When I was growing up in West Rogers Park, we never went to Michigan Avenue — too fancy for our family.
In 1976, back in Chicago after college and grad school, working for the American Library Association, the avenue became my lunch break street. I’d window shop at Saks, I. Magnin, Bonwit Teller; I’d browse Stuart Brent’s bookstore, the last three stores long gone.
Years later, Michigan Avenue existed only as the end of my walk from our house in Lincoln Park to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for doctors’ appointments. During COVID-19, I couldn’t see expressions under pedestrians’ masks, but I sensed they were as grim as mine.
Window shopping? Not much, as many stores were closed and remain closed today, their windows covered by butcher paper. Blocks of “scarecrow” police cars, stock still on the median, blue lights flashing, hogged my attention.
I walk five miles most days, from Oak and Michigan, where my husband and I now live, to 12th Street, a few blocks south of the hotel I’ll always call the Conrad Hilton.
Post-COVID, the avenue has perked up, and I have come to appreciate its mix of characters and activity — and its reminder of Chicago’s intractable problems: homelessness, mental illness, a preposterously wide income gap.
The Biden administration economy rates poorly in polls, but the people I watch, many tourists from abroad, are buying big time, clutching shopping bags from HOKA, Tiffany’s, Levi’s and American Girl.
On the dark side of the divide, Venezuelan women sit on cold, wet sidewalks, toddlers and babies in their laps, selling boxes of candy. The children are often sleeping, at times when children would not normally sleep, as if sleep is the sole relief from misery. A Venezuelan man stands on the sidewalk facing the American Girl store, holding his daughter’s hand. She stares longingly at the dolls through the ground-floor window.
Homelessness, mental illness, crime on display
I rarely walk a block without passing men pleading for money, some missing legs. One sits at the curb, his stump wrapped in an elastic bandage.
Every few minutes, another siren screams — ambulances, firetrucks, police SUVs. Ten CPD cars and around 30 uniformed officers gather in front of Saks at Superior and Michigan. A scared 16-year-old is wedged against a squad car. I read later that he and an adult had a backpack full of ammunition and firearms.
The avenue seems more like a boardwalk than a commercial corridor. I inhale smoke from so much weed I wonder why I don’t feel high. Adults, apparently mentally ill, scream on street corners.
I cheer for the occasional classical violinist in front of the Wrigley Building, where, on its plaza, puppeteers, magicians, jugglers, a snake handler gather, looking for tips. Across the bridge over the Chicago River, vendors hawk cotton candy and snow globes. Street drummers play on their five-gallon buckets.
The months after Oct. 7 bring pro-Palestinian protests. A group, mostly from the School of the Art Institute, pitch their tents in the museum’s North Garden. The CPD forcibly removes them, arresting 68. Trucks with neon signs park at the curb: “ISRAEL BOMBS HOSPITALS. YOUR TAX MONEY PAYS FOR IT.” Another features photos of the hostages taken by Hamas, its rear panel dedicated to “Chicagoan Kidnapped by Hamas. Bring Hersh [Goldberg-Polin] Home.”
Jacked-up cars missing mufflers speed by. “Why doesn’t a cop stop that driver?” I wonder. Men ride backfiring motorcycles, some blast music and do wheelies. At least they’re on the street.
On the sidewalk, teens on skateboards show off by barely missing pedestrians; others speed by on bicycles and electric scooters. I’ve yet to see one of them stopped. “Is it legal to ride on the sidewalk?” I ask myself.
During the Richard M. Daley regime, Michigan Avenue looked like a page from a landscape architect’s advertisement. No longer.
Plastic bags, food wrappers, Styrofoam cups blow about. Sidewalks are stained with what looks like old vomit, and spit-out chewing gum leaves behind black spots. Pigeons poop on sidewalks and heads. Graffiti sticks around, inviting more graffiti.
The Democratic National Convention this August will force a cleanup. Mayor Brandon Johnson might believe the rich avenue can afford its own upkeep, but he’ll see to it that it looks sparkling for celebrities and important politicians. Once they exit, messy Michigan Avenue will return.
I describe the dishevelment to my husband. “So, walk on another street.” I ignore his advice because the avenue’s disarray and unpredictability bear watching, as it progresses, backslides, changes.
Carol Felsenthal is a Chicago writer of biographies and magazine profiles.
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