This year, I celebrated twenty years of homeownership in Chicago’s north side neighborhood of Edgewater. It’s really hard to believe I’ve been here this long, with this being the longest stretch of time, by far, that I’ve ever spent living anywhere. A bit of a glow-up of my place had commenced earlier this year to commemorate this milestone, which included swapping out some old furniture for new, making some extra space, and the usual change in minor elements of decor. At this stage of my life, I could see this being my “forever home”, but many of you know the saying about “best made plans”. We’ll have to see, but for now and if I have my way, this will be it.
One of the things I have enjoyed about living in my condo unit is not only the beautiful westward view and watching planes on their return flights to O’Hare International Airport, but also the feeling of community as I look at and through the windows of the building across the back alley from me. It’s like that Hitchcock movie Rear Window, but without the creepy subtext. Or maybe it is creepy. That’s certainly not my intent. I like the feeling of being part of this gathering of people who have voluntarily chosen to live in this same urban city block that I also call home.
I used to close my living room blinds at night, but that changed once an ex had insisted on leaving them all open. That’s one gift I had received that I’m unapologetic about keeping, as there’s a part of me that (fully clothed, mind you) enjoys occasionally looking out of my windows and seeing what others, with their blinds also open, are doing in the moment. There’s no question in my mind that people can also see into my living room and kitchen, and I have zero problems with that. It somehow reminds me a little of college dormitory life, when many of us regularly and often had our doors open.
At the onset of the COVID pandemic five years ago and when no one was going anywhere, I took great comfort in just the mere presence of other human beings in the form of my neighbors across the alley. Living here for the past two decades has afforded me the opportunity to witness many tenants come and go. The morning of the writing of the first draft of this piece, I had noticed that the neighbors who had lived in the unit directly across the alley from me had vacated, and this made me a little sad. I remembered when they had first moved in about a year ago, with a latter-day “box” Chevy Caprice on dubs then sitting in the parking lot facing the alley.
The Caprice later went away and was almost immediately replaced with a K1500 Blazer much like our featured truck, but with a clean, straight, rust-free body and shiny black paint. Like the Caprice, it was also sitting on big, shiny chrome wheels, which looked good on it. I never took any pictures of that Blazer, mistakenly assuming that it (and my neighbors) would be there for a while. I had also always assumed that the full-sized, two-door Blazer would forever be a constant presence, being the “default” Blazer in my mind from the time my young self had first taken notice of them.
This is where things get a bit tricky. I’ll be honest when I tell you that I had put the first draft of this essay in the trash weeks ago after having written more than five hundred words, when I had realized that the two-door Blazer did actually live on as the Tahoe. Whoops. My original premise was going to be that in contrast to the midsized, four-door SUV (a great-looking vehicle, in my opinion) that currently bears the Blazer nameplate, a Blazer had once meant just one thing: a full-sized, truck-based SUV that basically looked like a C/K pickup with a really short bed, a back seat, and a fixed roof. Renamed the Tahoe for the ’95 model year, the two-door model continued alongside a newly-introduced four-door on a longer wheelbase (117.5″ vs. 111.5″) through ’99. But that was it. The big, two-door Chevy SUV didn’t make it to see the new millennium.
I had ridden in second-generation Ford Broncos before, but never in one of the Chevy truck-based Blazers. This is somewhat ironic given how plentiful these Blazers were when I was growing up in Flint, where many of them were assembled, along with in Janesville, Wisconsin. According to a license plate search, our featured ’93 had been built in Janesville. It’s a four-wheel-drive K1500 model that’s powered by a 350 V8. I found this example of even more interest as it has the lower-spec, two-headlight front fascia that had been on a same-era Chevy work truck I had used during my time as a landscaper and greenskeeper at a golf resort in southwest Florida.
I do like seeing the new Blazer on the street, and I’m also glad it has no suffixes, prefixes, or modifiers attached to its model name. (“Trailblazer” seemed like overkill.) At the same time, I get a little nostalgic for the time when a Blazer was easily identifiable on the street, even if I had never ridden in or knew any families who had one. I suppose that by its sheer ubiquity, I had become attached to the idea of the big, two-door Blazer without even knowing it. And then it was just gone.
Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, June 15, 2025.
Brochure pages were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
Such a great looking design. I’m a lot more partial to the upgraded front, I don’t know that I’d ever seen the work truck front on the Blazer, but even without it the entire GMT400 series are one of GM’s finest.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t compliment your writing, Joseph. As always it breathes so much life into these old vehicles.
Thank you so much, Anthony. And I agree – I think these (and the related trucks) have to be probably top-three in aesthetics from the entire Irv Rybicki era of GM styling.
Base trim versions of the GMT400 SUVs never really seemed to be that common outside of the fleet and commercial segment. I like how you managed to capture this unicorn.
While the SUVs on this platform were the first to see widespread appeal among regular consumers (especially once the interior was redesigned for 1995), nearly all I have seen on the road were higher trim (Silverado/LS/LT for Chevy, SLE/SLT for GMC) models.
Darren, the word “unicorn” also came to my mind when I had first seen this example in the area. I honestly can’t remember having seen another base or lower-spec model Blazer of this vintage with the two headlights before this one. At least for probably decades, if at all.
Chevys-on-dubs pervading my neighborhood too; I can’t say I like huge chrome wheels (or excessive tint) but this ’75 Impala hardtop sedan otherwise looks sweet. ’71-76 B/C bodies seem to be otherwise gone around here, though I still see 1960s GM biggies occasionally.
Was this hardtop roofline called the “Sport Sedan”, if I’m remembering right? This one looks good.
Yes, though I don’t know how it was any sportier than the post sedan. I guess opera windows were considered sporty in 1975…
This is my favorite style of CC post. It’s a nice human interest story, that I can relate to. One of the characters in story is an automotive form of sorts.
Thank you, James. I like the idea of the subject vehicle being part of the supporting cast, so to speak. That’s how I had felt about last week’s ’77 Grand Prix that I had written about.
James, you put that so well…and I entirely agree with you.
These are interesting vehicles, and they catch my eye now due to their rarity. Especially those with the lower-end model’s front clip like this one. Those two combine to make this a pretty interesting truck. I do wonder just who bought these Blazers in the 1990s… the four-door SUVs had largely taken over by then, so these big Blazers appealed to relatively few people, but I just don’t know who (demographically-speaking) made up the buyers. Young or old? Different parts of the country? Etc. I just don’t have a good sense of who bought these new.
You bring up a great point about whether or not to close window blinds at night. I’m firmly in the close-all-blinds at night camp, and even when I lived in a high-rise, I closed my blinds, even though no one could really see in too closely. It’s definitely one of those window-seat vs. aisle-seat issues. When we moved into our current house, we found that our predecessors had very few blinds, even in the bathroom. One of the first things we did was to buy blinds.
Also, your tendency to watch planes coming/going from O’Hare. I too enjoy watching planes go buy, and in recent years have come to be fond of Flightradar24, which shows just where those planes are going. One of life’s little enjoyments now.
Eric, you know, I hadn’t even thought about the original new-truck demographic to which the two-door Blazer / Tahoe was targeted in the ’90s, and that’s a great question. It’s fun to think about. The rising popularity / convenience / etc. of four-door SUVs changed everything by that time.
I had never heard of Flightradar24, and now I feel like I need to research that. I just like the idea that the vapor trails and lights above are telltale signs in realtime of people going places and also returning home.
Use caution: Flightradar can be addictive. There’s several websites/apps that do that sort of thing, but I’ve found Flightradar24 to the the best/easiest-to-use, at least for the free versions. Enjoy!
Don’t try this one that I look at now and then courtesy Sal at What’s Going On With Shipping.
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-49.7/centery:25.7/zoom:4
Joe, I’m a leave the blinds open guy too. Of course, as someone who lives in a house with 38 windows in essentially the woods, not having blinds and curtains is basically an economic decision. I don’t have enough money or interest in covering up all of the windows, and there’s really no reason to. That said, when I lived in more urban places, I still left the blinds open. I love looking across to other open windows, and figure that If I like people leaving their blinds open, so should I.
In my travels, I generally fly from Boston to ORD and then connect from there. I love the long glide over Lake Michigan and the crossing over the shore into Chicago. I’ll wave the next time I pass over your home. 🙂
Jeff, I have enjoyed the ideas in the comments about the pros and cons of windows-open, and in your case, the difference it makes in urban versus rural or wooded environments.
The famous Edith Farnsworth house in Plano, Illinois is evidence that all that inward visibility isn’t for everybody! But I like having my blinds open.
How many times when flying back into ORD have I looked for my building on the ground below and wished I could just parachute down and avoid having to take ground transport all the way back to my home. And then I realize I’d prefer the time it takes to get home any day over parachuting to my city block. LOL
In my house the blinds are always cracked a little. In the summer more so given the heat of the sun needing to be blocked. However, at night, they need to be fully closed in the bedroom as I like absolute darkness. Only drawback is when you have one of those suddenly awake episodes, you pop up out of bed, and promptly run into the walls as it is pitch black and you are semi awake.
I have learned to sleep with an eye mask at night for complete darkenss. I had blackout curtains in my bedroom for years, then had gotten rid of them – and saw my bedroom literally in an entire new light. I still wanted that pitch blackness, though, so a $3.99 night mask from a chain drug store does the trick very nicely. And I still have all that glorious light iny room, even when the blinds are closed. Done and done.
The oddity of the way way this Blazer was equipped reminds me of a two door Yukon 6.5 turbo-diesel with barn doors that one of my best friends ordered(obviously). Always liked this generation of 2 door full size SUV but never owned one because I never came across one with a manual transmission. I have owned 3 older K-Blazers all 4-speeds with the granny low gear and manual hubs;76, 79 and 88 . the sheetmetal rusted away pretty quickly due to driving on the beach and winter road salt.
The barn doors on the two-door Blazers and Yukons did seem very rare when these were new. I have seen more of these in recent years than I recall seeing when they were relatively new vehicles. Maybe I’m just laying more attention to them.
Only two nights ago, I saw a mildly customized example in downtown Omaha that I may also need to write up. No barn doors, but it was in beautiful shape with candy blue paint and shiny wheels.
I do remember the previous generation of Blazer and Jimmy being prone to rust – I’m glad you mentioned that. I’m sure the ones that went off road and got the paint chipped saw even more of that rust.
I lived in Rogers Park on Clark & Columbia for 16 years but moved to Palm Springs in 2023. Always enjoyed your posts from the neighborhood but can’t say I miss living up there. It always made me sad to see cool old cars parked on the street because I knew they were on a rapid path to destruction. With the extreme road salt & frequent parking incidents + predatory parking restrictions, Chicago was a terrible place for a car and car owner.
Every once in a while, I’ll see a car that’s street parked and think, “Now that shouldn’t be.” But for the most part, Rogers Park and Edgewater seems to have an unusually high concentration of interesting vehicles, amd not all of them are pristine.
I’ve been sitting on old pictures of an ’81 Porsche 928 that’s been parked on the street for a couple of years now, and I’m trying to find something to say about it besides that it has a huge butt or should be parked in a garage.
Congratulations on twenty years of home ownership .
At first I thought this was one of those S10 Blazers, we had a fleet of them at the City Of Los Angeles, all v6 powered and 4X4, no radios nor rear seats, I wonder who thought they’d ever need 4X4 .
My blinds remain closed all the time, I live in a sketchy neighborhood and don’t want others looking in .
-Nate
Thank you, Nate, and I can also see that thought process. If I didn’t live so far up in my building, I might be the same, regardless of how safe I feel here in Edgewater.