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SUMMER 2000 CURRENT FEATURES:
FOR WOMEN ONLY - Cheap, comfortable, and safe lodging By Susan Middaugh a Columbia, MD based free lance writer "Chicago." The sign outside says, "We're the best kept secret in Chicago." For a woman traveling by herself, the Eleanor Residence is a gem of a place located in the up scale neighborhood known as the Gold Coast. It is available to guests like me who are in town for just a short stay, or for up a two year stay. The Eleanor is one of many women-only residences in large cities around the country (see list RESIDENCES). Some, like the Eleanor, were started a century or more ago by women philanthropists. Others like Berkeley Residence in Boston and Gum Moon in San Francisco owe their existence to faith-based organizations.... Some of the residences have a special focus. Gum Moon, which means golden door in Cantonese, is primarily for Asian women, but is open to all women. The Three Arts Club in Chicago - founded in 1912 by a group of socially conscious women including Jane Addams - was chartered to "provide a home and club for young women engaged in the practice or study of the arts" Accommodations at these women-only residences tend to be basic. At the Eleanor, I got a clean, high-ceilinged, no-frills room (desk, single bed, phone, dresser, ceiling fan) - but no air conditioning - for a modest daily rate. Toilet, shower, and bath were down the hall. Although the lack of amenities may be too Spartan for some, I was traveling on a budget and used to sweating in Baltimore's summer heat. Every minus had a plus. At the Eleanor and the Three Arts Club, the rate includes breakfast and dinner. The Eleanor downtown location makes it easy for visitors to explore Chicago. I felt that the residence offered a safe harbor to me, a solo traveler in an unfamiliar city. The place also appealed to my feminist sentiments. In 1898, 30 years before Virginia Woolf wrote "A Room of One's Own," Ina Law Robertson founded the Eleanor for young working women in need of warm and affordable housing. Ms. Robertson was 20 years old and a money manager for a wealthy man who encouraged her philanthropic causes. Her plan was to foster female economic independence and to give development, reflection, and study, rather than housekeeping, cooking, and cleaning. The same is true today. "I wanted a place that was like a cloister," says Susan Yong Bajka, a Chinese-American documentary film editor... Other women I met in the Eleanor's community dining room and garden echoed similar sentiments. They included Lindsay, a student from Virginia Tech University, who was in town for the summer, working at her first real job, and Africa, a young woman who was leaving in a few days to join the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in New York. It felt good to be in the company of women with aspirations. These conversations were an unexpected bonus of my four-day visit and unlikely to have occurred had I stayed at a nearby hotel. From New York to San Francisco and places in between, the thread that runs through these women-only residences is "women helping women". Now if the administrators can just find the money to add air conditioning...
RESIDENCES BOSTON CHICAGO The Three Arts Club of Chicago NEW YORK CITY SAN FRANCISCO
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