Walk through the Lakeview neighborhood and experience one of the finest examples of multicultural integration in Chicago.
Lakeview has a wide range of people and activities to enjoy. Its shops include thrift stores and designer boutiques, and the restaurants offer as many types of foreign, American and health cuisine as could be imagined.
All this is situated within a community of liberal-minded residents from all occupational backgrounds who believe that one of the best qualities of the neighborhood is its diversity.
Lakeview is bounded by Diversey Avenue, Irving Park Road, Damen Avenue and Lake Michigan. It is adjacent to the Uptown neighborhood on the north, North Center on the west and Lincoln Park on the south.
Economically speaking, Uptown is significantly less developed than Lakeview, while North Center is only somewhat less developed and less populated. Lincoln Park appears to be Lakeview’s more affluent counterpart but with a more homogeneous community of professional whites.
Along the eastern boundary from Fullerton Avenue north to Irving Park Road is a series of beaches, park areas and boat harbors. A bicycling and running path follows along the lakefront and there is a constant flow of the health conscious and others enjoying the beautiful view and weather.
As visitors and residents travel down any of the neighborhood’s major thoroughfares such as Belmont Avenue, Clark Street, Halsted Street or Broadway Avenue, they will encounter a host of activities in which they can indulge.
For people interested in shopping there is Century Mall, a huge facility full of stores. Across the street are books stores, novelty shops that carry everything from cigars to erotic toys, foreign video stores, palm and tarot reading shops and tattoo parlors — not to mention an overdose of thrift stores and trendy fashion outlets.
Lakeview also has an assortment of good foreign cuisine. Walk down one street and find Mongolian, Thai, Japanese, Ethiopian, and Jamaican restaurants. Walk down another and find Mexican, American, Indian, Greek and Italian. They range from upscale and traditional to greasy spoons. And, of course, coffee shops abound.
The nightlife of the neighborhood is just as diverse as the restaurants. Near Wrigley Field, in the sub-community called Wrigleyville, there are sports bars and beer gardens, while just a little further south you can find reggae clubs with live bands.
Take Halsted Street north and find gay clubs and bars throughout, many of which feature dancing. Also on tap are more relaxing nightlife environments like O-Bar on Clark Street and Stix Billiard Parlor on Sheffield Avenue. As far as performances by major musical groups are concerned, The Vic and The Metro are two of the major resident concert halls.
According to the 1990 U.S. Census, the population of Lakeview is 74.9 percent white, 14.2 percent Latino and 6.1 percent black, with about an equal ratio of men to women. The predominant age group is 19-year-olds to 39-year-olds, who make up 57.7 percent of the population. Residents between 40-59 make up 18 percent of the population while infants, teenagers and the elderly only constitute 24.2 percent combined.
A statistic that census data does not report is sexual orientation, and in Lakeview there is a high concentration of homosexuals and other non- heterosexuals. Despite this fact, people within the community interact well with each other and residents don’t feel that tension exists between the sexual orientations.
In late 1997, the city proposed promoting north Halsted Street as a gay district, a move that has triggered debate among the community’s residents. Lydia Leongas, a heterosexual woman and owner of the Frock Shop on north Halsted Avenue said the many homosexual people that populate the area are “extremely nice, fun, as straight forward as any other people.”
She also said everyone knows that the north Halsted area is mainly gay and to officially promote it as such may give people a preconceived image and scare them off from the area before they have had a chance to see for themselves.
This North Side community is not as racially diverse as it is sexually. Whites are the dominant racial group in the neighborhood. One black former Lakeview resident, Farrah Turenne, said this is only because the cost of living is too high for most blacks to afford and racial tension between community members is minimal.
One Asian woman who works in Lakeview believes that Lakeview residents are down to earth and open-minded. William Jackson, a black, retired school teacher has lived in Lakeview for 15 years and said it is a “good community” and “the people are nice enough.”
A tension that is felt by some younger members of the community is with the local police. Meme Cho said she believes that the police are biased more positively toward whites than the blacks and Asians in the area. Doug Fullenwider, a white, gay Lakeview resident, said he has not thought about police bias, but he would assume from what he has seen that police interaction with the community is only “fair to poor.”
Jackson, however, disagrees. He has lived in the community long enough to know the beat cops in his area by their first names and they know his. He describes them as “very nice and cordial.”
Jackson’s positive outlook may come from his long time residency in Lakeview, whereas younger, more liberal residents who are newer to the community may tend to feel that the police presence is more imposing on their lifestyles — though Fullenwider did admit that he would like to see more police on foot patrol.
Since Lakeview offers an assortment of shops and restaurants many people from other communities frequent there. Thus, the most disliked attribute of the neighborhood, according to workers and residents, is the parking. “The parking sucks around here,” said Meme Cho, who works in a jewelry store in Century Mall. Other people complained that besides the constant congestion, Lakeview has a very high cost of living.
Leongas mentioned the desire for more business and activity on north Halsted Street, while others complained about people who couldn’t afford to shop in the area loitering there.
Nevertheless, many Lakeview residents have nothing but favorable things to say about the area. If it be women or men, blacks or Asians, homosexuals or heterosexuals, they say Lakeview is safer than most communities, there is a definite sense of community among everyone, and no real tension exists among its diverse population.
Overall, it is believed that Lakeview will continue to thrive and is a very desirable community in which to live, work or just have fun. One Lincoln Park resident who works in Lakeview said, “The attractive things far out-weigh the negatives.”