This post is part of my “Stay Creative. Write Your Stories” Series, that I recommend for all grandparents to write your memories while we are sheltering-at-home. Your children and grandchildren will love it, and you will too!
The Great Condo: Hyde Park – 4940 East End
Well, from our first little house in Jeffrey Manor (at 95th and Yates), we moved into “the great condo” in Hyde Park. It was 1971. Michael and Ellen, you were 18 and 20 respectively, and each already with one foot out the door.
So Margaret and I had the whole place mostly to ourselves: three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a tiny kitchen and a real dining room, on the 8th floor. We paid $22,000 for all of that! It was too good of a deal to pass up. We were renting the unit when ‘some group of guys’ bought the whole building and just wanted to get rid of the units.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, parking in back for two cars was also part of the deal.
Margaret and I lived here for 25 years. When we sold it in the mid 90’s it went for five times more than our purchase price. It gave us enough for a great down payment for the Deerfield condo. I’ve been mortgage free and clear for years.
So Hyde Park…
I loved that place more than any place we or I have lived. My bike rides along the lake–from Hyde Park to Downtown–then at times south to the Coast Guard station. Tennis with Carl Learner and a group we met at the University of Chicago faculty club. Carl was a good tennis player. They also moved into Hyde Park.
Ellen, you stayed with us for a brief time and then got your own apartment. Michael stayed a little longer and got a job at the University of Chicago Library. I don’t recall the name, but I do remember you liked the job.
Now empty-nesters, Mom began her most creative time in her life. She got a BA in Psychology and Art. She worked a deal with Roosevelt University to take classes at the Art Institute and they gave her credit toward her BA. She wrote papers for her Psychology class where she took on, big time, psychology for being anti-feminist.
The big bedroom was her “messy room,” as the grandkids called it. When Jess called me the other day and I told her what I was writing, she said “Grandpa I can tell you a lot about the Hyde Park Condo.”
Of course, for me, Hyde Park will always be special, since that’s where your mom and I met (at George Williams College) and hung out as we got to know each other and fell in love.
Well that is it for now.
Love you,
Dad
