Are Whites In East Garfield Park Pioneers

• Rosario Zavala
• Chris Krypel

Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Chris Krypel, East Garfield Park neighbor.

“And my fiance and I made a penny floor. When I bought the house, there was a tile floor that looked horrible. Whoever lived there before me must have just really wanted to live in Arizona, because it was all peach and light brown and tan. So I tore it up, and I thought about what I was able to afford, and it was cheaper to take a bunch of pennies and glue them down next to each other one by one than it was to buy tile. We made it so that when we have parties, you can play a game with the floor—you can find rows that are all heads up, or all tails.