Last night we hiked the fourth leg...

...of the Chicago Marathon course -- the northernmost tip through Lakeview -- and made it to about Mile Eight and a half. (If it sounds like we're going slow it's because we can't take up exactly where we left off each week. We could if we had a helicopter, but one of our constraints is that we always use the CTA.)

If you'll remember, last week we got as far as the Goethe Monument in Lincoln Park. We then walked west on Diversey and caught the Number 8 bus on Halsted, so we resumed our Hike last night where the bus dropped us off at the same spot. With me so far?

I found a restaurant, Nando's Peri-Peri Chicken, which serves Afro-Portuguese flame-grilled chicken in a spicy chili sauce. It's a chain, but it met our budget requirement: dinners for around ten dollars. I had the chicken breast sandwich -- medium spicy -- which was "served on a toasted Portuguese roll with arugula, tomato, pickled red onions and PERi-PERi mayo," fries and a glass of water. With tax it came to $11.09 and was quite good.

The restaurant was just beyond the Half Shell, on the corner of Orchard and Diversey. None of the guys had been to this iconic North Side eatery, and since it's a little pricey for our group I told my son I'd bring him back sometime with his mother and/or his brother.

On our way to Sheridan and Diversey, where we finished last week, we passed the Brewster Apartments on Pine Grove where Charlie Chaplin lived when he was filming silent movies with Essanay Studios in 1915.

We turned left (north) on Sheridan into Lakeview -- or do you spell it Lake View? -- one of the 77 officially recognized community areas of Chicago. (Boystown and Wrigleyville, on the other hand, are actually "neighborhoods" within Lakeview.) I know, it's all very confusing.

This particular street (which turns into Lake Shore Drive at Belmont and Marine Drive after Irving Park) is one of my favorites in all of Chicago. It's lined with luxury high-rise condos and apartments from the 1920s (and probably before) to Mid-Century modern and beyond. I've often thought that my ideal residence would be a massive vintage high-rise apartment along this stretch of road. (A guy can dream, can't he?)

The lighting wasn't very good, of course, but I did manage to take a picture of this sculpture outside one of the many Mid-Century modern buildings.

Before we reached Addison, where we turned left (west), we passed one of my favorite structures in the area, Temple Sholom, between Stratford and Cornelia. (Is it just a coincidence, by the way, that one of the few -- only? -- Tudor high-rises in the area is on a street called Stratford?)

The temple, founded in 1867, it is one of the oldest synagogues in Chicago.

The current building, a mix of Byzantine and Moorish Revival styles completed in 1928, was the result of an assignment given in 1921 to three students at the School of Architecture at the Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology). While I'd always admired the synagogue from the outside, my son and I had an opportunity to see the interior last fall as part of Open House Chicago. In short, it's every bit as spectacular on the inside as it is on the outside. (None of these pictures really do it justice.)

We were only on Addison for a short time, not long enough to see Wrigley Field at Clark, but we did pass my very first apartment on Pine Grove, just north of Addison. I moved there in 1981 when I was 22 years old and fresh out of college. I was a runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at the time, and the $200 a month studio -- utilities included, pay phone in the hall -- fit my budget nicely. That and a $40 monthly CTA pass were my only two fixed expenses. The rest of my princely $7600 a year salary was for food and generic beer, which I bought just around the corner at the Jewel on Broadway. And, yes, as a Chicago native I say "the Jewel," rather than just "Jewel" like my wife and kids. Looking back, I was poor but happy as a clam. (I also, in fairness, had my parents to fall back on.)

One quick aside from those days. When I first moved to the city in the early 1980s, Lakeview was just beginning to gentrify. (Lincoln Park was only a few years ahead of it.) A product of the suburbs, I decided I would have to abandon my habit of taking walks after dinner. (It was the big, bad city, remember?) One night, however, I remember coming home from work late and walking up Broadway toward Addison. I heard footsteps behind me and immediately thought, this is it. I turned around quickly and saw that it was just an old lady pulling her groceries in one of those collapsible wheeled carts. I figured if she wasn't worried then I shouldn't be either. And, with one minor exception, I've never had a problem in all my years in the city. It's really much safer than people think. Honest.

Broadway, which is nearly all commercial, provides quite a contrast with Sheridan, which is almost all residential. While there are many new businesses, of course, there are still a number of spots from the Old Days that are still in operation. If you're familiar with the street, you'll be happy to know that Lake View Presbyterian Church and Joe's on Broadway are still kitty-corner from each other at Addison and Broadway. Also, for those of you who were around "back in the day," the Treasure Island (albeit with a recent face lift) and that funky hotel between Cornelia and Hawthorne are still there. Ann Sather -- not the original on Belmont (I was a regular there; Tom Tunney used to say hello to me at the counter) -- is still between Hawthorne and Roscoe. And the Broadway United Methodist Church (the new version, not the wooden one that burned down in the '80s) is still across the street from the Closet on Buckingham. (I remember wondering as a naive young man, Is that a gay bar?) The Unabridged Bookstore is still between Aldine and Melrose, but the Melrose Restaurant itself -- I'm sorry to say -- is closed and the site is available for rent. My son asked me why they didn't take down the signs and I sighed that you don't want to remove something so sublime as that until you absolutely have to. Kids today!

The Chicken Hut is still on the corner of Belmont and Broadway. (That intersection, by the way, was code for "gay neighborhood" when I first moved here. Boystown on Halsted was still a few years off, I think.) But before you get to Friar Tuck and Barry-Regent Cleaners at Wellington, there's an enormous Mariano's at Barry that replaced a smaller neighborhood grocery. When on earth did this get here? I thought. It was so huge and intimidating that I was initially put off by it. It doesn't fit in with the character of the neighborhood! I thought. But, then, everything keeps changing and Chicago, I'd say, has done a good job of maintaining a healthy mix of old and new.

All in all, Broadway was much quieter than I remember it. But then my son pointed out that it might be a little busier on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer than on a Wednesday evening in January.

We were almost to the end of our nightly trek, where Broadway meets Clark at Diversey, after the road curves at Surf Street and across the street from a newer place called Sushi Burrito. Doesn't sound very appetizing to me, but my son opined that what the city really needs is more good fusion restaurants. Okay.

The final landmark on our stroll was a four plus one on Oakdale where my wife and I lived back in 1986-87 when we were first married. A "four plus one," in case you don't know, is a five-story apartment building unique to Chicago where the first floor consists of the lobby and a parking lot. My son asked me, Why don't they just call it a "five"? I tell ya, everyone's a comedian on these Hikes.

Next week we'll pick up again at Clark and Diversey and walk south to -- who knows? -- maybe as far as Mile 12 at Hubbard.