The apartment in this old building exuded the old-world charm with tasteful wall hangings and strategically placed mirrors. This huge apartment, with well-maintained and clean wooden floor, a full-sized gas stove, fridge, utensils, TV’s, etc., has more than enough to space to hold a party (now, don’t get ideas, because we wouldn’t want this quaint home to be trashed). Ibi and Cole even leaves snacks to munch on.
The U of Chicago campus and Hyde Park area is just a 10-15 min drive across the freeway. We visited the campus too. Beautiful. I have to mention the Goree cuisine (Senegalese) restaurant (1126 E. 47th St Chicago). Exquisite food at a very reasonable price and one of our highlights in this week-long Midwest trip. Close to Peoria St, on 71st, I will also recommend the Rehmania, a hole-in-the-wall take out that serves good food cheap and aplenty.
My son traveled with us for the first night and he took the over-sized couch for that night. We stayed mostly out as we had only two days to visit this historic city. We drove back late at night (10 min drive from downtown during low traffic) and never felt unsafe. Everybody parks on the street and we easily parked our rental car right in front of the house. We drove around the neighborhood to take in the real Chicago. We enjoyed that at least as much as we enjoyed the dressed up downtown Chicago. There were real people at street corners, at the WholeFoods, at coffee shops and at the gas stations. I wish we had a week, but that will have to wait till after retirement.
This accommodation was much more than what we expected. Reading a previous review about it (after I had booked) I will lie if I said I had no concerns, especially with the reputation that the Southside of that city has (thanks to the media). I have to say that we were blown away by the hospitality and the general friendliness of people in that area. No doubt that it is a depressed part of the city, but we noticed relentless community policing all time of the day. There is even regular street cleanings on Tuesdays in that neighborhood. While the glitzy downtown receives all the attention from Mr. Emmanuel and his city council, Englewood has heart.