My apologies for the late posting on Wicker Park; I have only just gotten around to putting the recordings up on Sound Cloud!
On Wednesday, May 14, I ventured to Wicker Park to check out the soundscapes there. Wicker Park is a neighborhood that has been so gentrified it has become known nationally as one of the "hippest" neighborhoods in the country. Wicker Park, historically, was home to mostly Polish communities, then mostly Latino (specifically, Puerto Rican), and then an artistic community, until its gentrification led to an increase in rent and eventually pushed these communities out. The artistic footprint has remained in Wicker Park, however, with many artistic spaces and a general artistic twist on most of the business there. It is now filled with upscale restaurants and bars, and rent has continued to increase.
Initially, I was curious to see how the sounds in Wicker Park compared to the sounds of the West Loop, seeing as both neighborhoods have been extremely gentrified. The West Loop is often seen as more of a family-friendly neighborhood, whereas people generally think of Wicker Park as being filled with twenty-somethings.
Right off the bat, I noticed that Wicker Park is much louder than the West Loop. There are several different 'mini' soundscapes, if you will, competing with one another in the larger soundscape that is the neighborhood as a whole. Cars speed by blasting music, motorcyclists rev their engines, storefronts and restaurants blast music, all the while people busily hurry by having conversations or listening to their own music.
However, listening to the recordings I made after having been to Little Village and Pilsen made me realize how little-- if any-- of Wicker Park's former inhabitants left a sonic footprint. Notably, the sounds the permeated the area were devoid of the neighborhood's history-- there were no sounds that indicated the Polish or Latino history of the area, no sounds that reflected the fight the Wicker Park's former Puerto Rican inhabitants put up when the area began its rapid gentrification. While the neighborhood is still seen as artistic, many of the storefronts and restaurants were playing Top 100 music, which further underscored how much the community has changed.
The first track is outside of High Noon Saloon, where a song that was popular several years ago (I think this is MGMT?) is playing. The second track is a recording of a car stopped at an intersection blasting rap. The third track a recording of what I can only assume is a band practice, the sound of which had seeped onto the street through the open windows. The final track is the loud revving of motorcycles which drowned out the music blasting in the American Apparel next to the Flat Iron Grill.
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