The old neighborhood

Our pickup this morning was in Forest Park, IL just on the edge of downtown Chicago. We arrived at night so we couldn’t really see what the neighborhood around Weinstein Wholesale Meats was like. In the morning, we realized this was just the right place for a business named Weinstein.

Apparently, Forest Park has been the Jewish center of Chicago for a number of years. Leaving the shipper, we drove past a row of Jewish cemeteries, several dating from the mid-1800’s. Many of the area businesses also had Jewish names. Growing up in the suburbs, we never experienced the type of ethnic neighborhoods that were – and remain – an integral part of many urban areas.

The scene changed quite suddenly as we crossed into Oak Park, IL. This was a community of quaint older homes, one of which was the home and original studio of the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright around the turn of the century. The community embraces its favorite son with street signs and banners reflecting Wright’s distinctive style.

(PERSONAL SIDE NOTE - Mike’s daughters are related to Wright on their mom’s side of the family, the Lloyd-Joneses. The extended family meets for periodic reunions near Wright’s Taliesin property in Wisconsin.)

We’re sure that many of the dynamics that created these ethnic neighborhoods in the 1800’s are also at work in creating the Hispanic, Vietnamese, and Korean neighborhoods that have sprung up in many suburbs today. Our hope is that these new communities will evolve in the same way as their predecessors, eventually assimilating their culture into the overall fabric of America.