NYLON comes out with its own line of jewelry. Remember when NYLON was your little secret and was not…so…corporate?

I remember never being able to find NYLON on the shelves at Borders and Barnes and Noble. I would take the train to the Silver Room, this amazing little store on Milwaukee in Wicker Park where they sell really gorgeous silver jewelry, have a DJ and mini-dance floor in the back, photobooth and an entire wall full of expensive foreign and independent fashion magazines. This was when I first started reading NYLON regularly. This is how I found out about Purple magazine. It was my own little treat, where I blew my paltry paycheck on expensive foreign magazines and purchased vintage handbags and skirts at Una Mae’s and relazed at Filter on the Damen/Milwaukee/North intersection. With my job at Public I, I’ve finally gotten the chance to just relax in Wicker Park, except it’s not what I knew. I understand gentrification. I get it. I hate it. In fact, most of my friends can tell you this, I know perhaps TOO MUCH about it. Growing up in and around the city, studying sociology as a hobby, I’ve become accustome to telling people what’s REALLY going on in Chicago.

A couple of weekends ago, I got off of work early and decided to browse the neighborhood, like I used to do in high school and the early days of college. I felt a pang, a real pang, when I remembered that Filter closed down some months ago. The landlord jacked up the price and a bank took over the lease. I went inside and took a $20 out of the ATM. The floors were pristine, white tile. The glass windows were clear. A man in a suit smiled at me. I scowled. He turned away. It was just two years ago, bemoaning the rapid gentrification of the neighborhood, that I excused myself from tea with friends and stood in the bathroom, with old fliers, hand scribblings and, I don’t know, I suppose spit lined the wall. And then, there I was, standing in what used to be the most hipster-y, scene-y, and still fun coffeehouse around, and it was silent.

I walked up Milwaukee to Una Mae’s and saw the store, once filled to the max with vintage goods, with a handful of newer items thrown in, was compleetely transformed. Wood floors were brand new, sales associates had that perfect, handsome thing going on that made me feel like the one time I stumbled into Marc by Marc on Damen. If you climbed a set of rickety old stairs, you could find the three or four racks of vintage items, all curated perfectly. I loved it all, but it was clearly out of my price range, and clearly for the customer that bought vintage to say, “It’s vintage!”

And then, a couple of blocks away, the Silver Room greeted me, as best as it could. The jewelry, already pretty pricey, was so disgustingly expensive that I scoffed, loudly, and a sales associate looked at me like I personally insulted her. The DJ was gone. And the magazines. A dinky 2 columns by 5 rows. NYLON was clearly gone. I mean, you can find it in any 7-Eleven, or Urban Outfitters, where they give away free subscriptions with purchase of their t-shirts. Everything was different, obviously. But the change was so rapid that I was angry, really, angry, beyond angry. Empty handed, I walked to Damen and Armitage and took the bus to Argo.