[wavy]

hi,i recently been thinking about moving to waterbury to be closer to family and i would be attending its campus.i would be coming from georgia and i was wondering how is the crime.possibly i would be in the willow area and im nervous about all the negativity ive been hearing.Any thoughts will be much needed.thank You

[brasscitybluenwhite]

What campus will u be attending? And Willow St is very long and depends on which part you would be moving to.

Beginning from downtown, Willow St begins at the corner of West Main St. There is a "7/11" convenient store where people are outside posted up all day/all night. There's a homeless shelter near the corner, and a Spanish restaurant (La Cazuela) that's open until late nearly every night. From there, all the way up until the firehouse, begins a working class neighborhood.

Willow divides two neighborhoods; to the left would be the Chestnut St neighborhood and to the right would be the Hillside neighborhood. Chestnut parallels Willow to the left, and a few years ago 3 people jumped a Chinese food man and beat him with a metal rod on Chestnut. Pretty crazy. When I was in high school, I went to a friend's house party and his mother wouldn't let him go to the corner store unless we ALL went with him.

To the right is Hillside. Hillside is one of Waterbury's "historic districts", filled with old homes of Brass manufacturing C.E.O.'s that have now been converted to apartments. This neighborhood is notorious for its prostitution. Over the summer, the police did a sting there that netted 70+ johns. But Hillside also has a very organized neighborhood association.

To the north of the firehouse is a neighborhood called "Overlook." There are more expensive homes. When I was 16, worked for an old pharmacy ajacent to this neighborhood. In this neighborhood, there are high ranking members of the police and fire departments (lieutenants and captains). Overlook has its own little athletic league (baseball/basketball, but I don't know much about it).

As far as personal experience, I had a friend that lived on a street behind the firehouse. When I was in sixth grade, we went out once at like 10-11 o'clock to play playstation with a kidd that went to school. That was around 1999-2000 and we didn't encounter drugs/junkies in that area. If anything there was just other kids that went to our school on the street.
I visited that area many times in high school and there wasnt much change.

I didn't mean to make this post so ridiculously long, but I tried to be as detailed as possible. I'm a recent graduate of Waterbury schools and I go to college right now, so if you have any ?? about the schools, or anything else, let me know

[dkto]

I'm so tired of Waterbury getting such a bad rap. The crime rate consistantly gone down every year for the past five years. This statistic has made national headlines. It also has the lowest crime rate of all of the major Connecticut cities. Granted the area around Willow Street can be a little sketchy but there are plenty of very nice areas in Waterbury. I have lived here for fourteen years and I am astounded by the ignorance of people who think think that this is a crime ridden city. I have had many friends who won't come meet me at a downtown restaurant because they "don't want to be in Waterbury at night". The Waterbury Police department is fantastic. Those police are out walking the beat and are very present-they have cracked down on the criminals in a big way in the past five years.

[brasscitybluenwhite]

Originally Posted by dkto

I have had many friends who won't come meet me at a downtown restaurant because they "don't want to be in Waterbury at night". .

hahahahahahahahaha but they'll go to downtown hartford/downtown new haven at night in a heartbeat right??? hahahahahahahaha

hahahahahaha

hahaha

yea...its just the spirit of CT. A kid that lived upstairs from me at UCONN was killed in August and the New Haven PD found out the kids that were responsible. I was reading an article that one of the news websites did and someone commented "I'm ashamed that New Haven is apart of Connecticut." Who do these people think they are?? So its not just waterbury...its more like CT at large vs. the entire lower class..

[Uconn97]

[quote=dkto;5507648]I'm so tired of Waterbury getting such a bad rap. [quote]

It doesn't matter what the stats say - seems like word of mouth, opinions and stereotypes are about what 95% of CT believes. God forbid you tell someone you live in a "less desirable" area...they look at you like you're nuts!

[Erika Schmitt]

the town plot area is nice as well as anything near oakville. I'm from wolcott and when I lived there the area to stay away from was long hill rd. don't know if it's still the same. Lots of new development has sprung up in the past 5 years or so