By Jim Schacht

I was thinking about Milwaukee Friends Meeting and thought I would give you an update from Chicago to put in your newsletter.

First, I must comment on this city. I live in the most integrated place I know of in the very working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport, where everyone is a minority. The city itself is about one third white, one third Latinx and one third Chinese, and it is right next to black areas so about a quarter of the people I encounter are black. On one bus that I take most people speak Chinese. At the closest grocery store half the staff is Latinx and doesn’t speak English. And the city is so big it makes Portland and Milwaukee feel like towns. I have attached a picture of my view out my kitchen window of my neighbors. This is a real city with a population density many times that of Portland and Milwaukee. There is about four feet between houses here, and the street outside my window is two car widths wide, there is no lawn and the houses are about twenty feet away from my door.

The size and diversity of Chicago are such that it makes a mockery of thinking I know best about anything. Oh I still try to figure things out, but it constantly confronted me with what all the stuff and don’t know.  I can make an impact in tiny parts of this monster city only. At the same time it has such life and it has dealt with so much I know it will survive. It is both a tough city and one in which I have experienced much kindness.

Chicago has the vital city center Portland and Milwaukee have struggled to create. The Miracle Mile is a bustling, crowded area full of restaurants, entertainment etc. and if you go north there is mile after mile of restaurants and shops with people walking around and eating. North Chicago is another world from the working class South and is much whiter.

I definitely can tell it is in the Midwest like Milwaukee, like in the weather and in some of the ways it functions. Portland just changed to a city government where there are three or four districts each electing three alderpeople. Not Chicago. Here there are 50 alderpeople and they each have offices in their District, so it is really easy to go and talk to them to raise issues.

Housing is much more affordable if you are willing to go to less desirable areas.  And, differences are apparent in the treatment of homeless people, of whom there are many. Transit buildings make it so there is someplace warm and sheltered most everywhere. There is lots of empty land around the city. The Police make sure that they aren’t in high visibility areas and don’t stay too long or get too numerous anywhere. There doesn’t seem to be much attention given to them positive or negative and seem to be treated kind of like the weather – something you have to deal with but you can only do I so much about. I am sure that if complaints are lodged with an Alderperson that they get action taken if they want to get reelected. 

In this monstrous city the 57th Street Meeting is tiny. On any given Sunday there will be about ten regulars and about ten young people that stumble upon us because it is on the University of Chicago campus. They have a Divinity School and we attract a number of their students including recently a wonderful Hindu woman from India. Certainly, it isn’t hard to get to know everyone! They had scheduled singing weekly, and with encouragement I of course have taken that over. I also find the young people that find their way in fascinating and enjoy talking to them and letting them know that their coming back is celebrated and their not doing so mourned. They have had prudent stewards in the past, including establishing a community to live in the building that pays much if it’s costs, so it is able to survive with small attendance, but I certainly want to do my part to insure its continuation. It is different from Portland and Milwaukee, but it has good people too and I am committed to it.

I know there are bigger meetings in Chicago, but I hope if people visit Chicago, they visit us! As the song says – God be with you till we meet again!