Lawrence Ave (and Kedzie too) is the commercial heart of Albany Park. It's also an incredibly bizarre street.
You've got the shady businesses, and you've got the legitimate businesses all reflecting the diversity of the neighborhood on one street. The Admiral Club strip joint sits next to a Muslim clothing attire shop, and Korean bakeries are intermixed with Mexican groceries. Stores that really want to buy your gold and/or sell you fuzzy blankets at the same time operate out of old buildings with crumbling but still beautiful facades.
Lawrence also regularly has a traffic problem, as it feeds into a couple of highways at Cicero. Traffic will only get worse as the Lawrence Ave Streetscape project goes into effect. For those unfamiliar, this plan reduces traffic lanes on Lawrence from four to two, and only between Western and Clark. This is being done to add more sidewalk and tree-planting space, because apparently, Chicago doesn't think Lawrence has enough of a congestion problem.
You've got the shady businesses, and you've got the legitimate businesses all reflecting the diversity of the neighborhood on one street. The Admiral Club strip joint sits next to a Muslim clothing attire shop, and Korean bakeries are intermixed with Mexican groceries. Stores that really want to buy your gold and/or sell you fuzzy blankets at the same time operate out of old buildings with crumbling but still beautiful facades.
Lawrence also regularly has a traffic problem, as it feeds into a couple of highways at Cicero. Traffic will only get worse as the Lawrence Ave Streetscape project goes into effect. For those unfamiliar, this plan reduces traffic lanes on Lawrence from four to two, and only between Western and Clark. This is being done to add more sidewalk and tree-planting space, because apparently, Chicago doesn't think Lawrence has enough of a congestion problem.
Lawrence could arguably be the worst street in all of Chicago, in more ways than one#traffic#roadrage
— Stephanie Johnson (@esjay__) August 23, 2012
Twitter user (and amateur photog) Bill Schwartz, who likes to share photos he takes while driving around the city, recently drove down Lawrence Ave. While Schwartz could have easily Instagramed photos of the gorgeous old buildings, he instead focused on the multiculturalism on display.
I think the first time I had halal food was at some joint located on the street dubbed as Seoul Drive (Lawrence Ave). There is something culturally wonderful about this.
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