Neighorhood around Schurz High School (Milwaukee and Addison) (Cicero, Lincoln: houses, neighborhoods)

[ninjamyst]

How's the neighborhood around Schurz High School? We passed by the construction area of new single family houses going up that are a block from the high school on Milwaukee. The high school grounds look beautiful, but there are a few yelp reviews about gangs in the school.

[MannheimMadman]

Originally Posted by ninjamyst

How's the neighborhood around Schurz High School? We passed by the construction area of new single family houses going up that are a block from the high school on Milwaukee. The high school grounds look beautiful, but there are a few yelp reviews about gangs in the school.

You read correctly. If you head west on Addison or Belmont, you get into an area of Portage Park which is a bit troubled, with shootings and 'misguided youth'; this stems from a little bit of crap spillover from the belmont-craigin neighborhood.

I wouldn't fear for my safety at all. You'd be right in Old Irving and near 'The Villa', which is a beautiful historic district within the neighborhood.

I run down Milwaukee 2-3 nights a week and pass through the area. It's fine.

[NealIRC]

Originally Posted by ninjamyst

The high school grounds look beautiful, but there are a few yelp reviews about gangs in the school.

Well they won't bother you, they don't live in the neighborhood. I believe you can find YouTube videos of kings and Ds throwing rocks at each other and stuff after school.

[UrbanCheetah]

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

You read correctly. If you head west on Addison or Belmont, you get into an area of Portage Park which is a bit troubled, with shootings and 'misguided youth'; this stems from a little bit of crap spillover from the belmont-craigin neighborhood.

I wouldn't fear for my safety at all. You'd be right in Old Irving and near 'The Villa', which is a beautiful historic district within the neighborhood.

I run down Milwaukee 2-3 nights a week and pass through the area. It's fine.

I wouldn't say it's a bit troubled. I think that is exaggerating. I think once you go south of Belmont then it STARTS to get a little troubled. I live by Addison and Laramie, and it's a rarity anything ever happens in that area. Safer than places like Wicker Park and Bucktown. But yet once you start to go south of Belmont it's not as good and then past Fullerton (south) not good at all. So you are not that far from some neighborhoods that aren't that safe but they are no warzones or ghettos either.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by NealIRC

Well they won't bother you, they don't live in the neighborhood. I believe you can find YouTube videos of kings and Ds throwing rocks at each other and stuff after school.

Where do you think they live? Dallas?

[sargeant79]

Originally Posted by UrbanCheetah

I wouldn't say it's a bit troubled. I think that is exaggerating. I think once you go south of Belmont then it STARTS to get a little troubled. I live by Addison and Laramie, and it's a rarity anything ever happens in that area. Safer than places like Wicker Park and Bucktown. But yet once you start to go south of Belmont it's not as good and then past Fullerton (south) not good at all. So you are not that far from some neighborhoods that aren't that safe but they are no warzones or ghettos either.

This is about right unless things have changed drastically in the last few years. Belmont is really the line where things start to change a little bit, but even down there it isn't that bad. There is some gang presence in almost every public high school in the city, but Schurz is pretty safe by those standards. And Portage Park is a fine neighborhood full of fairly normal blue-collar folks. My step-dad grew up there and went to Schurz and his brother still lives in the neighborhood.

[Drover]

Would you send your kids to Shurz? I sure as hell wouldn't.

I live within the Shurz attendance boundary and parents around here I know can and do anything they can to send their kids somewhere else -- magnet schools, private schools, buying property in a the Lake View or Lincoln Park attendance boundaries and using that as their "school" address...


As for the neighborhood immediately northwest up Milwaukee Avenue... there are better in the area but it's not bad. The main reason there's been a lot of residential development right in that specific spot is the Grayland train station.

[ninjamyst]

Our other concern is the lack of shops / restaurants on Milwaukee. It's mostly auto shops and storage. It is near six corners so that's a plus. The single family houses are in the mid 500s which seems high to me. But the market been picking up and single family in Wicker Park / Bucktown / Near North Center are even higher with low inventory.

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by ninjamyst

Our other concern is the lack of shops / restaurants on Milwaukee. It's mostly auto shops and storage. It is near six corners so that's a plus. The single family houses are in the mid 500s which seems high to me. But the market been picking up and single family in Wicker Park / Bucktown / Near North Center are even higher with low inventory.

It just depends on what you're looking for. I spend a lot of time up there. Most of the NW side is frankly an area in decline. I mean, it's not dangerous for the most part, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it is frankly the kind of place where 2/5 shops in a strip mall are going to be vacant, 1 will be a Boost mobile, and the other will be a pawn shop or check cashier. Gentrification isn't likely to reach up there for a long time and Schurz is not an option for most middle class people, as beautiful as it is.

It just depends what your expectations are.

[NealIRC]

Originally Posted by Drover

Where do you think they live? Dallas?

You want an honest answer to that? My point is right in the vicinity of Schurz High School you got old fancy houses, some that look like mansions. Now I've never seen a CPS boundary map, but I suspect the boundary for Schurz is pretty big, so the vicinity around the school is safe, aside from after school hours.

As for the honest answer, from taking another look at the CPD gang map book, you can find.

Kings on Belmont and Central Park radius.
Ds going southeast of Belmont and Kimball.
Kings and Latin Brothers on Cicero between Belmont and Addison.
Ds on Irving Park and Austin.