I quite enjoyed Andrew O'Hehir's article but the letters in response to said article are riveting. I grew up in Northern California and currently live in Chicago so I am familiar with both the Mission and Wicker Park. I am also familiar with the arrogant and tiresome attitudes of a good number these letter writers. I find it silly that a group of well read, educated people are throwing arguments around about who has more "bohemian" credibility. Ok, I get it, you are all very cool, so cool in fact that you have to trumpet your divine coolness by attacking a book review. The polish families you pushed out of those working class bars hated you just as much as you hate the jogging couples and the insanely priced boutiques. They didn't think you were cool.

However Chicago's Wicker Park or the Mission District in San Francisco developed, I think that we should all just be happy that we can appreciate the culture. Personally, I have always enjoyed taking long walks with my MyFi in each city!

Lloyd's description of the transformation of Wicker Park, as reported by O'Hehir, seems questionable. In particular, Lloyd's apparent assertion that "in the late '80s the neighborhood remained a dilapidated, crime-ridden zone divided between Mexican immigrants and an older generation of Polish-American residents" is bizarre.

The gentrification of Wicker Park and the adjacent Ukrainian Village and Bucktown neighborhoods had started a few years before my wife and I moved into the area in 1979, and the invasion of "Oxford-clad yuppies" was well along when we sold our house (for triple our purchase price) in 1988. When we arrived, the homes facing the park itself had been renovated or were being renovated, and the process spread to adjacent streets. The pioneers may have included young artists, but real estate speculators, small building trade contractors, and architects, mainly in their 30s and 40s, were much more visible among the new residents. By 1983, if not earlier, Wicker Park had a strong overlay of middle and upper middle class white collar residents

I left the neighborhood in 1988 and Chicago shortly thereafter, so I do not know what had occurred by the time Lloyd had arrived in 1993. But I suspect that the earlier wave of more prosaic, older middle class residents created the social infrastructure (safer streets, reasonable shopping, more responsive politicians, etc) which made the area attractive to the "hipsters living cheaply and making art" which they describe. And by the way, while Mexican immigrants certainly lived in Wicker Park in the late 1980s, the Hispanic residents were overwhelmingly Puerto Rican.

Well, I'm encouraged by all the feedback. I think. And over time it tends to even out somewhat. For the guy who thought I was disrespecting engineers: What other people said. It's not that engineers aren't creative; it's just that they (and doctors and lawyers) are sufficiently different from artists that Florida's "creative class" becomes this huge, amorphous, basically meaningless entity.

Thanks to DocAmazing and other ex-Missioners for having my back as to the $550 rent in 1984. And yes, Doc, the real story is indeed the Latinos and other working-class folks who got pushed elsewhere, a particularly cruel tale in the overpriced Bay Area. At least Chicago remains a big, sprawling city with some non-maxed-out neighborhoods.

Hey, destino, if your g-g-grandmother was from Clare and named Hehir or O'Hehir, we're almost certainly related. My great-grandfather, William Hehir, was born in Clare before moving to Mayo as a cop. And your point about the yearning for community is well taken. I think the answer is yes, it can be found, but it's not all that easy. As a married, ex-boho parent myself, finding a community of like-minded people has been a struggle, but it's beginning to come together.

To those of you who suspect the bohemian thing is overrated, and see the agent of neighborhood change as strict economics, or proximity to public transit. I don't know, I'm sure those are elements. But your real quarrel is with Richard Lloyd, not with me, and his book makes a strong argument otherwise.

If you hate personal essays in book-review form, hey, what can I say? Guilty as charged. We live in a wonderful consumer society, and wherever you live the New York Times is there every Sunday with perfectly boring, connect-the-dots book reviews. Have fun.

As for the dude who thinks I'm making it all up, there's no point in responding to that kind of thing. If he actually wanted to know what the hell Bono and Jane Wiedlin were doing in my scummy apartment, he'd have asked the question differently. Then again, if he thinks Cole Valley -- which is *very pretty,* don't get me wrong -- was an incredibly happening spot in 1984, we just have different ideas about lots of things.

Here come the Jets:

Little world, step aside!

Better go underground,

Better run, better hide.

We're drawin' the line,

So keep your noses hidden!

We're hangin' a sign,

Says "Visitors forbidden"

And we ain't kiddin'!

Here come the Jets,

Yeah! An' we're gonna beat

Ev'ry last buggin' gang

On the whole buggin' street!

On the whole ever-mother-lovin' street!

Why is Andrew O'Hehir writing about his own hipster past in a review of someone else's book? This belongs on his Myspace blog. I don't want to pay for this kind of thing in the future.

Try walking around in a bright red or deep blue shirt in the wrong part of South-Central L.A.

And be sure and duck.

According to Salvador's letter anyone wearing Brown or Red is risking summary execution on the streets of Pilsen. Salvador, seriously, I laugh in your general direction. That claim is totally ridiculous. Beyond idiotic. Is there any place at all in the United States were people are being shot point blank willy-nilly on the streets for their clothing? NO THERE IS NOT. You watch too much television. I walk around Pilsen ALL OF THE TIME at all hours of the day and night going to various functions and it is absolutely ridiculous to present the neighborhood as if it is crime plagued. Give me a break man. I am sorry to say it but if you think Pilsen is a terrifying place to be then you are wuss.