The Fourth of July in Humboldt Park (Itasca: condo, home)

[Lookout Kid]

This year I was on a Humboldt Park roof deck for much of the Fourth of July, and it was an interesting experience. Sure, we could see some fireworks at Navy Pier, but the West Side show was much better. People had some serious firepower going off from their alleys, front sidewalks, and abandoned lots. We're talking real black market municipal-strength stuff going off for hours and hours all around us--not the tame stuff we see on the North Side. There may have been some gunfire too, but with all of the noise it would have been hard to tell. The cops were nowhere to be found. I didn't see a single squad over a five hour period, but did see a couple of ambulances.

[surlycue]

Sounds about right. I was at the playground on the NE side of the park Sunday morning and there were used up casings all over the grass as well as some unspent M-80s and M-100s. I was sorry I spent the previous night at home. I'm sure the residents had quite a show over there.

[Venom]

Tame stuff on the northside?

[scarletneon]

^^ no, i'm pretty sure Uptown and Edgewater condo buildings (or something) were trying to outdo the Saddle and Cycle club. There were nonstop ones from around Lawrence, maybe? and then there was a huge random display at one of the condo buildings at Ardmore and the lake. nuts.

[Lookout Kid]

Uptown had a lot of fireworks, but it was maybe one tenth of what was happening in Humboldt Park. It's not even comparable. We went right to sleep over here after getting home from Baghdad. It was like the USAF shock and awe campaign over there.

[ChiMack]

well most of the cops were at the taste no?

[Venom]

Maybe cus' you came to uptown when they where dieing off

[Los Guys]

Nothing out of the ordinary for HP. Even in Logan Square the alleys were alight for three days straight thanks to the amateur pyros. The impressive part is that there wasn't any property damage afterwards, and the opportunity to light stuff off for three days reduces peoples desires to blow stuff up and break **** later on. I wish there were more holidays that aid the of release destructive tendencies on something besides private property.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Venom

Maybe cus' you came to uptown when they where dieing off

The truth is that there aren't enough little thugs in Uptown any more to really put on a show. And the homeless degenerate people really aren't in to fireworks all that much.

[Humboldt1]

I had trouble sleeping on Saturday night due to all the fireworks going off. It sounded like Baghdad. We were out in Itasca to watch their fireworks (very impressive) and got back around 11:30pm and I had to tell my girlfriend not to worry about all the noise as it was just fireworks. I had to turn on the fan in my bedroom to cancel out all the noise just to get to bed (and I sleep in the basement, so you know it was loud). The next morning the sidewalks were all covered with spent casings. We went to Smith Park in the afternoon to play tennis and the courts were covered in casings as well to the point where it made it hard to play.