Help me break my irrational fear of the south side... (Chicago: crime rate, house)

[noid_1985]

Originally Posted by Manigault

You know, there is a great 24-hour currency exchange at 79th and Vincennes in case you forget to get a city sticker on the last day.

Out of all currency exchanges in the city Manigault you has to pick that one. My uncle was robbed there a decade back. He worked at the CTA bus barn over there.

[garvey]

Originally Posted by Petronilla

Manigault,
although there are always bad apples everywhere, the vast majority of people there are not stalking the streets looking for a kill, but are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc. just doing the day to day and making a living like EVERYONE ELSE.

big ups. i see a lot of people with a lot of very wrong ideas on this board, and this is a refreshing change of pace.


with regards to the original query, i recommend the pilsen area, especially the museum of mexican art and nuevo leon restaurant. the galleries on halsted between 16th and cermak are interesting if that's your thing.

i also love little village (26th between california-ish and kedzie), but it's kind of awkward there if you don't know any spanish. if you are able to negotiate the language barrier, there is a place on kedzie between 25th and 26th that has the world's best birria (roasted goat tacos).

i live in bridgeport, at 34th and morgan. it isn't desolate so much as just typical working-class chicago. there are lots of delicious mexican, chinese, and east european restaurants around that area, and also a lot of art galleries and cafes and other hipster stuff going in on morgan street.

hyde park is a real chore to get to on public transit, but totally worth it; the campus is beautiful and there is a lot of really interesting stuff in that neighborhood. i recommend taking the #6 bus from the loop if you're taking transit, because it runs express from about grant park to 47th & lake park ave. takes about a half hour.

as others have said, the whole south side is largely residential, so it's best to make friends who live there if you want to see stuff.

[dcoolbro]

Originally Posted by jessie9er

Bring your bike on a Metra train from LaSalle and VanBuren to Beverly, and bike around Longwood Drive. It's a sleepy neighborhood with little foot or vehicle traffic, spacious lawns and big old homes.

Get off at 91st, go one block west to Longwood and head west. Travel the residential streets meandering south of Dan Ryan woods.
Stay out of the woods, and dont go east of Ashland.

At 99th there's a coffee shop just east of Wood St. At 103rd and Longwood there's a Starbucks.

Go west up any hill from Longwood Drive to tour the hood -- just houses, lawns and quiet, a nice break from the traffic always present on the North Side.

You can also walk in Beverly but biking is preferable because this mainly residential area can get boring.

Also, bike south on the lakefront paths to South Shore Country Club. Stop off at the Marina Harbor Cafe, 6401 S Coast Guard Dr., for lunch or dinner.

I want to second this suggestion. Beverly is a good place to start as it's one of the nicest neighborhoods on the southside. I grew up here from the time I was 12 and my family still lives there. Once you've done that then you can try hoods with more edge. However neighborhoods like Englewood would probably be too much for you.

[Lookout Kid]

Here's the Lookout Kid South Side favs (realize I'm a Northsider, so I'm not the South Side expert on this board).

Hyde Park has a lot of "bang for the buck". In addition to a beautiful U of C Campus and the Museum of Science and Industry, you can see Frank Lloyd Wright's best Prarie Style home, the Robie House. In fact, many of the tree-lined streets of Hyde Park and Kenwood are lined with beatiful structures.

While you're in Hyde Park, head up to Kenwood and Okland. Check out the mansions.

79th Street in Chatham has one of my favorite restaurants. It's a Senegalese place called Yassa. It was featured on Check Please a while back, so they are used to people coming there from all over the city.

Bridgeport has one of the best places to get chicken-fried steak sandwiches in the city, though I'm forgetting the name. It's usually filled with Streets and San guys, cops and construction workers.

Pullman is just cool. It was a planned community where every aspect of the workers' lives was controlled by the Pullman Company, and many of the historic structures are intact.

Chinatown. What else needs to be said about that?

Beverly has many tree-lined streets with gorgeous houses, and is a great place for an afternoon stroll--as long as you don't look gangsta (there is some latent racism there and sort of a fortress mentaility).

If you like modern architecture, check out the IIT Campus for works by Mies, Koolhaas, and Jahn.

Check out the parks of Chicago's "Emerald Necklace" and "Boulevard System". Most of them are on the South and West Sides.

Hit 18th Street in Pilsen or 26th Street in Little Village for the most amazing Mexican street food you can imagine. 26th has many Oaxacan restaurants, which are hard (but not impossible) to find on the North Side.


Many of the 19th Century buildings are more interesting on the South Side, because that is where the money was in the 19th Century. The North Side was more working class, and therefore the architecture is often more plain.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

79th Street in Chatham has one of my favorite restaurants. It's a Senegalese place called Yassa. It was featured on Check Please a while back, so they are used to people coming there from all over the city.

Oh my god, they just showed the ep last night and the place looked amazing!

[Greenfield]

Hi Trax,

I too had the same fears of the south side of the city when I first started venturing down there from the north side. I'm a real estate investor and when visiting properties I was interested in I would have to go into neighborhoods that I wasn't too familiar with. There are a few areas I call "warzones" that I'll stay away from. I use the extremely useful website gis.chicagoPolice.org to put together a crime stats report which tell you a lot about any area.

I'm an irish citizen in the US since 2001 and came here thinking the whole city was infested with mobsters and gangsters. Getting educated allowed me to dispell these unfounded myths. This is a great city.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by aragx6

Oh my god, they just showed the ep last night and the place looked amazing!

It is. Imagine mixing your favorite chacoal grilled food with the spices of Western Africa, and combine that with the French cooking tradition. Some of the food there blew my mind.

[kawaii1]

Originally Posted by GMarshfield

If you drive around the southside during the work day, or on a Sunday morning, you will be just fine

Literally tens of thousands of trucks, commuters, etc. of all races drive these streets daily. You can drive up and down Stony Island with no problems whatsoever. Drive back and forth on 87th, 95th, or any of the major cross streets.

I would avoid driving after dark on any street that is not a major thoroughfare, that's all. Do not roll-your-window-down and ask for directions from a male 18-35 either, at any time.

The southside is rough, but it's not Johannesburg.

WTH!! That is an extremely ignorant and prejudice comment to make. This is the reasons why people are scared of the southside. I have been all around Chicago and there are some very scary areas of the northside. Areas where I would not leave my friends house after dark because I got harassed the last time I did. Please stop being a jerk and exaggerating about the southside. I know that what is scary to others is not scary to me and vice versa but I've only been harassed on te street while on the northside at about 1 am.

[kawaii1]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Here's the Lookout Kid South Side favs (realize I'm a Northsider, so I'm not the South Side expert on this board).

Hyde Park has a lot of "bang for the buck". In addition to a beautiful U of C Campus and the Museum of Science and Industry, you can see Frank Lloyd Wright's best Prarie Style home, the Robie House. In fact, many of the tree-lined streets of Hyde Park and Kenwood are lined with beatiful structures.

While you're in Hyde Park, head up to Kenwood and Okland. Check out the mansions.

79th Street in Chatham has one of my favorite restaurants. It's a Senegalese place called Yassa. It was featured on Check Please a while back, so they are used to people coming there from all over the city.

Bridgeport has one of the best places to get chicken-fried steak sandwiches in the city, though I'm forgetting the name. It's usually filled with Streets and San guys, cops and construction workers.

Pullman is just cool. It was a planned community where every aspect of the workers' lives was controlled by the Pullman Company, and many of the historic structures are intact.

Chinatown. What else needs to be said about that?

Beverly has many tree-lined streets with gorgeous houses, and is a great place for an afternoon stroll--as long as you don't look gangsta (there is some latent racism there and sort of a fortress mentaility).

If you like modern architecture, check out the IIT Campus for works by Mies, Koolhaas, and Jahn.

Check out the parks of Chicago's "Emerald Necklace" and "Boulevard System". Most of them are on the South and West Sides.

Hit 18th Street in Pilsen or 26th Street in Little Village for the most amazing Mexican street food you can imagine. 26th has many Oaxacan restaurants, which are hard (but not impossible) to find on the North Side.


Many of the 19th Century buildings are more interesting on the South Side, because that is where the money was in the 19th Century. The North Side was more working class, and therefore the architecture is often more plain.

Very nice Lookout Kid.

[Ron.]

Great post

Originally Posted by heyjude1959

Does locking your door mean you are a hateful or a racist person?

Wanting there to be good , when there isnt is what Hollywood is for.

The reality is that good people are all over the place BUT there is a certain attitude that says that it is somehow wrong to keep bad people locked up so that the good people can thrive to their full potential.

Until that occurs keep your doors locked and dont go into areas that "dont want you"