I am lonesome, so lonesome. I miss my corner grocery store, and my neighbors miss it too. Our store. It’s been gone now for three months, wiped off the corner by one of those real estate money wars being waged on the Near North Side of Chicago. Many of my neighbors and I are senior citizens who need our corner store. We used to walk to it, often four or five times a week, for our all-of-a-sudden last-minute shopping. Well, not anymore. We are now collateral damage of the money war that destroyed our wonderful little store that was where it was for 45 years. Destroyed it because the landlord of the building it was in figured it could make more money rehabbing and renting or rehabbing and selling for condos. But hey, Mr. Landlord. If for whatever reason you cannot make more money rehabbing and renting or rehabbing and selling, maybe you might consider returning to us our little grocery store. Thank you.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective: