Life on the Gold Coast

5-22-2004 - 4:56 p.m.

Weird things about my neighborhood:

-There's a Starbucks coffee blend named after it, Gold Coast Blend. Of course, this is now my favorite coffee.

-Mine is a neighborhood of newscasters. I used to love Antonio Mora when he read the news on Good Morning America. Now that he's a local Chicago news anchor, I see him semi-regularly in the hood. Today I walked by him, and he was chatting with his neighbor about house plants. His son was playing catch. (PS- Antonio, Jr.--Your playmate was right... You need to work on your aim. You nearly nailed me with your Nerf football when I walked by.)

-Crazy urban images abound. Saturday morning, a helicopter delivered roof-top air conditioner units to my building. An 8-seater chopper hovered directly in front of my apartment windows...it's rotors less than 10 feet from the building, making for one of the most surreal visions I've ever had. The pilot was literally hanging out the window, looking down in order to navigate himself, as though he were parallel parking a car. This made for an extremely cool, yet unbelievably terrifying experience for us in the apartment. I could almost hear the tragic segment that would appear on the 6-o'clock news-- probably starting off with the phrase, "Helicopeter Hits Building during Routine Flight. Tragically, Two Residents and One Bulldog Perish". Maybe my neighbor, Mr. Mora, would report live from the scene.

Before - After