Name: ‘Chance made us neighbors. ... Quarantine made us family’: Albany Park residents come together for arch display to cheer up a coronavirus Christmas
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‘Chance made us neighbors. ... Quarantine made us family’: Albany Park residents come together for arch display to cheer up a coronavirus Christmas

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AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneDec 25, 2020 at 5:07 pmTheresa Martinez doesn’t know how many people have stopped to take photos outside of her house. Her decorative Santa and snowman provided the perfect centerpiece, but what drew people to her block is the long tunnel of over 100 lit-up arches that march down both sides of the street.Theresa, 43, and her husband, Rudy Martinez, 47, who live in the 3200 block of West Belle Plaine Avenue in the Albany Park neighborhood, got the idea from someone who started the arches last year at Francisco Avenue and Belle Plaine. They spoke to the creator and learned how he made them. Then, because of the pandemic, they decided there was nothing better to do but make the arches for their house.AdvertisementRudy Martinez spoke with his friend and neighbor Warren Poetzing, 32, about the idea, and he quickly got on board. They got to work on Thanksgiving Day, starting with the Martinezes’ house. They ended with four done on Thanksgiving Day. By the end of that weekend, they recruited more neighbors.AdvertisementThey figured out a system and some helpers fell into specific arch-making tasks. One person did the Home Depot runs, one put together the PVC pipes, one would wrap the lights and another would decorate. By the end of the weekend, 77 were done, said neighbor Randy Dixon, 59.Poetzing even figured out how to put the pipes on a drill to spin them while wrapping the lights, making them perfectly tight and spaced out.“We got down to a minute and 44 seconds to wrap it with the lights,” Theresa Martinez said. “We timed ourselves.”To make sure everyone on the block had an opportunity to be included, she passed out flyers:“You may have noticed the festive arches that were recently put up in front of my house and a few other neighbors’ houses. If you are interested in adding some to the front of your house, I’d like to show you how!” she wrote. “It would be great if we could get the whole block lined with some festive arches to help the dreary last days of 2020! Also a great way to meet neighbors you might not have stopped to say hi otherwise.”She added that each arch cost about $20 in materials, and each house averages three to six arches, depending on the size of the land. But if people weren’t able to pay for the arches or put them up themselves, other neighbors were willing to pitch in.People were welcome to decorate their arches how they liked. One house made theirs an under-the-sea theme, another Jewish household lined theirs with blue and white tinsel, and some neighbors who are metal workers bent their arches into a different shape.“Every house came out and helped, which was nice. We met some people that we didn’t ever know as neighbors,” Dixon said. “It wasn’t any religious belief. It was just to get everyone together.”AdvertisementAs the main group of about 14 neighbors got close, they communicated through a group chat and called themselves the “Belle Plainians.” They even came up with a motto, Theresa Martinez said: “Chance made us neighbors. Alcohol made us friends. Quarantine made us family.”Just on Wednesday, her Santa fell down, and when she looked outside her window, two of her neighbors were already there to put it back together. If someone’s arch lights are having problems, they’ll communicate through the group text to see who can be on light duty to help out.Even though the arches weren’t their original idea, the Belle Plainians’ block has the most pronounced presence in light-up arches. Other nearby blocks also took on the idea and have patches of arches here and there. Then the Belle Plainians took it a step further and created a giant arch in front of 45-year-old Avi Nachom’s house at the entrance to the block. Two other neighbors also got Christmas trees to put on either side of the large, sparkling arch.Nachom said he once walked outside his house in the middle of the day and a family was taking photos outside. They came up and said, “Thank you so much. This is so awesome. It just makes us all smile,” he recounted.More dog walkers and drivers started coming past the neighborhood at night. “In a year where things are just so negative, it gave a little bit of hope, right? People felt that,” Poetzing said. “Even random people on the street just saying some things like that, just made it worth it — made all the work, worth it.” Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneDec 25, 2020 at 5:07 pmTheresa Martinez doesn’t know how many people have stopped to take photos outside of her house. Her decorative Santa and snowman provided the perfect centerpiece, but what drew people to her block is the long tunnel of over 100 lit-up arches that march down both sides of the street.Theresa, 43, and her husband, Rudy Martinez, 47, who live in the 3200 block of West Belle Plaine Avenue in the Albany Park neighborhood, got the idea from someone who started the arches last year at Francisco Avenue and Belle Plaine. They spoke to the creator...

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Paige Fry

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

‘Chance made us neighbors. ... Quarantine made us family’: Albany Park residents come together for arch display to cheer up a coronavirus Christmas

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