Recipient: Grant Kessler Occupation: Freelance Photographer Responded On: March 1, 2005 Bill Received At: Penny's Noodle Shop 950 West Diversey Parkway Chicago Originally Dropped At: Istanbul Market 2324 South Elmhurst Road Mount Prospect, IL On: January 23, 2005   See who else has received this bill. Follow the Money >>

 

Grant Kessler's Comments

Is money distributed in a fair way in the United States?
I don't know if I have a strong answer to that or feeling on that. I know there are people who think not—think that it's not distributed fairly. But I don't know what the alternative is exactly. I mean I was raised with the understanding that, you know, it's a capitalist society and if you work hard and pull yourself up by your bootstraps the opportunities are there. Maybe that's ingenuous thinking but I guess I just cling to that idea. Whether it's right or wrong, that's my thinking on it.

Are people fairly compensated for the kind of work they do?
The career that jumps to mind that I feel is definitely not compensated at all for the work they do is teachers. I think our education system, and our nation-wide philosophy on it is very lacking. If the teachers are the people who are creating our next generation and the workforce, it makes no sense what they're paid. At all.

Do you ever play the lottery?
Essentially no. Occasionally I will buy a scratch card for somebody as more or less a gag gift or Christmas stocking. Someone might buy one for me but that is the extent of it. Not very serious at all.

In your household, how do you economize?
Poorly is probably how we economize. We're working on that. So no, we don't economize well. We spend a lot of money eating out, everything from just your regular week night meal which might be casual and not very expensive, to very nice dinners out. It relates to my work. I'm a food photographer so I'm fanatic about getting out to these restaurants, so that's a case where we decide to spend money on that … [we] could certainly save money if we didn't.

We're in Uptown right now, one of the real melting pot areas in Chicago. In fact, we're sitting in a relatively new Starbucks across from the old Green Mill. And I'm just wondering—is there a clash in this neighborhood between the well-off and the not so well-off?
Definitely. Because it's historically a neighborhood that was not so well-off and those with money are pushing into the neighborhood, buying condos and converting them. It's happening very rapidly here—gentrifying, as they call it. Which is a difficult thing as a homeowner here.

I bought a condo here about three years ago and I'm torn because I realize that people do need a place to live and I hate to think that when yuppies or whatever you want to call us, move into a neighborhood, that we displace everyone. And yet, there's the capitalist part of me that says, “Well, if I want to buy an apartment in this neighborhood and spiff it up I have every right to do that and so … It's a difficult question and it's clear that they're getting pushed out of this neighborhood, slowly.

As someone who used to hang out around here but doens't as much anymore—does the clash sometimes come down to a street level? Nasty comments back and forth? Or isn it a larger-infrastructure level, like what you were talking about?
Well, I don't know if it happens at the street level. I mean I have to say it's the sort of neighborhood where I don't spend a lot of time on the street. You know I'm not around walking around and visting with neighbors. Which is unfortunate. That's one of the things that happens in the city.

There's some diversity, like on my block. There's some diversity in the neighborhood but it tends to be by building. There will be a building with Vietnamese in it, a building with African-Americans in it and a building with wealthier whites in it. And they don't mix and talk to each other or visit on the street corners or anything like that. So, it's funny. On the surface it seems like an integrated community. It's go diversity in it but we don't necessarily mingle.

May I ask—how did you folks decide on Uptown as a place to invest in and buy a condo?
Finances. It was as simple as that. We were living in Wrigleyville in a rental and it was time to buy. You just look around at neighborhoods and you find yourself trying to get as close to the neighborhood you with you could be in and it's plain and simple as—our money went a lot further here. I mean we bought a condo here that we could never afford in Lakeview or Lincoln Park, for sure. Admittedly at the time we had to choose to pick a little rougher neighborhood. You know it was a little funkier, a little edgier. You had to take your chances of that kind of thing to get, you know, the living quarters that you felt comfortable in.