Random Images From Hyde Park

Though our ideal is to find and buy a place somewhere in Logan Square or Avondale, it’s been pretty slim pickings in our area for the past few months. We’ll see listings from time to time (and Liz is excellent about searching daily), but oftentimes the places that become available get snatched up with alarming speed.

We got an email from Seth at about 1:30 AM on a Saturday morning, letting us know about a potential building in the area. We write back later that morning, and arrange to see it on Sunday at 3:00 PM. Come the next day, around noon, we learn that the buyer has already accepted an offer – so just like that, in the span of 36 hours, the place is gone. We don’t even get a chance to see it or decide of we even like it, it’s just taken off the board in the blink of an eye.

Though we still hold out hope for something in this area (and man, are we spoiled living where we live, right along the boulevard)… we’ve started to look a little further out. We’ve checked out places further North along the Blue Line, and are now trying to check out a few other neighborhoods we’ve not been to before.

Today, Liz and I decided to trek out to Hyde Park. Most of the types of places we’ve been checking out have been single family homes or multi-units, as condos were initially off our list. But in our planned trip, we happened to find a few condos that had open houses… so we decided to check out a few, during our walk around the area.

We started off our morning with breakfast at The Medici. We got there around 10AM, and I was figuring it would be a wait before we got seated… but we got in no problem.

Our table was on the top floor, in the far corner by the outside patio area (the whole morning, we were remarking how we wished the weather would have been better). The outdoor seating looked pretty great, but our spot inside did give us a nice overview of the whole place.

We made it a point not to get coffee in our neck of the woods, choosing instead to wait until we were in Hyde Park. By the time we sat down to eat, I was really in need of some caffeine.

As we were sitting, Liz looked up and realized that the statue near us had actually moved. If you were to look at it directly, there was no perceptible movement. But a few minutes later, you’d look up and the thing would have rotated.

Not a huge deal, but keep in mind that just two nights ago we watched two “weeping angel” episodes of Dr. Who: The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone. So seeing that a statue had suddenly moved was a little unnerving, even with the partial nudity.

Walking around, I spotted this decorated van. Super pop culture, all over the place.

Went in for a closer look. Such an odd and interesting mixture of different people/subjects.

In our exploring, we passed by the 57th Street Art Fair. Guessing that this guy was part of it in some way.

// Edit: Looks like this is the artist’s website.

First time I’ve seen one of these warning signs.

For the most part, we had a nice time exploring the area – we walked around a lot, and got a good feel for the area. I don’t think we could afford any of the single family homes in the area, but I could see us potentially getting a condo down here.

The commute from here to downtown would be an interesting thing, but details and logistics aside… today was just primarily a “explore the area” kind of day. One of the places we saw was on 54th and South Hyde Park Boulevard – and I remarked how amazing it would be if I worked at the Museum of Science and Industry, as I could just literally walk to work every day.

Driving by MSI, I wished I could have counted that magnificent structure as a former residence.

Related:
Meeting Seth