While Megan and I loved the year that we lived in the New York building, we got a chance to move to a place that was much larger and was considerably less money across the street on Waveland Avenue. Since we were still in the “not making jack squat” salary phase of our lives, this was a no-brainer. The condo belonged to a cousin of Megan’s friend who had moved in to a house when she got married but wasn’t ready to sell yet.
Moving across the street (of course we hired movers – DUH) took a lot longer than expected since the new apartment was on the 4th floor. Since it was an old garden apartment, there was no elevator. Until the 3 story townhome we live in now came along, this 4-story climb was the best cardio workout you could get, especially if you were carrying groceries. The calories in a case of beer were already half burned by the time you got to our floor.
Even though it was a workout to get to our floor, it was nice to be on the top floor, especially if the apartments have wood floors like this one. Why is this important? Because any movement such as walking on a wood floor by a tenant above you is magnified in sound. If they have hard-soled shoes, forget it. The landlord might as well rent the space above you to elephants that have steel buckets attached to their feet.
One drawback to the place was that the windows were drafty as heck. It wasn’t as much an issue in the summertime since the place didn’t have central air (we just had window AC units) but once the fall/winter winds whipped off the lake, you could feel the draft 2 feet from the windows. If the shades were down, you could see them move on a windy day. What stunk was that this garden apartment complex was part of the homeowner’s association with the adjacent garden apartment and that other complex got new windows the previous year. Unfortunately it blew their budget sky high and the renovation for our apartment complex was pushed back several years.
The owner of our apartment assumed HBO was included in the cable package provided to all condo owners since the 5+ years she was there she never paid for it. Then I wound up having to make a service call for one reason or another to the cable company and then next thing I know our HBO access was gone. Drats. Rotten luck.
We were at this apartment during our engagement period and a few months before we were about to get married the owner told us they were planning on selling it. As if we needed any more stress or details in our life at the time. They gave us the option of moving out after our honeymoon but that was the last thing we wanted to do and wound up moving out of that place before we got married so we didn’t have to worry about it upon returning from St. Lucia.
What is amusing to me now is that I thought they were asking way too much money for the place at the time. To me, 120K was far too much to ask for a 4th floor walk-up 2 bed, 1 bath apartment with no central air, an old kitchen, and no parking. The more I think about it though, for 1998, that was probably a heckuva deal. It was less than half a block from Lake Shore Drive, it would have new windows in a year or two and a kitchen could easily be remodeled. Plus the place, just like our previous one, was four blocks from Wrigley Field. I'm sure the place is worth twice as much now.
Here is a view of Wrigley from our back porch.
If I got off at the Addison el stop, a lot of times I went an extra half block and walked on Sheffield between Addison and Waveland before heading east to the lake where my apartment was. I will save a story for another day as to how I almost got a homerun ball walking by the park one day during a game.
