COMMENT BY
Rachel from Elgin, IL
COMMENT ABOUT PLACE
Elgin, IL
COMMENT
Lived in Elgin, IL since 1994
Hi, as a way of updating the post for Elgin and providing a rebuttal for some of the negative reviews, I've decided to post on this board. I've lived in Elgin since 1994. Here is what the city of Elgin can offer: there are many differnt types of housing from simple, cheaper apartments to nicer upscale neighborhoods. The Randall Rd corridor is the newer area with very nice homes (Thornwood, Highland Woods etc). There are even more new homes just west of Randall now. The downtown area has the older homes and many of them are beautiful old Victorians that people are revitalizing. Randall Rd has all the big box/chain restaurants and downtown has more sole proprietorship and ethnic ones. We have a Ribfest at Festival Park, a casino, a community college, a 4 year college (Judsen), beautiful new hospital (Sherman), a very active library (Gail Borden), a community center (The Centre), a couple theaters (Hemmens for one), golf courses, golf course communities, a Zombie themed block party on Halloween, we've had movies filmed here (Contagion with Matt Damon), a Harvest Market, a theater performance walk in the summer, there is special housing just for artists downtown, coffee houses, spas, an Easter Egg hunt, several large parks (Wing, Lords) that have pools, free movies and free bands in the summer, a historical house walk to show off the Victorians, several different types of schools public and private, and two Y's, a newsletter dedicated to things to do in Elgin, a shared crop co-op, a PACE bus system, 2 metra train stops, senior living facilities, an ice creamery (Al's)....that's what I can think of just off the top of my head. So when I read comments about nothing is here I have to ask myself what are these people talking about? Someone doesn't like how many churches we have? We don't go around quoting the bible. We have some beautiful old churches here and something for everyone. There is a section of town called the "gold coast" where historical well to do people used to come from Chicago and vacation. We have bars, but not the scale of Chicago. We have history in the old homes and the Elgin watches. Overall, we are very happy here. We have nice neighbors, plenty to do and are accessible to Chicago and other northwest suburbs.