Ep. 2: Living in Tri-Taylor with Brooke Parker!
Brooke Parker is non-profit fundraiser and resident of the Tri-Taylor neighborhood of Chicago. In this episode we discuss what it's like to live in this area, how Chicago compares to other cities, food options, things to do, and more!
The Living in Chicago Podcast is where I, Jake Lyons, get to interview all kinds of real Chicagoans about the Chicago neighborhoods they live in, work in, and play in. This way, you can learn about the lifestyle pros and cons of various neighborhoods directly from the people who live there (or maybe even learn something new about your own neighborhood!)
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Note: the following transcript was generated automatically and not checked closely for spelling, grammar, or accuracy
Jake Lyons: Hello and welcome to Living in Chicago, the show where I interview real Chicagoans about the neighborhoods that they live, work, and play in. I'm your host, my name is Jake Lyons, and in this episode I interview Brooke Parker, who lives in the Tri-Taylor neighborhood of Chicago. Tri-Taylor is located just west of downtown in the technically center of the umbrella of the near west side. It's kind of on the southwest corner of the near west side community area is what they're called. It's right next to the Illinois Medical District, so-called, because there are just a very dense concentration of hospitals. There's Rush University, University of Illinois has a presence there.
Mount Sinai is not too far. It was a VA hospital among, I'm sure, some others that I'm not even privy to or thinking of right now, but it's very aptly named medical district. Then it's right around the corner from Pilsen, right around the corner from the United Center, the West Loop, Fulton Market, all that kind of stuff is not too far as well. It is located just south of 290, the Highway 290, or if you are listening to any kind of traffic report on a Chicago radio station, you might hear that referred to as the Eisenhower or the Ike. If you're taking CTA, which is a Chicago Transit Authority, the public transit system of Chicago, and wanting to take a train, you will be taking probably the blue line to get there. There's a couple blue line stops that are right by there, the western blue line stop and the medical district blue line stop.
There's also a pink line. If you are taking that, maybe on your way down to Pilsen or some other place, it's not too far from the Polk stop. That is the main sort of streets going through it.
It borders Roosevelt Road to the south and again 290 to the north. It's a pretty small area. The specific neighborhood of Tri-Taylor doesn't have a ton of, not a very big geographical footprint or anything, but so you know on that, it goes to the north.
It goes pretty much from Damon to a little bit west of western on the east west and Harrison Street goes through it, Taylor Street goes through it. Tri-Taylor is named Tri-Taylor because it's shaped like a triangle and it has Taylor Street going through it, which is where you're going to find most of the restaurants and shops and general things to do in the Tri-Taylor area. If you're looking to buy a place in Tri-Taylor or you live there wanting to sell, I'm a real estate agent so I can't help myself to get into some stats on this. The median of a two bed condo in the Tri-Taylor area as of the recording of this podcast is going to be about 260,000. If you're looking for a house, just three bedrooms or more house, the median sales price on that so far right around now is 585,000 and the median rent price, rent rate of a standard two bed apartment is coming in around 1825 and those are all median price points. So, if you remember from stats class, that's just the price right in the middle of all the bucket of goods that was sold. So, 50% sold for less, 50% sold for more, etc.
But that's just a quick little snapshot of what the real estate situation is looking like in that area and as far as what does it actually like to live in this neighborhood? Well, that is the point of this whole podcast so I'm going to defer to Brooke Parker for that and without further ado, let's go ahead and get right into our interview.
Jake Lyons: All right, I am joined here by Brooke Parker.
Jake Lyons: She is a resident of the Tri-Taylor Medical Districts neighborhood which is right next to the little Italy neighborhood. It's all kind of under the umbrella of the near west side. She is in the non-profit world as a fundraiser. Brooke, hey, how you doing? Hey, Jake, how are you? Doing very good. Thank you for coming on and sharing a little bit about your neighborhood and I'm sure our listeners will get a lot out of your experience here. Let's just go ahead and start. Where you're from Pittsburgh originally, right?
Brooke Parker : Yeah, so I'm like 45 minutes away from Pittsburgh because it's easier just like people from Chicago and they say, where are you from? Oh, Chicago, but where at? Oh, 45 minutes away. That's the same for me.
Jake Lyons: Right, right. Yeah, Naperville or whatever. Gotcha. Okay. And when did you move to Chicago? May of 2019. And are those pretty much the main two places that you've lived or were there some in between stops along the way?
Brooke Parker : Nope, just, well, I did. I lived in Beaver County and then I moved closer to Pittsburgh and then I moved to Chicago.
Jake Lyons: Okay, nice. And just for work is why you moved here? Because that was the best job opportunity?
Brooke Parker : Yeah, within my field and department, yeah.
Jake Lyons: Okay. Have you visited Chicago very much before moving here or was it just kind of sight unseen? Let's jump in and see what happens.
Brooke Parker : The first time I was ever in Chicago or even knew a little bit more about Chicago was when I came in for the interview. Never been here, heard a little bit about Chicago, not much. And I had my interview here for the first time. Okay. Okay.
Jake Lyons: What has been, so does you really have any even like preconceived notions of Chicago, you know, based on anything to TV, movies, news, like culture or anything?
Brooke Parker : So pretty much when I was telling my friends and family I was moving here, they started to give me negative feedback like, oh no, you're moving to Chicago. It's very dangerous and vicious out there. And you have to be careful at every turn, which kind of like they're like, you better have a gun. You know what I mean? So it kind of like scared me before I came out here. But now that I'm here, I don't, I don't, I'm not a wrapped into that world. So I don't see that.
Jake Lyons: What made you, why the medical district slash tritalia area?
Brooke Parker : So the real reason why I moved here is because it was something along my budget. I looked in different places like Humboldt Park. I looked in Pilsen. I looked in Lakeview. Like I just looked in different neighborhoods and either the price was right and it was just way too small of a location, a place for me, or the price wasn't right and it was exactly what I wanted. So when I ran into this place, I liked the neighborhood.
It was close to work and it was a little bit over a thousand square foot and it was like at the high end of my budget. So it kind of, it worked. Yeah. Cool.
Jake Lyons: So, and that's the only apartment that you've been in so far? Have you jumped around within that neighborhood?
Brooke Parker : No, I haven't jumped around within this neighborhood. It just cost so much to move. I entertain the idea of different neighborhoods that I were interested in, but it just cost to move. It just cost too much unless I was buying something or whatever. So I just decided to stay. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that's why, you know, my wife Emma and I, we stayed in the same apartment for like eight years before finally moving just because it's such a pain to do it. It ended up being like $2,000 worth of hiring movers, which absolutely was an essential thing to do because we live on the top floor of a third of a three floor walk up and had a bunch of furniture and all that.
So that was just, you know, we weren't going to do that ourselves. Definitely worth it to hire the professionals. But yeah, so long way of saying, I agree. Some people move around, you know, every year. Like some, I know a lot of people that are just like, they like the idea of switching up different neighborhoods and things like that, you know, they'll play out their one year lease or maybe two at max and then go move to different places. Like, I guess if you don't have that much stuff to move, you could pull it off.
Brooke Parker : I have a friend, ever since I met her, she's moved three times and I've been here five years. So it's like, but that's the same way she is too. Yeah. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: But you know, so obviously, I guess you're the neighborhood you're in, hasn't, it hasn't pushed you away. So, you know, what are the things that do keep you there? Like what are some of your favorite spots to go to or just things you like about it?
Brooke Parker : I think I feel safe. That's the biggest thing. I mean, a little things have happened here and there, but nothing too crazy. I like to walk outside and I like to, you know, run as well. So like in my neighborhood, there's a lot of families here and there's dog parks and there's playgrounds, there's, you know, a soccer field. So I feel very safe here and I can leave my car here, you know, if I was to go to town for a week. So I feel safe. That is the biggest, the reason why I do stay here because there's not a lot of things that happen around where I live because I have looked at different places, but it's just like, you know, what I feel safe there. And then also too, it's very close to work. So I work right in downtown and so a lot of my business is done here, professionally. I have to go to the suburbs every once in a while, but it's quick to work when people are like, oh, I got a 15 minute drive. I literally have a five minute, 15 minute if it's a bad day, right?
So it's not, it's very convenient for work. I have grocery stores that are not too far. My church is close by. So every, it's just, I kind of feel like I live in the center of everything.
Jake Lyons: Yeah. And so you do drive your commute or would you ever take the train or anything? Because you would be off, I guess, the blue line, right? That would be the closest. Yeah.
Brooke Parker : Um, I drive often. I drive. Yes. I just think public transportation. I've tried it when I first got here and it just wasn't safe. And for me, the experiences I've had, so I just decided to like do like spot hero or whatever to find parking if I decided to go somewhere.
Jake Lyons: What were, what, so on the blue line or just in general, you just don't like it?
Brooke Parker : Well, I don't have family here. So it just, people are just, I don't know anyone really. So like to call for help. So like my first time on the blue line to go into downtown, there was this person that was just staring and like following like me throughout the train.
And it was, and I was like two months here, right? And like, who am I going to call? Like I'm not calling my cousins.
I'm not calling my brother. And it just made me feel very, very uncomfortable. And then like it just happened to be like when I got off, they got off. It was just, I just didn't like that.
I just didn't like that at all. Unless like we're going as a whole group of people. Um, I typically, I mean, if I was invited for a whole group of people, I probably go. But I try myself. But again, yeah, that makes sense.
Jake Lyons: How has, I'm curious how, so growing up kind of, I would assume this culturally more East Coast centric rate, you know, most of your, most of your friends, peers and whatnot were probably, if they were going anywhere, they were going to obviously Pittsburgh or probably what, you know, Philadelphia, like DC, New York, Boston, you know, places like that.
Um, what's, what, what the, what the right question is here. I guess what, what has stood out to you the most maybe about even just people living in the Midwest and, you know, Chicago in general versus, um, you know, what the experience would have been kind of like more East Coast and more of those other bigger East Coast cities.
Brooke Parker : I would say compared to New York, when you cross the street, people were more nicer. Um, you know, people will move out the way here in New York. They're running right into you, right?
Like they're like, they're, they're not even giving you space to be able to maneuver across the high up across the way. And also to, I would say it's a very, everywhere else is foodie, but foodie here in Chicago is very close. Right. So you can go, you could go check out the same street of restaurants and you could get a whole different menu every day or ethnic food every day. I feel like in New York and Philly, you have to go into those neighborhoods to, um, be able to do that. So things are more closer together here in the city. I would say also to a lot more people use, I mean, besides New York, um, compared to Pittsburgh and Philly, I feel like a lot more people use public transportation here. I've never met so many people without a license, but because they just use public transportation or they have a license and they don't have a car. Like I ran into a lot more people here than out east with that. Because at first I was like, you don't have a license and you don't have a car, but it just makes sense if you're using, you know, hopping on the bus to get to the blue line, then get to the red line, then hop back on a bus. It's just very integral here. Sure. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, I would, if I didn't have to have a car, I mean, it would be really, really hard to be a real estate agent and not have a car, but, you know, um, yeah, I would love to not, you know, have a $400 car payment and car, you know, insurance and, um, all the other fees and whatever, whatever else, you know, city taxes and all this stickers and all this kind of stuff. I mean, that's one fast.
Brooke Parker : That's one thing that's different about PA compared to Illinois. There is no car tax in Pennsylvania. There isn't Connecticut and there is a New York, but there is none of that in Pennsylvania. So it's just, in clothing tax here is ridiculous. You know, like in Pennsylvania, there is no clothing tax. So you're like calculating and you know exactly what you're going to spend and water tax. When you buy, I never been anywhere where there was water tax. So that's different. Here in Chicago has that. Like bottles of water? What do you mean? Yeah, you charge water tax here in Illinois for buying water, bottle water. If you look at your receipt, it will say water tax.
Jake Lyons: I've never, yeah, I guess I've never even paid attention. Like is this, so is it just the same sales tax like that 10.25?
Brooke Parker : Yeah, something like, something similar to that. Yeah.
Jake Lyons: I remember there was a big controversy a few years ago about like a sugar tax, you know, like any kind of soda or anything like that. They were trying to tax that, but it wouldn't have thought that water would have fallen under that. Look at, I guess this is kind of, huh?
Brooke Parker : Look at your receipt. I will.
Jake Lyons: Like water. I will next time. Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff where it's like living here, you know, all the kind of nickel and dime stuff. It's like, this is kind of for me, like it is, it is what it is. I'm not even trying to, you know, what am I going to do about it?
Brooke Parker : You know, like three days into Chicago, I got moved here and I went to the grocery store. And the, we're checking out and the lady's like, you want to buy. Because on the East, we don't have to pay for bags. I'm like, yeah, like in my, I said, yeah, I want a bag to put my groceries in. She's like, it's seven cents. And I was like, they didn't tell me that in the interview that it was seven cents a bag, right? And I do think now other states are catching up to that. But that wasn't a thing out in the East Coast when I moved here five years ago.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, that's so I that's so annoying. And it's only the city. Like if I ever go to a grocery, like I go to a grocery and skokie a lot because that's right next to the gym we go to. And, you know, they don't charge for bags there. So, you know, go, go drive to the suburbs, so you can save, you know, 20, 20 cents on bags if you really want.
And you spend $3 of gas to get there. Right. Yeah, so you mentioned the restaurants. I assume in that neighborhood, Taylor Street is sort of like the main drag where there's going to be most of kind of the cool restaurants and things to do, right?
I have it. I admit I haven't spent a ton of time in the Tri-Taylor area. I mean, you know, done a little bit of work there and driven through it a thousand times, but I haven't really, you know, lingered there for any social reasons or anything. So what, what would you say about that? That's really one of the good spots.
Brooke Parker : So I don't feel like if you like Jamaican, there's jerky jerk. There is an Italian, I can't think of their name, but like half a block down there's an Italian restaurant where they make fresh breads, fresh, like breakfast you could go and have. I forget what that name is. It can't come to mind, but if you keep on going, like towards UIC, there's a lot of different restaurants over there as well. But there's a lot of mom and pops, drops, like on Taylor and like, you know, little convenient stores and stuff like that.
So you don't have to be like going to a gas station and the Rift Raft, you know, you could just go to the mom and pop store and get whatever you need.
Jake Lyons: Yeah. Yeah, it's a really neat little area. I mean, like Taylor Street right there is like this cool, almost like villagey, like tree line street, but there's all these, you know, all these really good looking restaurants. Things like that there. So, and I see why.
Brooke Parker : And I think they'll probably stay like that. So I guess there's like a homeowner's association, not, not like you're in a condo, but like just in this community. And I guess they were trying to build new apartments here in this area in the medical district and they voted against it. So they're trying to keep that same home feeling when you're like going on these streets, but they did build like two, three, three story condos.
Like the community allowed them to do that. It's just very intriguing how involved, you know, people that own their own houses out here, like how much they speak up for this community.
Jake Lyons: This episode is presented by my website, the Chicago home source.com, the best resource with the most search parameters for seeing what homes are currently available in the area you're looking in, or for checking the market around your own Chicago area home.
Visit the website and order fill out the quick start questionnaire via the links in the show notes to learn more about our perfect home finder program where we combat the lack of attractive options on the market by proactively going out and finding off market opportunities on homes that meet your specific qualifications. Yeah, yeah, well, that's good. That's exactly, you know, I feel like that's exactly what you want is people that are taking taking pride in their in their area and, you know, have happened watching out for the best interests of it and making sure that any kind of changes that are coming in or not going to change the things that give it its unique character and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. So I guess being so close to the medical district is it. Is there like a higher concentration of sirens and you know this noise and things like that. What would you say, how do you know
Brooke Parker : I don't notice it until I'm gone for a week or so then I come back and like, oh, I'm home right. So there is so like, you know, if a cop ever is ever injured or, you know, loses their life. They do. And I know it every time because they shut Harrison off and I forget to what street but they shut it off and they pay respects there. So like, but they'll do it for like a few hours and I look out my window and I could see and I could know like, you know, officer was on duty and mishap happened or whatever the case may be. But I you do you hear a lot of sirens, but you don't notice it until you're gone and you come back because I don't, I don't notice it like I used to like it'd be three o'clock in the morning two o'clock in the morning and I'd be like, Oh my God, what's going on but now it's like I sleep through it.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, it's amazing what you get used to especially in the big city, you know, like whether you live right next to a train stop or, you know, like an apartment I lived in prior for years. I mean, we were a block away. We were in between a hospital, a fire station and a police station, all within different directions like 100 yards of us.
Basically, it was nuts and there was a sirens all day every day. And the only time I ever realized that I ever really remember that I say the only time that ever even occurred to me that that was the case was like if I was on a phone call. And then it's like, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, sirens.
Brooke Parker : Let me shut my window.
Jake Lyons: Yeah. What's the most surprising thing you've learned about your neighborhood since you live there?
Brooke Parker : I think maybe it's not the neighborhood, but there's a lot of in and out because there's a lot of doctors that like live in this area and they leave. So there's a lot of like people come in, people come out, people come in, people like my neighbors here.
I think I've been the longest one. And I'm typically like, Oh, let me get to know my neighbors. But by the time you get to like have a full blown conversation, they're moving, they're moving on. That's one thing. And two, I was surprised how kid friendly it was here. This is the elementary school right down the street. And I didn't know that kind of when I first moved here.
I just really focused on my end of the street. There's a lot of kids here. There's, but it's a good thing, right? There's a park back there and I didn't know all of that when I moved. I was just trying to find a place. Yeah, it's friendly here and a lot of people walk their dogs. And that's very, it's very, very welcoming that like, you know, this is if you wanted to raise a family here, you could.
Jake Lyons: Yeah, yeah, that's a good note. Yeah, so that's kind of interesting. So there's kind of two different people then, right? It's like the people that like your like doctors and traveling nurses and kind of a more, more temporary transient work based crowd like that. And then, but then you have like the hope the long term homers that we were talking about earlier, who are, you know, this die hard tri Taylor, you know, people that have been there for years or decades and right. And you got you in between. Right.
Brooke Parker : It's very interesting to me. Because like this one guy, I didn't even know, but I parallel park all the time on this street. And the one guy was like, I saw you parallel park a couple and I came out of nowhere. I saw you parallel park a couple times if you cut your will a little bit more to the right, I think you got it. I'm like, looking back like, like he's like five houses down and like, okay, you know, when you think people are, I think people are not like, when I have friends come visit that they're like, Oh, like, no one's nosy, you know, like no one's in your business. But I'm like, yeah, you would think that until you parallel park, you know, Right.
Jake Lyons: That's fine. Nothing like a little unsolicited parallel parking advice. For sure.
Brooke Parker : Have your has your parallel parking, have your have your parallel parking skills increase. Was a good advice.
Brooke Parker : I've always been a good parallel Parker because I took my test in a van. And parallel park that, but I think I'm more tempted to do tighter spots now. Right. So I'll be the one to be like, I think I could do this. And then it's like, like the front and the rear bumper, like kissing the cars, but in front and behind me, but I am like a risk taker like that more so now that I've ever been.
Jake Lyons: Mm hmm. Is there a challenge that your neighborhood is facing that the trailer is facing that you know of or that you can that you've seen.
Brooke Parker : I think the neighborhood wants to stay the neighborhood, but around it, they're building tons of high rises. So when I moved here five years ago, like now that I think it's like medical district quarry or whatever they like. None of that was there Chick-fil-A Starbucks. None of that was there. Those big high rises, the Lydia like none of that stuff was there and I think that people want to build here and want to do that but the neighborhood's like no, but you could build around us right. And so I think that might be one of the biggest challenges because five years ago there was nothing like no restaurants really on that side closer to like Rush Hospital. But now they have like five guys and they're building things and even if you're going this way on Harrison, it wasn't. I was looking to just look and like five years ago, it was like abandoned lots back there, but now you see like new builds BMWs so it's like behind the medical district and like I'm riding by I'm like where what where was all of this so I feel like the neighborhood is about to get engulfed in like a lot of new right and one of the neighbors has a problem with that but I don't
Jake Lyons: Sorry, you know what I can hear the last part of that.
Brooke Parker : I said I just don't know I told the neighbor I just don't know how to solve the problem of having a lot of new built around here. Right. So you know like houses are going to go up but like houses. I was looking to like just the numbers like houses in this neighborhood are half a million dollars and up I'm like thinking to
Speaker 2: myself and what are you worried about, you know in my head but I'm not a homeowner and I don't own anything that's half a million dollars and above so I don't know,
Brooke Parker : you know why they would have an issue. But for me I'm like it's already half a million dollars which wrong with, you know, it being more but
Jake Lyons: Yeah, especially when you already own it like why don't you want the value of your home to go up, you know, maybe you don't want your property taxes to go up maybe that's the only downside. Yeah. Yeah, but obviously makes it makes the barrier for entry a lot higher obviously for new people to come into the neighborhood if they want to.
Right. Yeah, that's a nice little little strip center strip mall whatever you want to call it there it's not really malls it's a bunch of restaurants but and they're talking about there like the five guys and like the Chipotle and stuff like that. I've gone there a few times.
They just put Chick-fil-A there. Yeah. Yeah. You know it's obviously all corporate franchise stuff it's not like cool like mom and pop one off things or anything like that you still got to go down to Taylor Street for those I guess but Exactly. It's pretty clear that this catering to the you know to the workers in the hospitals and things like that.
But but yeah I mean all that development does that's just the near west side in a nutshell from Fulton Market you know full markets quite a bit north but it's still still somehow is under the umbrella of the near west side so yeah Fulton Market West Loop even like over by United Center and all that stuff is yeah they're starting to build up.
Brooke Parker : It's all happening. It is. Yeah it is. Because I've actually looked at a couple of different places over there but I don't know.
Jake Lyons: If someone were to visit the Tri Taylor area for just one day what should they do? What are the must-see attractions or things that they would get the most out of?
Brooke Parker : I think there's a lot of good food so I think whatever you are have the desire for as far as food we have it right on Taylor. So Jamaican Italian pizza there's like two pizza shops one is like a chain and the other one is like mom and pop. So there's a lot of stuff to do and there's little mini bars there too that like the drinks aren't like city expensive you know. And they're people friendly so I would just I would hang out here and even like running and walking there's tons of people that would want to run and walk in this neighborhood because the sidewalks are really really good and there's like this lap like this huge driveway lap that people work out in and people put their dogs in so there's food, health which is like working out and then if you have a dog this is a good place for that. Walking. Because I know people that live on the other side by United and they come over here to walk their dog. Really? Yeah.
Jake Lyons: Why is that just because of all the different parks and. Because it's safe. Yeah why would that be? Because it's safer on this side. It's safer on the south of 290.
On that side okay. So we can sum it up here so this bottom line in summary why should somebody want to live in the tri-taylor medical districts little Italy whatever you want to call it neighborhood.
Brooke Parker : I think why someone should live here is because it's centrally located to everything and it's right off of 290 so you could go to the red light and make a right into the city or you could make a left and go up to like Oak Park and what is that other town next to it? Woodridge I think or North Lawndale that's what it is North Lawndale is up that way so we are very accessible. And if you don't have a car public transportation is so easy there's a bus stops along the way.
There's good food and I think that you would feel safe as a single woman I feel safe here but I think that you would feel safe and yeah that's practically it. It's awesome. Perfect. Great encapsulation.
Jake Lyons: Well thank you for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the neighborhood that you live in and I'm glad that you're here. Glad you like Chicago.
