My first family residence at Bryn Mawr Apartment, Chicago

Situated across the street from each other, Bryn Mawr Apartment is a finely detailed building epitomised the rapid growth and expansion of Chicago in the 1920s and the commercial development of Bryn Mawr Avenue and surrounded by Edgewater community. We stayed there when we first started our family life and continue to live on for three years. Apart from relatively close in proximity to my University, the rate was also reasonable being situated near the sub-urban of Chicago.

The buildings' extensive use of terra cotta

exemplifies Chicago's love affair with this versatile building material after the Great Fire of 1871, especially its decorative applications. The 8-storey apartment is clad in rich green and cream terra cotta and features Egyptian-like art deco designs. Three of my friends who studied in the Art Institute of Chicago also stayed in the apartment, which is perhaps a testimony of its nice architecture. The building is designated as a Chicago Landmark on 20 January 1999.

The building is situated near Edgewater, a north Chicago, Illinois community seven miles north of downtown bordering the neighbourhood of Roger Park to the north, Uptown to the south, Lincoln Square to the west and south and West Ridge to the northwest. As one of Chicago's 77 community areas, Edgewater is bounded by Foster on the south, Devon on the north, Ravenswood on the west and Lake Michigan on the east. It has the highest population density of any of the neighbourhoods in Chicago. Edgewater contains several beaches that we enjoyed in the warm month. My hubby, baby and me always strolled and sometimes had BBQ with friends near Lake Michigan Beach. We could breath life in Chicago as The Windy City.

Edgewater was first developed around the 1890s as a summer home for Chicago's elite. It boasts a skyline of apartment buildings, condominium, shopping complexes and mid-rise homes.The high rise condominiums were also known to have large numbers of retired and elderly persons, many lived on fixed income. The prices are more affordable than Lake Shore Drive addresses further south. They are nice people and always bedazzled by my baby Nabila and many loved to play with her. They would say.... "Ohhh she looks very oriental. Look at her nice black hairs". Most of them had grey and blonde hairs.

The place is close to the MRT elevated train station of Bryn Mawr. Conditions has begun to improve and there has been a large influx of residents. The area is a colorful community with apart from Caucasians, new residents from Yugoslavia, Mexican, Pakistani, Bosnian etc have also made their way. My girl started to pick up Spanish words as she has few friends who she played with at the corridor of the apartment. Chicago is well known for accepting new, thriving enclaves of ethnicities in the past centuries. The new settlement of Europeans is a modern revival of that tradition. Americans, young hipsters, new parents, first-time homeowners, students and many more call Bryn Mawr home. I love watching the colorful and fast moving life from my window. Chicago really sharpen my survival skill in staying in a metropolitant city. My unforgettable encounter was being approached by a pick pocket rogue, but he probably has to learn to be a better thief. Other encounter was getting on a crossroad with drug dealers who use a woman as a ransom at 3.00 am. She was being strangled by a rowdy guy and at a gun-point. She pointed at me who was watching the scene from my apartment's window, maybe to get herself free. The guy looked up at me who was just few meters up and loosen his grip on the poor girl. I swear I never look out the window again like in safe Malaysia, then. When I went to my night classes I felt erratic that I was being followed. It took me few weeks to pass through those traumatic episode. On other occassion, I also heard gun shot near me while i was feeding my baby who was lying in a cradle, at the windy and scenic back stairways. Wow! If I can survive in Chicago, I can surely survive anywhere else in the world. It really taught me to be street smart.