“Home of sluts, monkeys, and the best fresh-roasted coffee,” is handwritten on a chalkboard near the door of Filter Café. I can’t speak to the first listed item, and I haven’t witnessed any monkeys inside, but they’re right about the coffee – quite tasty.
Regardless of where you live, there are places in your town, on your block, or within your neighborhood that help to define the essence of a location. A multigenerational hardware store or corner shop, a noisy dog park, a sunny sidewalk café with pancakes you’d die for – these all assist in defining a place’s soul. This soul, or essence, cannot easily be erased the same way marks in the sand are wiped away by growing waves on a beach. In the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Filter Café represents a mark in the sand too deep to be simply swept away by a few waves.
Wicker Park used to be a neighborhood that was riddled with crime. It has the unfortunate attribute of being sandwiched between unsafe and downright scary parts of town – Humboldt Park to the west and Cabrini Green to the east, formerly one of the most dangerous and violent project housing communities in the country. Wicker Park first earned its identity when artists began to move into this pocket of town due to its cheap cost of living. I’m no real estate analyst, but I hear that rental costs tend to lessen when armed robbery, rape, and murder are occurring blocks away.
With the unveiling of the Near North Redevelopment Initiative in 1997, Cabrini Green towers began to tumble and gentrification began to take hold in Wicker Park and surrounding neighborhoods. Lessors were no longer paid rent in the form of shitty oil paintings and jars of loose change but the artistic feel of Wicker Park endured and became this part of Chicago’s essence and backbone for growth.
Filter Café is a tribute to the neighborhood’s artistic endurance. Forced out of their primetime location in Wicker Park’s Flat Iron Arts Building at the corner of North, Damen, and Milwaukee Avenues, the coffee shop relocated a few blocks southeast. Serving decent coffee and, frankly, less decent food, the eclectic mix of staff and patrons is a direct reflection of what Wicker Park used to be saturated with and what it is trying desperately to maintain. Local art is either hanging from or painted directly on each wall. Exposed brick reminds people of the building’s connection to the past, and every piece of furniture was either salvaged or bought from a thrift store, no two pieces alike. All of these things – the art, the brick, the array of mismatched furniture – send a message to the people inside. And that message is, “This is a genuine Wicker Park establishment. Yes, the couches are uncomfortable and filled with dust mites. No, there isn’t a Lacoste store nearby. If you don’t like it, kindly fuck off.”
I don’t have any tattoos or piercings, I don’t listen to Morrissey, and I don’t know what it’s like to not have a 401k contribution automatically deducted from my biweekly paycheck. All those things being true, one might think that I wouldn’t belong in a place like this. And honestly, maybe I don’t. But in much the same way that Dubliners take pride in drinking in the pubs that Joyce and Yeats frequented, I appreciate the authenticity of Filter and its commitment to the neighborhood’s past.
To longtime Wicker Park residents, Filter Café establishes itself as the undeniable proof that in the wake of the ugly and inevitable change that is constantly stirring along North, Damen, and Milwaukee Avenues, pieces of yesterday can still remain and flourish.
Filter Café is the Eiffel Tower or Sydney Opera House of Wicker Park. This piecemeal, hipster-ridden café is a representation of a group of people and an instantaneous symbol of place. I just hope this building is a deep enough mark in the sand that it endures a few more waves. Or at least enough so that I may encounter some of those sluts and monkeys they boast about.
………
Chicago has a long list of great pieces of architecture and public places. Some are designed by architects with fancy glasses, big fees and a matching level of self-importance. Others are simple coffee shops finished with lime green sofas, tattooed baristas, and lit by dented lamp shades and MacBook screens. The point is, in every city there exists architecture – whether it is a skyscraper or secondhand store – and each of those distinct buildings accumulates into a constructed urban fabric which cradles the lives of the people woven within it.
It is my hope that this City Solo series, in conjunction with my perhaps not-so-objective opinion on Chicago’s architecture, has shown how meaningful and accessible the subject can be. Because, whether aware of it or not, architecture means something and is accessed by everyone, everywhere, every day.
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