[think] East vs. West: The East Side = The Best Side
Wait a minute, Westsiders! Before you drive your jumbo-sized SUVs off a cliff after reading this post, you should know it’s the finale in a two-part “duel” between a passionate Westsider and an equally passionate Eastsider and the West Side had its moment of glory yesterday. But don’t leave the debate up to us – be sure to chime in with a comment about why YOUR side of town is superior.
When I moved to Wichita five years ago, I settled into an apartment on the Northeast side because it was down the street from the office where I worked. It was convenient. Lots of “stuff” was close by. And by “stuff,” I mean familiar big box stores and chain restaurants. And for the first six months, I didn’t leave my new neighborhood. Somehow the city of Los Angeles failed to intimidate me, but Wichita did.
It wasn’t until I regained my bravery and began to venture out on my own that I discovered the gems that made me fall in love with my adopted city: Riverside Park, College Hill, Delano, Old Town. I loved the fifties-style ranch homes along north Woodlawn with their tree-lined streets. I became enamored with the peculiar city-within-a-city that is Eastborough (to this day, I’ll go out of my way to drive – at no more than 20 MPH! – through the tiny neighborhood just so I can gawk at the gorgeous homes). And because I’m a sucker for a good garage sale, I started to explore areas of Wichita that I hadn’t even realized existed.
By my third year in Wichita, I decided to leave the East side and moved west for no other reason than I wanted a change. I extended my commute by ten minutes (still a breeze compared to the gridlock of LA), but gained a new part of town to check out.
And this is where my fair and balanced story stops being fair and balanced.
The West side… sucked.
So while I’m preparing for the hate mail and the negative comments and the stones half of you are picking up to throw, I gotta level with you – I just don’t get what’s appealing about Colorado the West side. Is it New Market Square with its massive chain stores and terrible layout? Is it the endless rows of tract homes that look exactly the same? Is it the sprawling parking lots and man-made lakes?
While I’m sure the people who choose to call the West side home are lovely, kind, salt-of-the-earth people, they are clearly unable to drive any vehicle smaller than a Chevy Suburban and therefore require an unnecessary number of insanely wide lanes to drive. Driving down 21st street west is like driving down the runway at MidContinent Airport.
The East side has Bradley Fair, two out of the three Bella Luna Cafes, Watermark Books (not to mention two Barnes & Noble stores and a Borders), both Il Vicinos, The Donut Whole, Cocoa Dolce, Chesters Chophouse and its polar opposite, Zen Vegetarian Cuisine, Sumo Japanese Grill, Pink Saloon, Aspen Boutique, Food for Thought AND Green Acres Market… should I go on?
Yes? No problem.
We have culture. Wichita Center for the Arts, anyone? Ulrich Museum of Art? The Crown Uptown? I mean, we have Wichita State University for crying out loud. Plus our Warren Theater, the only one in town to show smaller art house and independent films, could beat your Warren Theater up and steal all of its lunch money.
You have a bar. At the mall. We have crowds of Shocker fans rooting for their team at Larry Bud’s. We have karaoke at O’Brien’s and live music at Kirby’s Beer Store. We can spend our Friday night sipping on our favorite varietal at Clifton Wine and Jazz or dancing to the best of the eighties, nineties and today at Margaritas and top it all off with a cocktail at Harry’s Uptown.
Charles Koch lives here. And if it’s good enough for a multi-bagillionaire, it’s certainly good enough for me.
So while you Westsiders spend your daily commute squinting into the sun, I spend mine with the sun at my back while I head home to the little slice of heaven known as the East side.
Photo courtesy of Eric Wittman
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As I’m riding in this morning from Cheney, after a lifetime of living and shopping on the North and West sides, I’m just not convinced. WSU was so scared of losing West-siders they put an extension campus on the West side. All the best meat markets and farmer’s markets are on the West side. I guess you know where the “locally grown” food comes from! Yeah! People out West!
East-siders are going with way expensive shopping, bars, and chain book stores as their claim to fame? Say it isn’t so! The West side may not have recruited a stuffy ole’ B&N yet, but the people at Borders here are so friendly and helpful, the lines so short I’d rather order from them and pick it up later than drive across town and deal with traffic and attitude. Watermark, I’ll give you. It is a gem in Wichita and I would love to see one out West. (HINT HINT!!) Karaoke? Got it. Trust me, it used to be my serious thang. Quincy’s on 21’st and West has great food, great Karaoke, and good pool tables. There’s more, but that’s in my deep, dark, past so I’ll let someone else gush about the food and drink out here.
I will repeat Andrea from yesterday: Bamboo Stix!
Midtown… the best of both sides without having to deal with the drama of being an “east-sider” or “west-sider”… I love Riverside.. ’nuff said.
We moved here from Orange County California, and immediately narrowed our housing search to either College Hill or Eastborough. Couldn’t pass up the chance to live in a 70+ year old house – I can live in a tract house anywhere in the country.
Judy, you are my kind of gal.
I started out as a South-West-sider, and loved it. Everything felt real small towny, and I was close to the Fancy-West-Side stuff and worked East-Side so got the best of both worlds. Then I moved to Derby and fell in love with life there. Both East and West seemed to crowded and noisy and the West-Side got way to far away for me. Now I am in the process of moving to Bel Aire, which puts me right smack on the edge of the best East-Side stuff. I am going to be 4 minutes from work and hubs is 15 minutes closer to his work too. Bonus! I am not sure how I am going to feel about the traffic all day and night, but I figure I survived New Orleans traffic for many, many years and Wichita is nothing compared to that. I still like certain West-Side people, places and things and I know I am going to miss Derby, though not the lack of the Starbucks Drive-Through. I am hoping the East-Side treats us as well as the rest did. Guess I will see yall at my new Dillons. Once I find it.
I grew up on the West Side around 13th and Tyler and now I live in a 90 year-old house in the College Hill area. And while I really like being an East Sider now, there are some genuinely charming neighborhoods on the west side that are completely unique in their own right–Benjamin Hills and The Dell spring to mind, but there’s many more. The parks are better on the West Side–think Sedgwick County Park, Swanson Park, Pawnee Prairie Park. Plus the Zoo is right there and great for families. Each side has their pluses, and I don’t know if I’d say one’s ultimately better than the other.
We live in Riverside. It is the best. If we want to go to Target or a chain restaurant we go to the West side and it is great. The lines are shorter, the people are nicer, and it is easier to find a parking spot.
If we want to see a movie, have a nice dinner, or shop anywhere that isn’t Target, we go East.
Here are the wonderful things that are neither East or West (no matter how much you want to claim them): Delano, The Old Mill Tasty Shoppe, Juarez Bakery, Monica’s Bundt Cake, Theatre League at Century II, and the Museums on the River.
I’m in Clearwater. I’m more rural than west, but I still stick to the west side, for the most part.
Driving on 21st street west is like driving on Rock. Both annoying. I’ll give you this–east siders are often better drivers than west siders. But I also always feel like I’m back in L.A., like I’m trapped in a town that’s trying oh-so-hard to be a city. But you know what, Wichita? You’re not a city. You’re a town. And you’re a big town and you’re a good town. But you’re still a town. I feel like the west side gets that, while the east side does not.
For the rest, I agree with Ashley, and many of the others who have already spoken. Live midtown, have the best of both worlds. I’ll stick to the west side for my day-to-day, but if I want to enjoy the perks of east Wichita, it’s only a 20-minute drive away.
Shea, this might be your Sistine Chapel.
Funny story about East v. West. Grandparents, local socialites, were looking at moving to a new house in town but were becoming frustrated by the lack of east side availability. I said, “Grandma, you could always look at moving out west.” Her response? “Never.”
Oh, I thought of a couple of other things last night. While the East Warren is currently the biggest and baddest in (out of) town, the West 21st Warren was the first and for many years clearly superior to the East side’s Dickinson theaters (which happens to be my new favorite theater because of its very low attendance). And before the East Warren began showing more art-house films, Cinemas West was making a comeback as the art-house theater in town (Bill Warren has since shut it down unfortunately). Also lets not forget that the West Palace Theater is still in business, and I love heading back over to my old side of town for the midnight showings of older cult classics there.
Missy, you’ll be close to what is, IMHO, one of the best Dillons stores in town: 37th and Woodlawn! (21st and Rock is pretty good too.)
Mid town rules! You can go west or east, but you have old homes, the rivers, big trees, bike paths, Old Town farmer’s market.
I think Riverside, College Hill, Delano and Downtown belong to their own category (Midtown). As a College Hillian, I don’t want to be lumped in with Bradley Fairesques and Rock Road Nightmares. No thanks!
Really? Isn’t being the “better” side of Wichita much like being the thinnest contestant on The Biggest Loser? Outside of College Hill and Riverside, there isn’t a single attractive area to live. As far as nightlife, you can choose between the Old Towne scene (and how the d-bags from the Jersey Shore ended up at Heroes confuses me) or a movie at the Warren. Before I moved to Kansas, I was told that people out here love Ranch dressing. If I had to pick a condiment that best describes Wichita, it would probably be ranch. Or maybe mayo. And I know I already sound like a snob, but Scotch and Sirloin is epically overrated. And I swear to whatever God you choose, I am on the verge of jumping in the AR-KAHN-SAW river if I have to hear one more time about how much better the school system is in Andover over Maize, or vice versa. I apologize for the insulting of your fair city, and I say good day to you.
As a liberal, Honda Fit driving, NPR listening, ethnic restaurant loving, Converse wearing, professional working mother living on the far West side, I would live to give a shout out in defense of “tract” homes. When my family decided to buy a home a new “cookie-cutter home” was truly the best deal for us. We were able to afford a decent sized house in our price range that was brand new, and by brand new I mean clean and problem free. A house with “character” in our price range would have meant painting, remodeling, repairing, redecorating. Right now, I don’t have time for that. I have a full and busy life with my daughter, husband, job, friends, traveling, eating out, etc. My neighborhood is safe and clean. My fireplace turns on with a switch, so when I curl up on the couch with my Snuggie to watch Anthony Bourdain (or more likely, Yo Gabba Gabba) I don’t have to make a mess making a fire. When I am done I just turn it off. It’s pretty awesome, and I love it! Does my house have “character?” Probably not, but I have enough character to make up for it.
On another note: Maharaja is moving to the West side. Woo-hoo!
You know what makes me laugh about this debate is that Wichita is so stinking small that I can’t believe we even have “sides.” It literally takes me 15 minutes from my house to get to somewhere on the east side. Yet I hear all the time – “I don’t want to drive clear out west/east.” Really? Clear out?
So the moral of my story is – can’t we all just get along?
When we began looking for houses here during our move from Denver we thought the same thing. We didn’t want a cookie cutter house in a town, yes I said town, because I have to agree Wichita is not a city, where we could actually afford a 1920’s charmer, after all we’d already had cookie cutters in Denver and the Bay Area of San Fran and Wichita’s builders weren’t even coming close to what you could get there. So in College Hill we settled and though I miss my cities dearly this town is small enough that you can have the best of both worlds er sides… my husband laughs at me when I bemoan about going all. the. way. to either “side”, though I do stay east most of the time.
This site was designed for people just like you, Alex.
Take a look around. You might like what you see.
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