<p>For those of you who visit downtown Chicago, what route do you take and how long does it take to get there?</p>
<p>Would you say students visit downtown frequently? Is it easy or a bit of a drag? Is there plenty to occupy you in Hyde Park and on Campus (movies, restaurants, places to hang out)?</p>
<p>When we visited we stayed downtown and took the bus (timing it was just the best option) but it was a local and took forever to get to campus. I am sure there is a better way, right?</p>
<p>Plenty of students go downtown. It’s not difficult to get there either, but I’d be lying if I said it isn’t a bit of a drag, especially when you realize how much time you’re wasting either sitting on public transit or waiting for public transit. Not to mention, waiting sucks in the winter (which feels like it lasts half the year).</p>
<p>As for the routes, I usually either take the 15 or the 55 to the Red Line and transfer as necessary, or the 6. (Occasionally, when everything stops running late into the night, I take the 4 back to campus as well to avoid waiting on the 15/55 overpass.) On Friday and Saturday, the South Loop shuttle runs after 9 PM.</p>
<p>Hyde Park itself is rather boring. There are definitely loads of places to hang out (if all else fails, go to the Reg!) and Doc Films shows films practically every day, but I wouldn’t say the life here is particularly vibrant. There are plenty of restaurants and coffee shops, but they tend to be run-of-the-mill with a few pricier exceptions. I wish it had a better off-campus coffee scene, for one. There’s Starbucks(x2), Cafe 57, Medici Bakery, Z&H, Cafe 53, and Istria. Probably a few more I’m missing, but I think that sums up the more frequented off-campus ones. (There are loads of places to get coffee on-campus though, so never fear a lack of caffeine.) There are also only two bars that I am aware of in Hyde Park: Jimmy’s (officially known as Woodlawn Tap) or the Pub down in the basement of Ida Noyes. Both are divey and comfortable with pretty decent food.</p>
<p>You can take the Metra Electric train to Michigan Ave and Millennium Park. Catch it from station at 59th Street and Harper. In winter, it’s a cold wait on the platform. Second the Medici.</p>
<p>The 6 bus from the Loop is express along Lakeshore Drive from Balbo to Hyde Park. Without a lot of traffic, it’s about a 20-minute ride from the southern part of the Loop to the 55th-57th St. area (somewhat east of campus). Or vice versa. Pretty, too.</p>
<p>Compared to the neighborhoods of Chicago’s peer urban elite universities, Hyde Park is really, really, really deficient in everything but bookstores.</p>
<p>Economically it’s a blessing in disguise that there are few amenities. Somehow it breeds a sense of frugality into the students. Downtown is there to visit at any time however the students may not have a lot of free time available to go just to “visit.” If S1 is any indication, when we visited we had to schedule seeing him around his 1 hour here, 2 hours there available time in his busy schedule of problem sets, reading, papers due, practice with his band, 10-12 hours/wk job, tutoring middle-school children…you get the point. We had to make reservations with him, not with restaurants.</p>