How safe is this address (off the Lawrence stop) (Chicago: crime, neighborhoods)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Aleking

i still haven't seen anything messed up and i've been here for 5 years now

Meanwhile, here's a perspective from someone who lived one block from where the OP is asking about, a person whom I think we can all agree is no urbanophobe:

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

My wife had a condo in a gorgeous old building at Ainslie and Sheridan, we married and I moved in. After a year we left because the neighborhood was full of bums, drunks, dopers, gang kids and crazy people. We were broken into twice and I became so hostile I was shouldering people off the sidewalk and cleaning my guns on the front porch in broad view. I was gonna get someone or someone was gonna get me. This was no way to live and we left, that was 7 years ago.

I would have loved it if the neighborhood filled up with boring, whitebread people from the burbs, I'd still be there. To the Devil with bums, drunks, dopers, gangbangers and madmen.

And he's not the only CD regular who lived in Uptown, had their fill, and got out.

Not saying the OP is guaranteed to be broken into twice or even once, but I honestly don't know how you can have lived there for 5 years without noticing any of the crazy. I've seen it just coming and going through the neighborhood, never mind actually living there for 5 years.

[marothisu]

Definitely full of shady characters, but it all depends on your level of comfort. Personally I feel fine there, but I know many others who would be scared there.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Definitely full of shady characters, but it all depends on your level of comfort. Personally I feel fine there, but I know many others who would be scared there.

It's easier to feel fine there when you're just bopping into the neighborhood to catch a show or the like. Certainly I'm not going to decline to see a great show at the Riv just because there's stewbums about. But let's not forget that living in a place is a different enterprise altogether than visiting it for a couple hours every now and again.

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by Alacran

It's less than a mile radius.
You will always have other people to dilute it.
Unlike real dangerous places worth worrying about

Oh, it's *much* less than a mile radius. More like 1/3 of a mile (radius not diameter). But why live inside it when you can live elsewhere just as cheaply?

I don't like trying to "reason" with the seriously crazy.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by Drover

Exactly -- the thin veneer of nightlife and yuppiehood I was referring to.

If you believe these are the defining features of the immediate area when choosing a place to live, do so at your own risk. For most rational people, a Starbuck's and a sushi place aren't sufficient to disguise what a messed up place the Uptown core is.

Please. Get over yourself.

I'm talking about people who did choose to live there, and were fine there.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by nearnorth

Please. Get over yourself.

I'm talking about people who did choose to live there, and were fine there.

Please. Get over yourself.

I presented the exact words of someone who is certainly not averse to urban settings who chose to live there and subsequently chose to get the hell out for the very reasons I am trying to bring to the OP's attention. Problems that are still obvious just below the veneer to anyone who pays even a bare amount of attention to what goes on around there.

Anyone who thinks the Uptown core is "fine" just because it has a Starbucks and a sushi joint is beyond gullible. You're a developer's wet dream.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by Drover

Please. Get over yourself.

I presented the exact words of someone who chose to live there and subsequently chose to get the hell out for the very reasons I am trying to bring to the OP's attention.

I'm sorry to hear the person you knew was a puss. Perhaps Naperville would be more their speed?

You're bringing nothing to anyone's attention other than a completely distorted view of reality.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by nearnorth

I'm sorry to hear the person you knew was a puss. Perhaps Naperville would be more their speed?

You're bringing nothing to anyone's attention other than a completely distorted view of reality.

So there you have it Irishtom29. You're a puss and you should retreat to Naperville because you had no interest in staying in a miasma of poverty, drugs, mental illness, and gang-banging barely disguised by a paper-thin veneer of nightlife and yuppiehood.

Someone who thinks "Starbucks + sushi = safe neighborhood!" has no business telling anyone about distorted views of reality.

[ChiNaan]

As others are saying, the address is fine. The intersection of Lawrence and Broadway is one of my favorite places in the city, actually, for some of the same reasons mentioned by others. I've known several young middle class people who have lived in the stretch from there east to the lake, and I've had a lot of fun there. I'm glad I didn't read the posts of some of the delusional people on this forum back then.

I find it extremely odd that anyone would call it the worst of anything, let alone the worst on the entire North Side. I can only assume these are Lakeview residents from the suburbs or possibly Iowa who are afraid of people who are different from them.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Drover

It's easier to feel fine there when you're just bopping into the neighborhood to catch a show or the like. Certainly I'm not going to decline to see a great show at the Riv just because there's stewbums about. But let's not forget that living in a place is a different enterprise altogether than visiting it for a couple hours every now and again.

While I don't live in that area, how do you know what my habits are in the area? There are times when I'm there for more than just a few hours.. I agree with your assessment in general about living there versus just visiting in the end, but still.