IIT was just some farms, prairies and forests, populated by lots of happy squirrels. Gradually it got built over, but since gray squirrels are very adaptable, they just adapted to the changes in the landscape and kept breeding as the landscape changed. You didn't need squirrels coming there from any surrounding areas, the ones that are there are just the descendants of the squirrels that were there before civilization came by.

[bnk]

Growing up in the NW suburbs of Chicago we had grey squirrels and they are really wild and hard to approach. I knew old tyme eastern Europeans DP's that used to shoot and eat them on some of our land. I personally never tried it or wanted to try eating one.

I never seen a red squirrel until I got to Iowa.


Than on Drake campus we had very gregarious big red squirrels that would literally eat out of your hand.


We also had the largest group of crows that I ever seen congregate in the city in my life, like 10's of thousands of them, it was creepy sometimes. Worthy of Hitchcock's movie "The Birds". lol. [1] • Video Link now multiply that by a thousand.

I never seen a grey squirrel on campus, I have no Idea how they compete with each other and how they take over an area. But I have not seen both of them

mixed in the same area.

But the big red ones on campus loved peanut M and M's

Made them really obese really. It got so bad we were advised not to feed them but its hard when they are used to it and right at you window regardless of the level of the dorm in the morning.



Newer news but it was going on in the 80's big time. So much corn around Des Moines its insane, like downstate Illinois but worse because they grow less soybeans.





[1] Crows flock to downtown Des Moines
United Press InternationalUNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL | Friday, Feb. 18, 2005 12:00 a.m.


Flocks of American crows have made their winter home in central Iowa towns and cities, causing big problems for pedestrians, the Des Moines Register said.

Thousands of noisy crows feed in farm fields and landfills during the day then head to town...




https://archive.triblive.com/news/crows-flock-to-downtown-des-moines/


Also BTW the Des Moines Register in the last century was a highly respected newspaper, I have no idea what they are like now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Des_Moines_Register

"only The New York Times had won more Pulitzer Prizes for national reporting."

[James Bond Agent 007]

When I was in the Univ of Chicago quadrangle I even took a couple pics of the squirrels, they were definitely gray squirrels. Lots of them, too.

I have seen red squirrels on the campus of Kansas State University, but that's in Manhattan, KS which isn't a huge city and is in the middle of a large, rural, farming area with some woods here and there.

Closer to KC the only place I've seen red squirrels are in areas with more woods and forests.

[James Bond Agent 007]

BTW are we talking about Red squirrels or Fox squirrels? I actually meant Fox squirrels when I was talking about the ones around KC.

Red squirrels are a Eurasian species. Have they been introduced to the Chicago area? Or are you two referring to Fox squirrels?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_squirrel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_squirrel
EDIT: Just found out there is also an American red squirrel, so maybe that's what you're referring to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_red_squirrel
They don't live around KC, so I'm not familiar with them.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

BTW are we talking about Red squirrels or Fox squirrels? I actually meant Fox squirrels when I was talking about the ones around KC.

Red squirrels are a Eurasian species. Have they been introduced to the Chicago area? Or are you two referring to Fox squirrels?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_squirrel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_squirrel
EDIT: Just found out there is also an American red squirrel, so maybe that's what you're referring to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_red_squirrel
They don't live around KC, so I'm not familiar with them.

However, they are smaller than gray squirrels, not larger.

Definitely Fox Squirrels that are larger than the gray squirrels with hints of rusty red in their fur coats.






And all of us Chicago residents have seen these squirrels running across roads and power lines and jumping between trees pretty regularly.

https://youtube.com/shorts/DhBpmt77dv4?si=J80yae_uhJcWgua6