Tag: CTA

Roar!

There’s something about motion and still photography… It’s very early on a late summer morning and the light levels are low. This a northbound Red Line train on track 3 coming out of the first curve after Loyola station, right before the “new” electrical substation. This is about the spot where the northbound Red Line trains often begin to roar. You’ll note the bridge: iron while most of the others on the Red / Purple line are reinforced concrete.

I’ve Moved,

you see.

That’s not news to those who’ve been following along here with Yip Abides. They might recall that looking for a new apartment was something of a traumatic experience for me. Nothing has changed that. The happy news is that while the actual move was extended trudgery (Turtles! All the way down!), it more or less has had an end. Anything not unpacked right now is not a priority and is stored for disposal or sale.

Better news: I am, for the moment, quite pleased with where I ended up. It even has the illusion of stability. It is said the building may have been a hotel (an SRO, perhaps?) of some sort back in the day; the apartments do have the appearance of space awkwardly repurposed.

I have two walk-in closets, one of which actually has room for all that I’ve not unpacked. The trade-off is a peculiar and wildly impractical kitchen that demands some mindfulness to use.

“Kitchen” begs for scare quotes but I’m still rather pleased with it. I’m seduced by that great Western cultural value: NEW. The gas stove and the refrigerator are new and stove has an electric ignition. Better still, it has a working hood and light. These are things that I’ve always missed and it’s such a pleasant novelty to have them.

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Photo by Roman.

Some one-bedroom apartments in Rogers Park are units that have one bedroom among several other rooms: kitchen, pantry, dining, living, maybe even an enclosed back porch. Other one-bedroom apartments in Rogers Park are better described as a studio apartment with a sleeping closet attached. My new home is the latter.

If I were to complain, it would be: The elevator does not like me, except as some kind of Lucy / Charlie Brown joke. Sometimes it will cooperatively alight to the top floor. Other times it will stand in place and thunk! about it. Sixty-four steps. I need the exercise.

I don’t know the building’s history and the Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society’s wiki has no entry for it. The building itself seems over-built; I rarely hear my neighbors though I might hear sounds from the hallway. It is maybe that over-built quality that partly accounts for the building’s survival; I find it hard to imagine this place as a great profit center.*

What ever the case, I like the building’s apparent solidity. It’s just high enough to suggest vertigo while inspiring security. It is so connecting with our ancestors, those canopy dwelling primates, as often prey as predator.

Yet for a quiet building, it is the most soundful building I’ve ever lived in, nearly all of it from the outside. It’s directly under one of O’Hare’s flight paths. Below are busy streets with an amazing variety in modes of transit including many pedestrians.

And dogs. Even several in the building. Dogs and pedestrians. And the occasional feral Divvy bike.

Fragments of conversations drift through the windows, especially at night. I think that’s what dream catchers are for.

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Photo / Graphic by Roman.

And then there is the CTA. The periodic warning chirps of a kneeling bus may be like crickets of a cybernetic woodland, but the CTA trains roar. On occasion, when the weather is right, it’s an actual physical presence that floods the bedroom.** With the startle reaction disabled, I let the sound wash over me; it’s laden with information though only some of it is obvious: the rhythmic hammering of a subtly flattened wheel, for example, or the bang of a misaligned rail joint or the squeal of wheel flange on railhead: sometimes lightly like a tickle but sometimes a banshee shrieking agony. Hidden in that chaos of sound are stories though I don’t understand most of it.

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Sunrise. Photo by Roman.

Sunrise…

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Photo by Roman.

My new address is no more a secret than the old address was; I was in the phone book back when there were phone books. But if you have no need to know then there’s no point in you knowing.

I will tell you that it is in the Glenwood Arts District because the fact is amusing; should I pretend to be an artist? I have so many of the props. Look at all those books and vinyl! (And there are five more boxes of books stored in the closet, not to mention boxes of audio tapes, magazines and political ephemera.) Wouldn’t I fit right in? That I sell nothing that I create is almost a qualification.

What I will think of this apartment and this building months from now could be rather different, especially after a winter. We’ll see. But for now, that’s a rather pleased (or maybe just relieved) purr that you’re hearing.

* The building has about four dozen units and charges rather low rent for Rogers Park. Given the nature of the units, it’s hard for me to imagine the building doing much better than breaking even… unless perhaps the local rental market wildly inflates. It’s an interesting building. I suspect most of the residents are on their way up or on their way out, though not necessarily in any haste.

** It probably has more to do with train handling, embankment resonance and reflected sound. The acoustics are often brilliant for a roar, especially northbound on track 3.