You Think You Know Chicago?

Received this from Norma Deardorff Plummer. Thought you'd get a kick out of it.

"I thought you would enjoy this. They left out that the Clarendon Hills Cemetery is in Darien. I'm sure there are many more. I used to (before the bubble burst) take my car for servicing at the Saturn of Schaumberg which was really in Hoffman Estates. I guess some towns just have more status that others. But let's be clear...Bentley of Downers Grove is indeed in Downers. So there."



chicagotribune.com
The wrong-way guide to Chicago
How to avoid the area's geographical tricks, traps, detours and dead ends
By Mark Jacob, Chicago Tribune reporter
11:35 AM CDT, August 18, 2012

Some say Chicago is an easy place to navigate. There's a logical street grid system, and if you keep going east, you'll run into the lake. There's also the nation's tallest building, Willis Tower, poking into the sky as a point of orientation. Nevertheless, people can get confused. Former Vice President Dan Quayle once declared, "It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago." And he came from right next door — in the city of Indiana. Truth be told, Chicago is full of geographical quirks, and the area's politicians and business owners have engaged in insidious conspiracies to get you lost. Here is a guide to staying out of trouble.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
• Blue Island is not an island.
•If you go to Park Forest when you intend to go to Forest Park, you're 35 miles out of your way.
•If you go to Forest Lake instead of Lake Forest, you're about 12 miles lost. (And please do not confuse either of them with other woodsy-water-named suburbs like River Forest, Willowbrook, Streamwood, Lakewood, Spring Grove, Fox River Grove or just plain River Grove.)
•The Berwyn "L" stop is not in the suburb of Berwyn. Not even close.
•There is no lake in Northlake. (Its name is a combo of North Avenue and Lake Street.)

GEOGRAPHICAL MOVIE MYTHS
•Attention, fans of the John Hughes teenager films: There's no suburb called Shermer (although Northbrook used to be Shermerville).
•The original "Blues Brothers" locates Ray Charles' record store in Calumet City and shows an "L" line nearby, but please do not try to take the "L" to Cal City. It doesn't go there.
•If you're a fan of "When Harry Met Sally …" do not be fooled: The logical route from the University of Chicago to New York City does not pass Oak Street Beach. (this article is missing the mistake in Adventures in Babysitting where the L crossed the Eisenhower Expressway and the Prudential building can been seen from the "Ike" from about Western Ave.)

MEAN STREETS
•The website of the Halsted Street Deli chain lists 27 locations — none of them on Halsted Street.
• 57th Street Bookcase and Cabinet is nowhere near 57th Street; there are two locations, on North Halsted in the city and Davis Street in Evanston.
•The Gale Street Inn is not on Gale Street — it's down the block, on Milwaukee Avenue.
•Chinn's 34th Street Fishery in Lisle is not on 34th Street — it's on Route 34, also known as Ogden Avenue.
•The 115 Bourbon Street nightclub-restaurant is on 115th Street in Merrionette Park.
•The Maxwell Street Market is not on Maxwell Street -- it's about a block north, on Des Plaines Street.

EVANSTON INVADES SKOKIE
Evanston Subaru is in Skokie. So are Evanston Golf Club and Evanston Band & Orchestra. A home dialysis training facility called Wellbound of Evanston may be "of Evanston," but it's in Skokie.

GOLFERS IN THE ROUGH
•The Oak Park Country Club is not in Oak Park — it's in River Grove.
•The River Forest Country Club is not in River Forest — it's in Elmhurst.
•The Skokie Country Club is not in Skokie — it's in Glencoe. (But as already noted in this helpful guide, the Evanston Golf Club is in Skokie.)
•The Glen View Club is not in Glenview — it's in Golf.
•The Hinsdale Golf Club is not in Hinsdale — it's in Clarendon Hills.
•The Lincolnshire Country Club is nowhere near Lincolnshire. You'll find it more than 40 miles south of there, in Crete.

OUT-OF-TOWNER ALERTS
•Don't be fooled by the stations marked "Chicago" on the CTA's Blue, Red, Brown and Purple lines. All of the Red and Brown stations are in Chicago, and many of the Purple and Blue stops are as well. The stations that are called "Chicago" are for Chicago Avenue.
•Don't assume that the towns of West Chicago and North Chicago are close to Chicago. They're not. West Chicago is 30 miles from downtown Chicago. And North Chicago is closer to Kenosha, Wis., than to Chicago.

MORE DISCLAIMERS
•The main site of the Old Town School of Folk Music is not in the Old Town neighborhood; it's in Lincoln Square.
•The Chicago City Limits nightclub and restaurant is well outside the Chicago city limits — in Schaumburg.
•The Chicago Loop Sports Bar & Grill is 30 miles west of the Loop — in Streamwood.
•The Chicago Botanic Garden is in Glencoe.
•Oakbrook Toyota is not in Oak Brook or Oakbrook Terrace — it's in Westmont.

LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT
• Little Village is not little. In fact, the Southwest Side neighborhood is home to about 90,000 people. If it were a city, it would be in Illinois' top 10.
•No, Chicago's East Side is not in the lake. And it's not the place where Al Capone's forces killed 100 policemen, as imagined by British rockers in "The Night Chicago Died." In fact, the East Side is a Southeast Side neighborhood. Some say its name has nothing to do with the side of the city it's on but comes from the fact that it sits on the east bank of the Calumet River.
•At the very start of this guide, we declared that Blue Island is not an island. Which is correct ... now. But it was indeed an island in prehistoric times, sitting in something called Lake Chicago, which was formed when the glaciers melted. Later, settlers thought the ridge looked blue in the mist. Hence the name Blue Island. It is southeast of West Chicago, northeast of South Holland and west of the East Side. You can't miss it.