Chicago: How to Get the Coasts to Really Respect You

Stop reading here. If you feel coastal cities like NYC and LA don’t give Chicago the equal respect it deserves, and you want to change this, then stop reading this article immediately, and simply let it go.

But you see, the fact that you won’t—the fact that you’ll keep reading hungrily on to the end to find the answer—reveals precisely the problem.

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Unforgetting 1980s Williamsburg, NYC

Illustration by Abigail Smith

Illustration by Abigail Smith

Two tall, trendy women marvel at luxury lofts at a happening intersection in Williamsburg, Brooklyn:

“This placed used to be a dump!” One of them trumpets her words into the surrounding winter air. “Nobody used to live here!” As I walk home on this 2003 afternoon, I hear these words reverberate across the sides of buildings, each return of her voice erasing me further from memory.

Who exactly was this Nobody?
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