By Todd M. Freimuth
Sundrani and his wife have worked at the newsstand inside the Granville
station located in the Edgewater neighborhood for two years. Their family
relies on the station to help support their family, they said. The
Granville station has been part of the neighborhood for more than a hundred
years. Life on the North Side neighborhood has become intertwined with the Red
Line L, which snakes through the city’s heart from north to south.
The station represents a kind of crossroads of life for the many people
who pass in and out of the station, not the least of those being the Sundrani
family. The station’s vitality comes from the lethargic pace of the
neighborhood and not just the rackety clanging of the trains that stop
through. In 2012, an average of 3,500 people entered the Granville station
daily on weekdays to board the red line in 2012 that helped contribute to the
city’s busiest rail line, according to CTA ridership reports.
The station was first used May 16, 1908, and has gone through several
upgrades throughout the years starting in 1921, according to www.Chicago-l.org,
an informational website that monitors and records Chicago’s rapid transit
system. The most recent upgrade was the summer of 2012 when the station
refurbished the interior with new lighting and signage.
As rush hour comes to a close around 8 a.m., the station’s buzz subsides
and Najima Sundrani tidies the newsstand before she begins to type to friends
abroad on her iPad. Until the rush picks up again in the afternoon, her day is
somber and quiet, she said.
During the late morning into early afternoon, the neighborhood’s station
winds down from its morning rush. Occasional window shoppers chat and laugh
while they saunter by small shops along the street. A police car’s siren wails
and the car burns out from Loyola University and the Chicago Police
Department’s joint security station next to the station entrance.
The joint security station, which houses campus security for the
dormitories a block north of the station and Chicago Police personnel, was
opened March 2006. It was the first public-private partnership to reduce crime
in the neighborhood, according to Loyola University.
But even with the occasional hectic commotion, the area remains mostly
quiet, allowing locals to steal a few moments of serenity between the
neighborhood’s rush hour hustle. Among them is Jon Lancaster, a Granville
resident. Outside the dimly lit Gino’s North bar and restaurant, a door down
from the station’s entrance, Lancaster steps into the afternoon sun. He
steadily slaps his cigarette pack against his hand’s palm and removes a loose
square. He struggles lighting the cigarette against howling wind that rustles
dry leaves off of trees and crack on the concrete.
“I prefer day drinking,” he says whilst pulling from his lit cigarette.
“I like to have my peace and I enjoy the silence before the Loyola kids come
out.”
The neighborhood’s light afternoon’s traffic and calm atmosphere are
ideal for relaxing just a few blocks west from Lake Michigan, he said.
Lancaster bartends most evenings and values these laidback afternoons when he seemingly
has the neighborhood to himself, he said.
Soon though, the area awakes from its mid-afternoon siesta as residents
return home from work and their business downtown. Starting at 4 p.m., the
rumbling baritone of the L becomes more consistent. Trains come and go every
three to six minutes and drop off riders who filter into restaurants by the
station or down residential side streets. Crowds gather on the sidewalks
and talk loudly in front of bars as Granville Street’s shop’s clattering security
cages signal the working day’s end. For a few select hours the hustle of
downtown has moved up north.
Night falls around the L stop and the crowded sidewalks clear leaving
only the wind and the steady rumble of the train. Throughout the night, it
moves people from one side of the city to the other. Although the street is
empty, the evening is not over yet. In fact, inside Sam’s Chicken and Ribs
restaurant across the street from the L entrance the evening has just begun.
“Mhmm, yes sir, mhmm, okay, 10 minutes,” says the owner Madhuker Talari
into an old, corded telephone. He hangs up and yells into the kitchen
before turning to a new customer and quickly scribbles another order. The phone
rings again and he quickly tucks it between his shoulder and ear. His cash
register rings open and shut above the crescendo of customers looking for
late-night food.
Crowds of Loyola students and neighborhood regulars stream in and out
through the night hours into the early morning until Talari closes at 4
a.m. Sam’s restaurant has been very successful serving this particular
neighborhood’s night owl niche, said Talari. The busiest times are often in the
early morning when the area around the L is quietest and the other restaurants
have closed, he said.
“My most busy times are around one in the morning, sometimes later,” he
said.
Talari, an immigrant from Hyderabad, India, has owned the restaurant for
10 years and supports his wife and two kids with the profits, he said. His wife
occasionally gives him trouble for staying out so late but ultimately
understands his business, he said. He says he is happy with the steady
business in the area and attributes part of his accomplishments to students
returning from bars and a strong police presence. It is a risky business to
enter due to crime and unpredictable clientele, he said, but is very happy to
have it.
