University Village Apartments

The frenzied pace of development has brought droves of new residents to University Village.

UIC is the largest university in the Chicago area, with 25,000 students, 15 colleges, and the nation's largest medical school. The UIC community encompasses more than 100 buildings located on somewhere around 240 acres and lends the "University Village" neighborhood of Chicago its name.

The prodigious new development has transformed South Halsted Street into a thriving retail strip, replete with restaurants, coffee, delis, and sandwich shops, grocers, and boutiques.

University Village includes Little Italy, which is on the northwest side of the neighborhood, above, on, and below Taylor Street, where you can find Italian restaurants and other casual hang-out spots. Buildings in Little Italy generally tend to be older than the other parts of University Village, with many buildings having been built over a century ago. Many professors and their colleagues from the adjacent Rush-Presbyterian / St. Luke's Medical Center, as well as from UIC, live in this area, which is replete with traditional greystone two and three flats, courtyard buildings, and single family homes.

The CTA Blue line traces the northern border of the University Village neighborhood, and the Dan Ryan and Eisenhower expressways circumscribe the northern and eastern boundaries.

The Soul Food Cafe, a name invented for the movie, was originally known as Lyon's Deli and was operated for many years as a cozy Jewish delicatessen a few steps below grade at 807 West Maxwell Street in University Village Chicago, with a small lunch counter and seating for six patrons at three tables. Nate Duncan, a tall, imposing, but tender-hearted giant, had worked for the Lyon family since his teenage years in the early 1940s and had learned to cook traditional Jewish fare. Nate acquired the restaurant from the Lyon family in 1973 and promptly renamed it "Nate's Deli." Nate lived upstairs in the building with his mother and sister and continued to serve "Jewish soul food" until 1994 when the state exercised its eminent domain powers to accommodate the expansion plans of the University of Illinois-Chicago. Nate was apparently never the same, as the delicatessen was the center of his universe. He passed away on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at the age of 76.

By the way, Nate's mother and daughter made a cameo in the Blues Brothers movie, peeking down at the Soul Food Cafe from their upstairs window.

Address: 
807 West Maxwell Street
Neighborhood: 
University Village

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