I came to Humboldt Park in 2000/2001 after the sale of a property I was happily living in in Logan Square. My landlord who sold the property, Mr. T, a Puerto Rican gentleman, who still owns and inspects his properties to this day at the age of 83. Since then, outside of a two-year break of living in L.A., I have always resided in this property.

When I decided to move back from L.A., he was the first person I called and he told me he’d have a place for me upon my return. Little did I realize it would be in the same building I left a couple years before! Mr. T has been like a father to me since I’ve been renting from him.

In all these years he’s kept my rent reasonable.

Mr. T loved me and my former roommate, as if we were his own sons, and we have all had great dealings since. After two-three years of living together my former roommate and I were amicably parting ways . We argued among ourselves only once but ganged up on other tenants bringing f****d up energy in our crib.

Mr. T wanted to keep us in the fold as he genuinely loved us. So he offered us separate units in the same building that he allowed us to give our fair price to rent. My roommate and his girl took the top front apartment. I took the first floor front after all this and named my price.

The other benefit was that he introduced me to his friends who own

PRFL (Puerto Rico Food & Liquor), a convenience store across the street from my potential new residence that sold beer and liquor, and  that I could come home to every day.

There I met those who would become my good friends: Junior, Omar, Johnny, Cisco, And Martin.

My first experiences living here was when the young teenage Dragons used to sit on Grandma's porch and do what they did. I grew up on the South Side and had to navigate many gang territories. This was a cultural difference because all my gang dealings previously were all Black. I never dealt with Hispanic gangbangers until now.

Back then, I worked for a retailer on Michigan Avenue where I had to walk out the crib looking the part. They mistook me for a soft Buppie. They’d hang out on Grandma's porch, get drunk and high, and throw their refuse on my porch. I checked them once by telling them I wasn’t who they thought I was by doing that s**t.

Next time, these Rican kids in the store are using the n-word and it was f****n with me and I let them know. We discussed both POVs —that’s how young Ricans identify themselves, I get it. Based on our direct dialogue, I’m someone they respect to this day based on two basic tenets. Don’t throw sh*t on my porch and refrain from using the “n” word around me.

We never had any problems since.

There wasn’t a weekend that went by where I didn’t have guests (sometimes parties) at the crib going well into the morning, or I was tramping my way back home from around the corner after a late night. A couple of those times I was on late-night jaunts and avoided being caught in the crosshairs of drive-by shootings at the corner of Rockwell and Augusta.

A shooting happened in front of my window one morning where one Lafayette student shot and killed another. Down the road, some years later, on an eerily warm night in January, a teenager was shot and killed sitting on his porch as gang retaliation for his brother’s transgressions. Midday one NYE, I had a gun pulled on me by two teens in a robbery.

I used to take every Puerto Rican Festival Saturday off from work. The Dragons would give me a stick(flag) to hoist on my porch and I’d provide them pails of water to soak girls in the car parade. Not my proudest moment but a good time seemingly had by all. Still, to this day, I try to take PR Pride Day off every year. I’m definitely not Puerto Rican but I’m definitely caught up.

During this time, I owned a video production company too. I owned it with two other guys who are still great friends, Caton and Helmut. We were on the precipice of the iPhone and YouTube before we softly disbanded. During that time, we were peddling out DVDs to get work.

We did everything from short docs, to music videos, commercials, and editorial.

We were Method Media Productions.

We had an office on Milwaukee Avenue. It was attached to an art space, the Buddy Gallery above Lubinski Furniture store.

We held a screening at The Chicago International Film Festival in 2004 for a short doc called Puppetry.

With the intent of expanding my production business, I moved to L.A. from 2004–2006. I was so depressed, it was the second time in life I contemplated [unaliving myself].

Whether I wanted to or not I moved out there on a whim and made friends with all the wrong people and was knowing it. I lived with my childhood best friend, but could not find my way living out there. I had many Chicago friends out there but only a couple of them had cars. I lived on the West Side near Venice and they lived I mostly inland in the Hollywood/Los Feliz areas.

There were times when I got so down about living there, feeling like I took a couple steps backwards, confiding in people I had no history with. I actually really did get lost traveling one night there and had this overwhelmingly panicked feeling of dying in the street and nobody would know or care.

It was the worst “lost” and “disconnected” I ever felt.

One day when nothing was going my way, a former friend from Chicago contacted me to hang out.

She said I sounded like I needed a friend and she would come pick me up. Her whole conversation during the drive and hanging out at The Grove was about using people for as much as you can use them for. With everyone I met, that was the norm but it was not me.

I thought about who could I trust?

If I ended up dead on the street, who’d know or care?

After a trip back to Chicago for my high school reunion at Hyde Park Career Academy, my mind was made up. As soon as I got back to L.A., I put the wheels in motion to move back to Chicago. I called my previous (and current) landlord with whom I maintained contact. For some strange reason, I knew my stay in L.A. wasn’t going to be permanent. I moved there at the age of 38.

I was truly starting over there after having previously an established life here. I went from having my own crib and not needing a car to having a roommate and eventually needing a car. I felt that I had a huge hole to climb out of while living in L.A.

I wasn’t young enough to adapt to those kinds of changes. I grew to miss the life I had established here.

I moved back and stayed with a friend who owned a condo on Walton and Washtenaw for a week. Then I moved back to the South Side and lived with my mom for a month. It was a humbling experience because my mother wanted me, at nearly 40 years old, home by 10pm every night for her own peace of mind.

Finally, something opened up with Mr. T. I moved back into the same building I moved from previously and I have been there since.

It’s been 16 years back on Augusta Boulevard.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I’ve watched people come and go around me, but I also still see many people who were here when I first arrived here in the early 2ks.

Between Ukrainians, PRicans, Whites, Blacks, and Hipsters, Augusta Blvd feels like Sesame Street. Any sliver of land has a prefab building going up for $1M. Archie’s Tavern went from being an old-man Ukrainian bar to a Hipster joint. The store on the corner, Puerto Rico Food and Liquors, went from selling Heineken to craft beer, wines, liquors, and fresh produce.

That store has a history and story all its own. In the years I’ve been here, every mom-and-pop store in the area has upped its presentation. Tabb’s, Boriken, Yauco, Municipal, are all more inviting than they ever were. The restaurants have held their own too. Nellie’s, Papa’s Cache, Flying Saucer, and Feed have been around for at least three decades or more. Luquillo’s and Jayuya Barber Shop peacefully coexist. California Avenue has an artsy vibe to it.

Humboldt Park itself has gone from being a raggedy gang meadow to now being a place you want to see every bit of.

Now, even White people live west of the park, when only a short time ago that was where you were forced as rents went up east of the park.

I love Humboldt Park and always have since I’ve lived here. Growing up on the South Side and watching the news, I remember the arson of the 1970s and the gang wars of the previous 30 years. To me, it was an extension of the West Side—the Puerto Rican part. This was a place you didn’t want to f**k with.

During my time here, I grew to love it because there was just enough of everything you could want in a community.

There’s strong culture and an embracement of diversity. There’s modern vs. old school. There’s creativity amidst commerce. There’s safety to a degree (there’s sketch and danger lurking around any corner).

My friends are here.

I hope to be here another 25 years, should I live that long.

I love Humboldt Park.

Illustration by: Jonathan Carradine