her grandchildren first and then reading, walking and
swimming
[movie recommendation]
flight 93 “I don’t know if I would say it’s a good movie,
but it’s an important movie.”
[most recent vacation]
planning to go to Germany in the near future
[great things about his neighborhood]
“You can really feel apart of a community even though it’s
within a large city that’s growing.”
josie talks about being part of the suburban
exodus and what she has learned from returning to the urban
landscape.
[on being homeless…sort of]
When Josie and Ned Merkle were
married 35 years ago, housing was scarce. “We couldn’t find an
apartment back then,” Josie says. “We planned on living in
Clintonville or near campus because Ned still had a quarter left
in school.”
Always second on a list for
housing, Josie and Ned caught a break when Josie’s father
offered to sell them a house he bought as an investment in the
up and coming German Village.
“It was really fun, it was just
beginning to be like an urban neighborhood,” Josie says. “As it
turns out, the one block that we moved to had about six other
people buying houses at the same time that summer. They were all
in our age range, but from different areas of the city. We
didn’t know each other at the time, but became good friends. The
doors were always opened in those days; you never locked your
doors.”[on suburban exodus and urban return]
Josie had her first child while
living in German Village, but eventually moved to the suburbs
for the school system when her other children were born.
“That’s not the case for many young
people today,” she says. “They are moving here and staying
here.” Josie’s daughter lives in German Village and runs a
thriving business in the neighborhood.[on her really cool “front yard” and her
favorite hobbies]
“We live across from
Schiller Park, It’s like our front yard,” Josie says. She has
two grandchildren, ages 4 and 5, with another one on the way so
it’s the perfect set up.
An avid reader, Josie
says German Village is a good place for book lovers. “Down here
is a big book club place.” Her most recent read is The Piano
Teacher.[favorite restaurant]
“There are so many
down here you can’t choose,” she says. For fine dining, Josie
names Lindy’s or G. Michaels and for a good lunch,
the Brown Bag Deli.
But she’s quick to point out, “You can walk everywhere so you
can have a different choice everyday.”
And walking is Josie’s
primary mode of transportation. Josie works with husband Ned,
and her four-legged co-worker Kicky, at Ned Merkle & Company
Realtors, Inc. “We walk to work everyday,” she says. “The
grocery store is about block from our home, so I even walk to
get groceries most of the time.”[german village’s best kept
secrets]
Josie says spring and
summer is when German Village really comes alive “The flowers
and the trees are so beautiful. And gardening is huge down here.
Aside from the park, which is beautiful, so many people take
such pride in their own gardens.”
However, she finds
reason to get out in the winter too. “I don’t know if anyone
really realizes how gorgeous the park is in the winter when it
snows. It’s like a postcard. It’s beautiful.”
She also says there is
a slight misconception about the population of German Village.
“There are still old timers living in the village, it’s not all
new people. A lot of people think German Village is all rehabbed
properties. There are still German immigrants who live here. A
woman named Elsie, whose husband was the curator of the museum
many many years ago, still lives here.”
[on finding her niche]
“When we go to neighborhood parties, there will be
people in their 80s who are good friends of ours and then people
in college. That’s one of the wonderful things about the
village, there is such an eclectic group of people,” Josie says.
“You don’t find that in traditional communities. We’re not
isolated like those traditional communities.”
What does Josie do to feel at home? “Nothing
really, just be friendly and open-minded,” she says. “This isn’t
a place to live if you want to be isolated. It’s a vibrant
community.”
She says living in German Village has taught her a
lot. “I think I’m more open-minded. I think we have learned that
people from all different socio-economic groups and backgrounds
have so much in common, not that I didn’t know that before, but
you are just exposed to it more here.”
[why german village?]
“We consider it more of a residential community.
The Short North and Victorian Village are tons of fun, but we
think we are less congested and more of a comfortable place to
live. People sit on their front porches and talk to each other
here.”
