Should I have reservations about buying a condo near Irving Park and Kedzie? (Chicago: house, neighborhoods)

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by Drover

...Also, IIRC Albany Park has one of the best non-magnet high schools in the city. Can't think of the name of it off the top of my head but it has some kind of German-sounding name and sits near Kimball and Sunnyside. EDIT: OK, it's Von Stuben, and it's more like Kimball and Carmen.

Von Stuben is still plenty sketchy though. It may be better than many CPS high schools, but I still would not send a kid there if I could manage to do better.

If I had a kid that was old enough to go the H.S. and I could not get him into Lane,Northside,Young, etc. or a afford private school high school I would move out of Chicago and find somewhere acceptable.

[Venom]

Don't diss my school.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by Venom

Don't diss my school.

haha

Who cares?

You learned to tag.

I really want my kids to go to school there.

Not.

[Thepreacherswife]

Originally Posted by Drover

...and sits near Kimball and Sunnyside.

Yeah, that's more like Roosevelt. VERY different from Von Steuben (although it's not horrible).

Agree with what others have said about it being a block-by-block basis. I live north of Lawrence near Pulaski and it's pretty quiet by us, but there are still plenty of slummy apartments and no-good-niks around, e.g., that baby found dead in a trashed apartment the other day was on Ainslie just east of Kedzie.

Plenty of good grocery stores nearby even withing walking or biking distance (Tony's Finer Foods, Cermak Produce, Andy's Fruit Ranch) and there's Lebanese restaurants galore up Kedzie closer to Lawrence.

Not sure about going with the Brown Line - it all depends where you want to go in the loop. It's a mile west to Pulaski to pick up the Blue Line (either on Pulaski or on Irving Park under the Kennedy) and from there it's 20-25 minutes to Clark/Lake. It's 1 1/2 miles east to the Brown Line and 25 minutes to Washington/Wells.

[Lookout Kid]

A friend of mine bought a house in Albany Park in 2002, and he has pointed out that there are certain landlords who just seem to rent to trouble tenants. One landlord in particular owns several problem buildings/houses in his immediate vicinity, and didn't seem to sell the properties often. One building of his with gangster tenants went up for sale during the last boom, and my friend had a little celebration with a good bottle of wine. I guess my point is that it really is "block by block", and that you should spend some time in the EXACT area you are looking to buy in to see if you can identify and proplem buildings. This is much harder to do in the winter, since people tend to stay indoors more.

I'd actually do this in ANY neighborhood I was buying in. I lived on a block of million dollar plus homes in Wicker Park, but the one low-income building on the block wreaked havoc and made our alley a scary place to be after dark.

[Drover]

Sure enough, right on cue... two more homicides in Albany Park yesterday. That fire on Argyle was ruled an arson. Throw in the dead infant and that's three already this year.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by Drover

Sure enough, right on cue... two more homicides in Albany Park yesterday. That fire on Argyle was ruled an arson. Throw in the dead infant and that's three already this year.

Do you have links for these so I can read them?

[Drover]

OK, I guess the infant death has not been ruled a homicide yet, and may not ever be. In the meantime there's this: Two killed in fire; arson investigation under way - Chicago Breaking News

Not officially ruled an arson yet, but the preliminary evidence of arson is compelling enough that the coroner has already ruled the deaths as homicides.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by Drover

OK, I guess the infant death has not been ruled a homicide yet, and may not ever be...

Thanks for the link.

I suspect an accelerant was used in this fire. To go through a three flat like that so quickly...

[Thepreacherswife]

Originally Posted by Drover

Sure enough, right on cue... two more homicides in Albany Park yesterday. That fire on Argyle was ruled an arson. Throw in the dead infant and that's three already this year.

Block by block. I'm really curious to learn the full story on this. This is right around the corner from us (I'm amazed we didn't get awakened by the sirens) and it's a row of three flats, mostly with Pakistani and Arab families; though I understand the victims in this fire were Hispanic.