<p>I have lived in Chicago three different times in my life, and it is a great city.</p>
<p>However, I am speaking of the North side. I have no experience with the south side.</p>
<p>Is UC safe?</p>
<p>I understand it is surrounded by some of the worse neighborhoods in America.</p>
<p>And as a related question, is it safe taking the train from UC to downtown?</p>
<p>My kid will likely apply, but he is not a city kid.</p>
<p>I also lived in Chicago, on the north side (Wrigleyville!) and had no real experience with the Hyde Park area. Once I applied and was accepted I went down to the university a few times. There is a fairly good sized radius around the university itself that is really nice, cool old houses and a good atmosphere. However, driving around the other parts of the neighborhood, like around Cottage Grove and stuff, I felt very uncomfortable. It seemed pretty sketchy, and this was during the day. I’m definitely a city kid but I know I wouldn’t want to walk around off campus alone, especially at night.
I think as long as you’re aware of the environment you’re in and don’t go wandering around alone at 2am, the University is as safe as any other big-city school.
The University Police also seem to be really on top of everything, the University of Chicago Police patrol area boundaries are 39th Street on the north to 64th Street on the south / Cottage Grove to Lake Shore Drive (39th to 60th) / Evans to Stony Island (61st to 64th Street).
I also found this website which talks more about safety on campus: [Department</a> of Safety and Security | The University of Chicago](<a href=“Page Not Found | University of Chicago”>http://safety-security.uchicago.edu/)</p>
<p>Unless you’re being stupid, you’re very safe on campus. Like, if you’re a girl walking alone on 65th at 3 in the morning, you deserve to be mugged. If you’re with a friend or two and you’re not being stupid, you’ll be fine. I worry more about the weather than my safety.</p>
<p>Yes, its safe to take the redline downtown. I would recommend taking the 6 bus back to campus at night because the redline does get sketchy at night.</p>
<p>Some of the information that they mentioned on my visit was also helpful. Apparently about 2/3 of the University’s professors live (and some raise children) in the Hyde Park area, and they require freshmen to take “street smarts” seminars to help ease everyone into the environment and help make sure everyone displays common sense. I thought the area around the University looked fine, but some of the outlying areas looked somewhat questionable. I am also a Chicago resident, though of the suburbs and not the city itself. Barack Obama also lives in Hyde Park; interpret that as you wish.</p>
<p>to call UofC “surrounded by some of the worst neighborhoods” is not just an exaggeration, it is outright wrong.</p>
<p>Southeast of campus, across Cottage grove, south of 60th is indeed a tough neighborhood, one that no UofC student will ever have need to visit. North of there (and west of Hyde Park) is Washington Park (a real park) where I watched my D play ultimate frisbee many a time 5 years ago. Directly south of campus is Woodlawn, a renovated gentrifying neighborhood, home to quite a few university staff. East of Hyde Park is Lake Michigan and its bordering parklands, another wonderful place. North of Hyde Park is Kenwood, a neighborhood of genuine mansions, and a great walking place. North of Kenwood, i.e. north of 47th street, is a modern urban miracle. When I was at GSB in the early 1980s, UofC did not venture across 47th st. Now, the entire area between 47th and downtown is rapidly gentrifying and pretty safe for travel. I personally biked through it many a weekend when I lived in Hyde Park 6 years ago, and walked with spouse and dogs on weekends or summer evenings with no threatening feeling at all.</p>
<p>Bottom line? the 70s, 80s and 90s are behind us. With one exception, this area has changed. Yes, there are pockets of crime still left. Yes, property crime is still an issue in Hyde Park. What urban area does not have that? What college campus does not?</p>
<p>With just a touch of common sense, your kid will survive. Heck, mine, who may not have had that common sense, survived.</p>
<p>Thank you all for this information! I linked my father to this thread and now he feels much better</p>
<p>I’m a current student at UChicago, and while I recently moved from a relatively suburban area (the countryside in England) to Hyde Park, I haven’t found it to be particularly dangerous. As long as you’re aware of the various safety options offered by the University, you’re fine. </p>
<p>Example: I went to a friend’s apartment the other night, a way off from campus. On the way there I took Saferide - a free UChicago shuttle service that picks you up from your door and drops you wherever you want to go. On the way back, because it was warm and I wanted to walk, I took Umbrella Coverage - a service provided by the UChicago Police, where a police car will trail you to make sure you’re safe. </p>
<p>This is an urban environment - that means, like anywhere, there are urban risks. But the University provides various options to tackle that - and both the 2 and the 6 buses, as well as the Metra, are very comfortable and secure options for going to and from downtown Chicago.</p>
<p>@sruiz647 What do you mean by sketchy?
Wow I just love how everyone calls the area around Uchicago “sketchy”. So is this the more racially subtle version of ghetto now. It’s funny but unsurprising that you as a northsider know so little about an area less than half an hour from where you live. If you are so concerned about the safety of your son in this “sketchy” area maybe you should at least wait until after he applies and gets accepted. If you are so concerned about your son being in and around “sketchy” neighborhoods, or rather the people who you think live in them, maybe you should reconsider altogether.</p>
<p>What can I say…Hyde Park is a very safe neighborhood. The president lives there, the University Police will come faster than the Chicago Police…for some reason.Though if certain faces are threatening to you and/or your son, maybe you won’t feel comfortable because Hyde Park is a very diverse neighborhood–and it has been for some time and seems as if it will remain one.</p>
<p>Even the sketch neighborhoods around it are fine. Walk confident, and nod to people as you walk past them. Gangsters have morals too, they just abandon them at times.</p>
<p>Don’t be funny and flash gang signs, and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>^ Really? Just tell that to Amadou Cisse. Never mind, you can’t. He’s dead.</p>
<p>Look, like any urban university, there are places students should not go, even if they “walk confident”. Don’t be a fool.</p>
<p>@newmassdad: That comment was outrageous and completely uncalled for. </p>
<p>To OP, Hyde Park is generally pretty safe. As previous posters have mentioned, don’t do stupid things like flash gang signs or have wads of cash hanging out of your pocket. I have, and frequently still do, walk around by myself at 2 am in the morning without incident. (I would not recommend this, however). </p>
<p>Try to keep the numbers of Safe Ride, Umbrella Coverage, and the University police in your phonebook.</p>
<p>Safety at UChicago is always a touchy subject.</p>
<p>As a student who has lived here for 3 academic years and 2 summers, I’ll give you my run down.</p>
<p>My first year, I lived across the midway in the beej. I crossed it pretty regularly at late hours of the night. Nothing ever happened. Yay. And nothing ever happened to me in other parts of HP/the city. I only heard stories from friends.
Second year, pretty much the same thing.
I was an oblivious, bumbly “oh hey, hyde park and the city are so totally omg safe!” country bumpkin.</p>
<p>The sketch didn’t hit until the summer of my second year. I stayed in an apartment up at 53rd and Drexel. The U seems to have forgotten this corner of the neighborhood, seeing as there aren’t any emergency lights around. At all. But there was a nice CPD “eye in the sky” just above my apartment complex. </p>
<p>I traveled exclusively by university shuttles at night, just to be safe and to reassure my parents and friends that I wouldn’t be out bumbling around every night. I love the shuttles. Anyways, one night on my way back I saw 3 CPD cruisers hold up a bunch of gang bangers at 54th and Ellis, their guns sprawled all over the cars. Nice.
Another night, somebody walked up the back stairs and tried to break into my neighbor’s apartment. She started screaming and woke up the entire complex. Then he tried to get into my apartment. Awesome.
Another day, I was on my way back from work at 3pm and was almost jumped by a group of raging 9-year-olds. That one was funny.
Oh, and kids would regularly try to force things through my window, but that’s just kids being kids.
The kicker that summer was standing at the garfield red line stop waiting on the garfield bus at 2am. Ha. Worst decision ever. Long story short, we kept our phones, but my friend got a nice full-throttle punch to the face. </p>
<p>Point of the story thus far - level of safety can really fluctuate with your location in the neighborhood/time of year. Besides, it’s a well known fact that crime rises in the city during the summer months. </p>
<p>Third year went by without any incidents until spring quarter. There was that slew of random muggings across/on campus that lead to the UCPD stepping up security and putting rent-a-cops on campus and along the midway crossings. I still think the rent-a-cops are a little unnecessary, but it’s good to know that the UCPD is serious about the safety of the community.</p>
<p>This summer, I stayed right around 56th and University.
Once, a friend and I were up at 50th and Drexel after touring Kenwood. We were nearly mugged, but luckily another person happened to be there and the cronies decided otherwise. Other than that, and a little heckling here and there, this summer has been totally fine.</p>
<p>As far as the CTA goes - I love it. Nothing has ever happened. Evar. Except, of course, for the dreaded Garfield bus. I’ve never been heckled on it, but I’ve witnessed plenty of, uh… happenings… that are mostly contained to locals riding the bus. </p>
<p>With all of this in mind, I’m not in the slightest bit phased. I still go out at all hours of the day/night. I still take the garfield bus and then from there the L to anywhere in the city. I don’t walk around campus with mace and constantly peer around my shoulder. This place is perfectly fine. Like countless others before me have said, it’s simply an urban university. ****'s gonna happen from time to time. </p>
<p>And I think most of it’s avoidable. A ton of kids here have never lived in an urban environment before, and so know next to nothing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been walking through HP and passed a kid with his/her headphones in, smart phone out, completely oblivious to the world after dark. Hell, I’d mug a target as easy as that. </p>
<p>Having said that, I am NOT ashamed to tell people that I wouldn’t go south of 64th or west of Cottage on foot. I’m not saying you will absolutely die if you do, but chances of running into an uncomfortable situation are higher in those areas. It’s a shame and it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. </p>
<p>I think it would be easiest for you the OP to compare HP to Uptown. I’ve been up there about twice a week all summer, and it feels suuuuuuuuper similar to HP - just take away the students and add some crazies.</p>
<p>newmass, check it out: </p>
<p>[Man</a> convicted in slaying of U.of C. doctoral student - chicagotribune.com](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-man-convicted-in-slaying-of-u-of-c-doctoral-student-20110822,0,1944362.story]Man”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-man-convicted-in-slaying-of-u-of-c-doctoral-student-20110822,0,1944362.story)</p>
<p>I lived in Hyde Park the year before the slaying. For someone to say “Walk confident” will avoid all problems is just plain foolish or naive - take your pick. But this is true of any urban environment. </p>
<p>I also lived in Hyde Park in the early '80s when conditions were FAR worse than they are now. </p>
<p>The key to safety in an urban environment is to be aware of location and environment. Let’s not over-play the risks, but let’s not underplay them and tempt fate too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am not from Chicago originally, but I do want to take a moment to point out what I’ve learned about this city from my years at the University. And one of those things is that people who grew on the “____ side” of Chicago rarely venture elsewhere. When I was a student at the University, I knew plenty of South Side parents who wouldn’t let their kids visit the West Side or North Side, and I knew West Side teens from fairly tough neighborhoods who thought of Hyde Park, where the University is, as “ghetto.” So remember that experience and history can cloud one’s perception of safety.</p>
<p>Second thing: I have a fair amount of experience with universities and colleges that are not the University of Chicago. Some are in cities, some are next to cities, some are in large towns, some are in small towns. At none of them would I feel 100% safe walking around very late at night. So I’d also like to destroy the assumption that small towns are always safe and large cities are always unsafe.</p>
<p>Third, most crime is preventable. Lock your dorm doors, keep an eye on your valuables at all times, make sure you’re walking in well-lit neighborhoods and keep to where you see people walking around. Be careful of vulnerable spots-- if you’re alone waiting for a subway late at night, or walking home from a bar. If you don’t feel safe, know the steps you can do to feel safe- cabs, buddy system, shuttle services, what have you. This is true not only in Hyde Park but ALL over the city of Chicago.</p>
<p>Have fun, but keep precautions in mind.</p>