While it is strictly accurate to say that crime in surrounding neighborhoods, and in Hyde Park, affects student behavior, I think it would also be accurate to say, “not very much” and “not out of proportion to every other similar institution in an urban neighborhood, including Penn, Columbia, Harvard, Hopkins, MIT, USC, NYU, etc.” Hyde Park is a big place, and it’s not a terribly dangerous place. It may feel dangerous if you grew up in a gated community in a wealthy suburb, but it’s more or less like Park Slope, say, or the upper West Side (if the upper West Side were mostly single family homes and low-rise apartments). The notion that students are cowering in fear is ludicrous.
My daughter walked all over Hyde Park alone at night. She lived in Maclean (RIP), and most of her friends were in the Shoreland (RIP). That’s about a mile apart, and not through the heart of campus either. She walked it a lot at night. She also had a 4 am slot on WHPK for awhile, and she would walk from Maclean to the Reynolds Club alone for that a couple nights a week. (That was maybe 7 blocks, mostly through the university campus.) She never had a problem. She’s far from a reckless person, by the way, but she’s someone who likes living in an urban environment.
Chicago students go all over the city, too, using public transportation or ride-sharing services.
I apologize for being off topic ( well, there can be no fun if you constantly have to watch over your shoulder walking around Hyde Park) but this is my interpretation of current Hyde Park safety zones. It is more for prospective students and their parents and pre-frosh and their parents who have never lived in HP. This is my experience and for current students and parents, please feel free to add your voice.
Inner University Zone: safe to walk at any time. I define this area as south of 56th St. and north of 59th St. and between Drexel Ave. and Woodlawn Ave.. I would add Ida Noyes, Booth and Lab Schools to this zone. There will be blue coat security persons standing at street corners 24/7. UCPD frequently parks one or two police SUV in this area.
Extended University Campus: safe to walk in day time but exercise some caution after dark. I define this as all the maroon buildings on the map not included in the Inner University Zone. Midway Plasiance is much safer these days than my time. But last time when an university student was murdered (more than ten years ago?) , it happened at Midway. UCPD almost always has a car parked at Ellis Ave. and Midway or SSA.
Golden Quadrangle: safe to walk in day time but exercise caution at night. My real estate agent friend defines this area as south of 55th St. and north of 59th St. and between University Ave. and Harper Ave. This is the prime real estate in Hyde Park where most of the professors live.
Central Hyde Park: safe to walk in day time but be much more alert at night. I define this as south of East Hyde Park Blvd. and north of 55th Street and east of Woodlawn Ave. and west of Lake Park Ave.. This is the area where a lot of students live off campus as well as where common Hyde Park folks reside. 53rd St. is a busy commercial street full of eateries and stores. At times it can be noisy and there may be disturbance during holidays like Halloween. It is not unsafe by any means but you have to be more alert about the surrounding.
Northeast Hyde Park: safe to walk in day time but be much more alert at night. I define this area as south of East Hyde Park Blvd. and north of Museum of Science and Industry and from east of Lake Park Ave. to the lake front. 55th Street east of the train track is where there are many restaurants. This area is not unsafe but occasionally there may be a crime spree. My theory is that most of the criminals who do crime in Hyde Park do not live in Hyde Park. For them to escape with their loot after mugging they frequently have to get out of Hyde Park in a hurry. S. Hyde Park Blvd. provides an easier escape route.
Northwest Hyde Park: exercise caution at all times but especially after dark. I define this as south of E. Hyde Park Blvd. and north of 55th St. and between Cottage Grove Ave. and Woodlawn Ave.. This is the area where I see most muggings occur. Cottage Grove Ave. pretty much marks the boundary between Hyde Park and the crime ridden Washington Park. I am not saying this area is bad by any means. I have seen pretty nice townhouses and condo in this area and they are selling well in the last few years. The house Bill Gates bought is in this area. But I would say this is the area where you don't want to be staring at your iPhone on the way back to your apartment.
'Now that its not really true, I somehow want this “where fun comes to die” reputation to persist and mean something like “we really, really, really love learning here” ’
@FStratford - perhaps they can take a lesson from my D. When asked how she’s “surviving” at UChicago (you see, the reputation really HASN’T died . . . ), she replies “It’s hell. (Pause). And I love it.”
Regardless of how friendly and welcoming Nondorf has made the admissions process, Uchicago will still continue to attract the “brainy” kids who love learning. Being the liberal arts version of an MIT or Cal Tech is still pretty hard-core. Especially for the liberal arts.
@85bears46 - helpful discussion on areas, thanks. I understand it was a discussion of Hyde Park and south of the Midway is Woodlawn, but is there any similar analysis of the parts of Woodlawn that are UChicago adjacent? Does it become sketchy immediately south of the UChicago boundary or are there areas of reasonably OK student housing just outside the campus?
I’m sorry, but exercises like @85bears46 's above do more harm than good. He or she is describing micro differences between very small adjacent areas. Relative to one another, I think the descriptions are fairly accurate, but the way in which they are phrased – “safe to walk in day time but be much more alert at night”, “exercise caution at all times but especially after dark” – are designed to heighten concern. The places described that way are places where the majority of 3rd and 4th year students live every day, mostly without significant incident. They walk home after dark all the time, and then they may go to a friend’s apartment, then walk home again. They walk home from the Reg late. They’re not living in fear.
Are there muggings in Hyde Park? Sure there are. But there are thousands and thousands of people living there, and thousands and thousands more who come there to work every day, or to visit. The crime-by-random-stranger crime rate is just not that high per person. Chicago undergraduates are in much, much more danger from their fellow students and from themselves than they are from street criminals.
As far as I know, the last student actually killed anywhere near campus was an African graduate student who was shot outside his university-owned apartment building in the 6100 block (i.e., south of the Midway) of some street, near what is now (but was not then) the University Police headquarters, at about 1 am. The killer had previously robbed four other people that evening on and around the campus; he had traveled to Hyde Park from a neighborhood over five miles away. I don’t know the previous incident in which a student died because of street crime on or near campus, but it must have occurred more than 30 years ago.
I see little harm in anything that encourages additional caution in my kid. Nothing will keep him from going outside, but if some of the descriptions prompt him to be more cognizant of things like thinking about when to walk alone, when it’s a bad idea to be using a mobile phone, considering when to deal with additional hassle or expense in exchange for avoiding risk, then that would be a good outcome for him.
As he spends more time in the area, sees how things work, reads the security alert emails and talks with others about their experiences he will develop his own ideas of where and what behaviors are safe and which require more caution. Until then, having one more data point (the opinion of one person about safety of various zones) is a helpful part of the mix.
@JHS With due respect, I am not trying to heighten up any security concern. I would be the first one to say Hyde Park is safe (with the usual qualifications). Indeed I was there yesterday and I was not worried about my security at any time. I did also point out in the preface of my write up that this is purely for prospective students and parents as well as prefosh students and parents. Just like an onion, security in HP comes in layers. I am just trying to highlight that.
I do agree (from family friends I talk to and my experience) no one “is living in fear”. In fact, if you read from the social justice warriors on the Maroon staff, there is certainly an opinion that U of C students are living in an over-protective bubble and are too isolated from the urban blight in Washington Park or worse, Englewood (which has one of the highest murder rate in Chicago and is less than 2 miles from the campus)…
Years ago, when there was much less policing and the inner city pressed closer and harder against a smaller university community, to me and most of my friends it was a point of honor to walk all over Hyde Park, Jackson and Washington Parks and into Woodlawn (or to live in Woodlawn, as many of us did) without thinking about - or certainly without showing that we were thinking about - any dangers lurking in these places. It was distinctly uncool to be uptight about such things. It marked you as being “suburban” not simply as a matter of your personal history and geography but as a matter of sensibility and preference. There was an element of bravado and pose in all this, but I would assert that it was also idealistic, democratic and healthy. Many of us acquired muggings and robberies as part of the experience, but everyone lived to tell the tale and all were the better for it. It seems a pity to come to the U of C and live cautiously, whether physically, psychologically or intellectually.
Honestly, I think two categories of people tend to overvalue severely the amount of crime on and around the University of Chicago campus: People who went to college there in the 1970s and 1980s, and people who live in affluent neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs or Northside.
“Does it become sketchy immediately south of the UChicago boundary or are there areas of reasonably OK student housing just outside the campus?”
There must be students living in Woodlawn - 61st to 63rd at the very least looks a lot better now than it used to. Woodlawn Commons will be yet another UChicago building fronting 61st.
There are just a LOT more students and families all over Hyde Park and the surrounding area now. One definite advantage of increasing the size of the college
For area south of 60th St. I would give my impression but I feel students like @HydeSnark and parents like @Lea111 and @JBStillFlying who has kids living in BJ would be able to paint a far more accurate picture.
Along 60th and 61st Street between Drexel Ave. and Woodlawn Ave., i.e. between Logan Art Center and Law School, I would feel pretty safe. There are tons of students in those few blocks during school year. During term break, it may be a bit more iffy.
If you walk east from Law School, there are a lot of empty lots and construction zone. WHEN the Keller School, Woodlawn Residential Commons and Rubenstein Forum are all completed, that area shall be bustling with students. But for now it is pretty quiet.
Logan Art Center is just one block from Cottage Grove Ave. I am usually weary about that area after dark.
Along 61st Street near RGG there are many new rehabbed condo buildings and townhouses as well as the last few remaining buildings of graduate student housing. It is a safe area now. There is widespread rumor about a new hotel at 61st St. and Dorchester Ave… I feel 61st St. will be the next up and coming area for Woodlawn and The College. But it may take a few years for this to flourish.
I would personally draw the line at 63rd St. I don’t feel safe going south beyond that part of Woodlawn. But I do not frequent that area long enough to make an authoritative judgment.
“Honestly, I think two categories of people tend to overvalue severely the amount of crime on and around the University of Chicago campus: People who went to college there in the 1970s and 1980s, and people who live in affluent neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs or Northside.”
This is an overgeneralization.
A good number of “affluent” families in and around the Chicago area send their kids to the place and/or to Lab. As do alums who attended during the bad old days. The Northside and some of those affluent suburbs are peppered with UChicago alums. Heck, we lived in one such “affluent suburb” (all right - the poor section of it) and we had at least two UChicago faculty living within easy walking distance. And that was 20 years ago.
“Logan Art Center is just one block from Cottage Grove Ave. I am usually weary about that area after dark.”
D walked to and from BJ/Logan at night all last year. She told me that there are always students going back and forth. West of Logan - not sure. But students coming from the Cottage Grove Green Line station would naturally be in the area. It might depend on time of night but as long as Logan is open I’m guessing that students are around. Rehearsals and performances probably go at least till 9 pm or so.
North of 63rd Woodlawn is gentrifying faster than you can say “Starbucks.” It has more students and faculty than some sections of Hyde Park. South of 63rd Woodlawn is also pretty quiet, but people are more scared (b/c of perceptions, not b/c of reality). The big division in Woodlawn is east-west (not north-south) and the dividing line is Cottage Grove, but there are signs this is changing too.
By the time the Obama library comes barely anyone is going to associate Woodlawn with crime. The new dorm is going to accelerate things, just like South did.
Hey so I have lived about 25 mins away from UChicago my whole life and I can tell you it is pretty safe. Hyde Park is actually a really nice neighborhood. My parents lived there for a while and never had any problems. In fact, Rahm Emmanuel (mayor of chicago) lives in Hyde Park, and the Obamas live in the neighboring Kenwood. Uchicago has lots of safety on campus as extra precaution and they have a shuttle system. I did a summer program at uchicago where we stayed on campus and we had no problems then either. Obviously you should be safe (like you should be in any urban setting) and do not walk alone and what not, but if you are in Hyde Park it is unlikely you would have any issues.
mgb1111 - I did not know the Emmanuel lived in HP, but my son lived in an apartment literally within view of the Obama “compound”, complete with 24/7 Secret Service SUV.
I loved HP, and still enjoy going back. Like so much of Chicago, it has a lot of things going for it, if it can be kept. In keeping with the spirit of the UChicago board I will borrow a construction used by Ben Franklin on another subject: “It’s a splendid neighborhood, if you can keep it.”
