July 2007 | To The Editor

Can Wicker Park Be Saved?

Thanks for your article on the closing of Filter in Wicker Park ( Shakeup in Neo-Bohemia, June 2007.) I found the words of David Wilshire, owner of the Cheetah Gym, quite humorous. Your readers could use an explaination of the irony. The Cheetah Gym building is perhaps best known as the “Real World Chicago” loft for MTV in 2000. As author Richard Lloyd elaborates in Neo-Bohemia, the same building previously was home to the local arts cornerstone coffeehouse Urbus Orbis.

Like Filter, Urbus Orbis was more for connoisseurs of culture than coffee. The local artwork adorning its walls, the pierced, punky, pre-hipsters and their collaborative (if convoluted) conversation sold the place more than the menu. And the community had character. The Cheetah sells the condo-owning trixies of Bucktown overpriced gym memberships and fantasies of converting their post-baby bods into the sleek, glamorexic bodies of their sorority years when they lived in Lincoln Park.

The article gave good advice on how to get involved in community organizations. If we want to maintain the artistic edge of Wicker, even just a corner, we must revitalize the community arts and places who foster it. If you read CC and you care about this issue, continue to support Filter, The Chopin, Half and Half, Myopic and others committed to an independently-run neighborhood.

— Amy Ganser, via email

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