<p>The assaults or attempted assaults appear to have been at 2am 3am and after, and it appears post-tavern related.
The assults in Hyde Park I know of were of students commuting, on foot and bike, carrying backpacks with books and personals, and not at 2am 3am 4am, but in the early evening, and going to and from campus. A big difference.</p>
<p>Of the 50+ people I knew looking for somewhere to live in Chicago after college, none considered Hyde Park. None.<br>
Lincoln Park is usually the first choice of post college graduates who want to live in Chicago and work in Chicago. Others are the many other areas north of Chicago (Old Town, Wriglyville, Rogers Park, Evanston).
Why? Because it’s beautiful, social, friendly, very safe, offers parks, has great shops, cafes, etc.
This is telling.</p>
<p>From The University Chicago Maroon
[Column</a> exaggerates Hyde Parksafety - The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon”>Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon)
"Emmett Rensin’s column “Hyde Park Hysteria” (5/15/09) seriously mischaracterizes issues of public safety in the Hyde Park community. Rensin uses the statistics provided by the University under the Clery Act to argue that crime rates in Hyde Park are very low. However, that data only includes crimes committed on campus and other University property. Perhaps that’s all that matters to Rensin, but it represents only a tiny fraction of our community. The Chicago Police Department reveals that in the past year, there have been 162 violent crimes in Hyde Park and 912 property crimes—more than 10 times greater than Rensin’s estimates. That’s the fifth most violent of any neighborhood in Chicago (neighboring Woodlawn, Washington Park, and Kenwood are first, third, and fourth, respectively), and the third most prevalent in property crime (Woodlawn, Washington Park, and Kenwood are first, fourth, and fifth). It is true that many of these crimes occur away from campus. Perhaps for Rensin, that means that these crimes—and their victims—are safe to ignore. For those of us who believe that crime in our community is a serious issue, even if the victims happen to be poor and black, this editorial is deeply disturbing.</p>
<p>^ If you read that – a letter to the editor by a student – make certain to read the comments afterward that absolutely demolish it with well-sourced statistics.</p>
<p>Pollution, I’m not sure what your agenda is, but you’re really exaggerating the danger of being in Hyde Park. Honestly, if you’re ditzy enough to be mugged in Hyde Park, you probably wouldn’t be safe anywhere in the city. The fact that you find Hyde Park disgusting is pretty disgusting in itself. In general, the only complaint Chicagoans have about Hyde Park is that it lacks the vibrancy of north side neighborhoods after 8 pm. People who live in the city don’t really talk about Hyde Park’s crime that much, as it’s not a major issue. </p>
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<p>Yes. What this tells us is that Hyde Park isn’t oriented toward young singles. This does not mean it’s dangerous. In fact, I’d venture to say that Wicker Park and Bucktown are more dangerous than Hyde Park. There are some shady neighborhoods to the west, and lots of drunk people on the streets at all hours of the night. Wicker Park also just gentrified really quickly, and there are some remnants of its shady past left behind. Also, the fact that you mentioned Rogers Park as a top destination for college graduates is laughable, and shows that you really have little knowledge of Chicago and its neighborhoods.</p>
<p>Using your methodology, I could make a really good case that my small Ohio town (pop. <500) is dangerous. I don’t buy it.</p>
<p>My point is not that Stanford/Palo Alto is unsafe, but that it seems a bit ridiculous to think that Hyde Park is so unsafe as to warrant not going to the UofC.</p>
<p>Actually, Hyde Park is a very desirable place to live among students graduating from the U of C. My child just graduated, got a job and chose Hyde Park to live in permanently as did many of her friends. The proximity to all of the cultural benefits of the university can not be underestimated. The lake and a nice beach are right there. The neighborhood has a number of lower priced and good ethnic restaurants and fairly priced apartments. Crime is not that bad compared to other areas of Chicago and the use of common sense has resulted in no problems for my child. I feel very comfortable with her living in the area. I think that things have improved dramatically in recent years. You also have the presence of the U of C police department, the second largest private police department in the world, patrolling Hyde Park along with the Chicago police department, which gives an added boost to safety in the area.</p>
<p>Overall, I think UChicago will be much safer overall for my S than most universities because he won’t need to do much of the most dangerous activity by far for students: riding in a car. I’m also hoping the somewhat more subdued party culture will help students avoid some of the stupid and dangerous behavior associated with binge drinking. A nearby university (large, public, party school rep) has a student or two die almost every year from this-- one died when he rolled off the roof of his frat house where he had passed out–another one drowned in an apartment swimming pool, etc. At a different university, a relative was raped at a frat house. </p>
<p>And no place is guaranteed to be safe from normal street crime either–my sister was held up at gunpoint at UCLA walking back to her dorm from the library. My husband was mugged on campus at Harvard.</p>
<p>^ Right. UCLA and Harvard are both in areas that are about as nice as I can imagine having inside a city, and there’s still some street crime. And the places where really, really terrible things have happened to students – like Virginia Tech – are often out in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>I think motherbear is right that the somewhat toned-down party style at Chicago helps with safety. It’s not that kids don’t party there; it IS that there isn’t a culture of doing outrageously stupid things while you are partying. There was a Chicago student last year, though, who died when she went for a drive late at night after a party, so they are not totally immune from it.</p>
<p>The UofC police station was moved to the SW corner of the university. I guess they figure the Secret Service will be giving them an extra hand in the north part at least for the next few years. S just moved within 4 blocks of Obama. In two years he’s never had a complaint about feeling unsafe.</p>
<p>Useful post:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065402212-post10.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065402212-post10.html</a>
“… I lived in Hyde Park for 8 years and New Haven for 16. They are not at all similar. … I consider the miles and miles of South Chicago to the North, West and South of Hyde Park to all be off-limits to U of C students who are on foot, whether they are alone or in groups. Hyde Park is just much more isolated from the surrounding parts of Chicago. … For most students at U of C this is not a huge problem. Hyde Park is kind of intense and inward, but relatively full of interesting people and events, and when you need more, you hop on a train and go to the North Side, or downtown.”</p>
<p>My observations as well.<br>
-Surrounding North, West, and South of Hyde Park: ill advised to present yourself there on foot, or bike, either alone or in groups.
-Downtown Chicago and North, for miles: very desirable, either alone or with others, on foot or bike; only basic precautions needed. Greatly different than the areas adjacent to Hyde Park.</p>
<p>pollutionconcern, are you trying to warn and discourage people from applying and/or attending UChicago because you are convinced that the safety situation there is very bad and out of control?</p>
<p>Sorry, but memake’s post seems very out of date, too, just like most of the information about Hyde Park pollutioncontrol has been spamming the past few weeks. Yes, the areas west of the campus and (to a much lesser extent) south of the campus are not places students walk or bike much. And, guess what?, there isn’t a whole lot there that is worth walking or biking to. The area west of Washington Park to the Dan Ryan is very significantly depopulated – lots of vacant lots and empty houses. That makes it unpleasant and maybe dangerous, but you’re not missing much if you avoid it. And there’s a half-mile-wide park between the U of C campus and that neighborhood, so it doesn’t impinge on anyone’s consciousness much unless they take the bus to Midway or the Red Line. The Woodlawn neighborhood south of the campus is a different story – lots of grad students live in the blocks close to campus, and there are things going on. </p>
<p>To the north of campus, you can walk miles before you see any sign of urban blight, and at this point there has been so much gentrification and redevelopment that there is no monolithic “bad” neighborhood between Hyde Park/Kenwood and the South Loop (as there certainly was in the not-so-distant past). Hyde Park IS isolated from the more vibrant, happening parts of northside Chicago and the Loop, mainly by distance, but it’s not some fortress under siege.</p>
<p>And, contra to memake’s experience, the current generation of University of Chicago students is much more involved with the surrounding community and with Chicago as a whole. Lots of service projects in Kenwood and Woodlawn, and lots of travel to other parts of the city.</p>
<p>I do agree with memake, though, that Yale and Chicago and their urban issues feel completely different from one another. Yale and Downtown New Haven are inseparable from one another, and increasingly New Haven is a company town with Yale as the company. Hyde Park is a backwater in Chicago, a sleepy, green residential neighborhood with very little hustle and bustle. And of course Chicago itself is a world class city, with tons of culture, high and low, many ethnic communities, fabulous architecture, millions of people, while New Haven has . . . not much of that outside of Yale.</p>
<p>Frankly the same could be said of Chicago’s neighbor to the north. A few blocks west of Northwestern isn’t exactly a charming part of Evanston, either. Not depopulated, but no place students would ever willingly go, walk or bike to or through. But, it doesn’t affect the students there – much as the area JHS is describing doesn’t particularly affect Chicago students either. This is life in or near any big city. As a non-native Chicagoan, I too always heard the “Hyde Park oh noez” but that’s a very dated view.</p>
<p>JHS:
Hey! – don’t tar me with the brush you mean for pollutioncontrol. </p>
<p>I don’t see that things in Hyde Park are all that different - Kenwood and Woodlawn were always a bit more accessible, around IIT and Mercy there was always a small island of possibility, and over the last 2 decades the development of the ‘near South Side’ into a condo-ized and loft-ized neigborhood has proceeded apace. I still don’t see that U of C students hang out in and travel to the area between Kenwood and downtown very much – nor do they have reason to (as I said further along in the post which pollutioncontrol quoted). </p>
<p>I’m not surprised that UofC students currently do more community service in Kenwood and Woodlawn than they did in the past. I believe trends like that are common at many Universities – not least Yale, where there certainly wasn’t the near-universal participation in community service even as recently as the 90’s, let alone before that. (‘Near-universal’ means I bet it’s well over 50% and I’m too lazy to look it up.)</p>
<p>I would have no special, crime-related compunctions about sending a child of mine to U of C or to Yale, although I would definitely tell them in either case to use common sense (i.e., travel in groups, maybe take a cab) when travelling through questionable areas. Pollutioncontrol seems to have some exceptional requirements related to long-distance running. If I had a daughter who liked to do solo long-distance dirt-trail running regularly anywhere in the US, I’d worry - statistically probably not a problem but the outlier possibilities are scary. And that has nothing to do with urban, black, high-crime, Hispanic or any other description of New Haven or Chicago neighborhoods…</p>
<p>U of C students are getting much more involved these days than before. It is true that that is a national trend, but the University also encourages it. I’m sure part of the reason is that it helps the institution out politically (in its relationship with the local politicians, neighbors, etc). But it’s nice to see it happening for whatever reason.</p>
<p>And frankly, as long as it’s not too late at night, you will be okay walking in groups or biking in Woodlawn and Kenwood. </p>
<p>Finally, I am yet to meet too many people who consider downtown very “happening.” The only thing I could think of are great (albeit expensive) restaurants. But then, northside is filled with some awesome restaurants too. And most of the things college students would be interested in–concerts, clubs, bars, shopping, etc–are on the northside and not downtown.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>memake, sorry, but I was responding to your comment about “miles and miles” of Chicago to the north, west, and south of Hyde Park to be “off limits” to Chicago students, and also to the suggestion that they do not “travel all over” to do community service. As I think my post makes clear, I don’t disagree with you about the west, but so what? South, there is a lot of folklore and concern, but kids go there and do things (including past Woodlawn – my kids once called me up from an African restaurant somewhere around 79th St.). And north just doesn’t feel impacted the way you and pollutioncontrol imply. A couple of months ago, I walked from 59th to 47th and back through Hyde Park, and never had the sense that I had left a positively wealthy community. My daughter, I know, has ridden a bike downtown, not just along the lake shore (which people do as a matter of course) but also on Martin Luther King Drive, which goes right through Bronzeville. (With others, yes . . . but she wasn’t ever much of a solitary bike-rider or someone who walks long distances alone for the fun of it.)</p></li>
<li><p>spark is right that downtown isn’t necessarily “happening”, although my kid has made a lot of use out of Millennium Park and free admission at the Art Institute, and there is some “happening” going on in neighborhoods like Pilsen and Chinatown that are more downtown than northside.</p></li>
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