{"id":537,"date":"2012-03-30T02:02:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T07:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.joecurry.com\/?p=537"},"modified":"2012-03-30T02:02:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T07:02:20","slug":"my-elmhurst-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/my-elmhurst-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"My Elmhurst Neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joecurry\/7018295443\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Elmhurst Metra station\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7079\/7018295443_b832168a11_z.jpg\" alt=\"Elmhurst Metra station\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/> <\/a><strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 365.75 \u00a0<\/strong>(more photos below)<\/p>\n<p>Since I moved to Minneapolis last August, I&#8217;d been to Chicago twice last September for Notre Dame football weekends, but this was my first trip back in six months. Let me tell you: It&#8217;s weird being a visitor in a city where you once lived. For more than four years, I called Elmhurst, Illinois home. I&#8217;d never taken\u00a0any photos of the neighborhood because there was &#8220;always tomorrow,&#8221; so I spent my morning here on a photo walk. Elmhurst\u00a0was close to my old office and while it assuredly was not a popular place to live among single, late twentysomethings, I loved that town:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the Jewel grocery store literally next door for last-minute ingredients or a beer &amp; wine run.<\/li>\n<li>the Metra train station 4 blocks away which could reliably take me to the city in 30 minutes for weeknight dinners or weekend fun.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fleetfeetelmhurst.com\/\">Fleet Feet<\/a> specialty running store next door, where I could roll out of bed at 6:45am with plenty of time for a spoonful of Nutella and stretching before 7am Saturday runs.<\/li>\n<li>Ace Hardware, my dry cleaner and White Hen Pantry (now 7-Eleven) just outside my back stairwell<\/li>\n<li>My doctor&#8217;s office across the parking lot, and my optometrist four blocks north.<\/li>\n<li>The funky <a href=\"http:\/\/www.glitchgallery.com\/gallery.html\">Effigy salon<\/a> that cut my fancy textured hairdo, which I didn&#8217;t understand but was noted by my female friends. The business\u00a0also included\u00a0an art gallery, wine bar and ice cream shop. (Where else do you find that?!)<\/li>\n<li>The 8-screen <a href=\"http:\/\/www.classiccinemas.com\/location.aspx?house=911\">York movie theatre<\/a>, one block away<\/li>\n<li>My favorite Chicagoland pizza, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertosristorante.net\/\">Roberto&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0(though I do love Giordano&#8217;s stuffed pizza)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.elmhurstpubliclibrary.org\/\">Elmhurst Public Library<\/a>, ranked among the Top 5 public libraries nationwide in its category. (Nothing says nerd quite like visiting your old suburban library in the first hour after arriving in Chicago, but I digress.)<\/li>\n<li>And a diverse mix of 30-40 shops and restaurants in an 6 block radius.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>More incredible than the physical neighborhood of Elmhurst is the neighborhood of people I&#8217;d surrounded myself with and gotten to know in Chicagoland. After lunch at Ditka&#8217;s with close friends and a visit to my former office at McDonald&#8217;s HQ and healthclub, I contemplated how many connections and friendships I&#8217;d cultivated in Chicago. When I moved there in 2007, I had a dozen or so friends and contacts; since then, my Chicago network has easily grown by 40 times that many. It&#8217;s crazy awesome to think how many Chicagoans have enriched my life experiences, my perspectives, my ongoing quest for learning. Futhermore, I&#8217;ll always fondly remember the city that offered a sense of small town familiarity: my Elmhurst neighborhood.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><em>NOTE: I&#8217;ve been traveling 11 of the past 14 days and have continued taking my photo of the day. I have lots of blog entries to write this weekend and get caught up!<\/em><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joecurry\/7018302001\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Elmhurst, Illinois\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7121\/7018302001_038bd3080c_z.jpg\" alt=\"Elmhurst, Illinois\" width=\"427\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joecurry\/7018309385\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Blades of Grass\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7098\/7018309385_17f4265539_z.jpg\" alt=\"Blades of Grass\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joecurry\/7018316853\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Elmhurst Public Library\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7046\/7018316853_1c4c35be5b_z.jpg\" alt=\"Elmhurst Public Library\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joecurry\/7018337637\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Elmhurst Place Apartments\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7135\/7018337637_98ab83dc6b_z.jpg\" alt=\"Elmhurst Place Apartments\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/joecurry\/6872215228\/in\/photostream\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Elmhurst Place Apartments\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7212\/6872215228_a1c4e84c08_z.jpg\" alt=\"Elmhurst Place Apartments\" width=\"427\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 365.75 \u00a0(more photos below) Since I moved to Minneapolis last August, I&#8217;d been to Chicago twice last September for Notre Dame football weekends, but this was my first trip back in six months. Let me tell you: It&#8217;s weird being a visitor in a city where you once lived. For more than four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,37],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wQXH-8F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joecurry.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}