Placing a unit on a Lincoln Park lot
The classic Lincoln Park lot is 25 feet wide, deep, and worth enough that nobody wants a restroom unit visible from the sidewalk. The answer is almost always the alley. The driver sets the unit on the garage apron or inside the rear gate, with the door facing the work, and the front of the house on Burling or Orchard looks untouched. On the blocks closest to Clark and Halsted where the alleys are shared with restaurant dumpsters, we time deliveries for mid-morning after the trash trucks have cleared.
A few streets, especially the mansions on the east side near Lincoln Park West, have no alley at all. There the unit goes on the private driveway, inside a construction fence, or on the parkway only with the understanding that a CDOT public-way permit may apply and the neighbors will have opinions. Wherever it lands, the spot needs to be level and reachable by hose from where the truck can park, which in Lincoln Park usually means within about 40 feet.
What the year looks like here
Rehab season never really stops in Lincoln Park, but the outdoor calendar layers on top of it. Spring brings the arts and garden shows on the lakefront and the first big road races through the park. Summer means street festivals on Lincoln Avenue, Armitage and Sheffield, farmers market Saturdays at the south end of the park, and the zoo's crowds on every clear weekend. Late August is DePaul move-in, when the blocks around Fullerton and Sheffield fill with rental trucks and student-housing turnovers that need a unit for the painting crews.
Fall is the sweet spot for outdoor weddings in the conservatory gardens and the boathouse area, where a climate-controlled luxury restroom trailer parked on Stockton Drive keeps a formal event from ending in a walk to the public restrooms.
Servicing on this side of the park
Construction units are pumped and restocked on a weekly pass that also covers Lakeview and the Near North Side, so the Lincoln Park stop is early, usually before contractors have parked up the alley. Event units are serviced the morning after and removed the same day. The one wrinkle unique to Lincoln Park is the alley cleaning and street sweeping schedule; drivers know the posted days and plan around them so a unit is not left where the sweeper needs to pass.