Dangerous Neighborhoods?

I have noticed in various reviews of Chicago restaurants, specifically on another site, and the reviewer makes special note of the neighborhood being bad and or dangerous. This has been mentioned in reference to places such as Nuevo Leon and Irazu amongst others. My question is, where do these people live? I have visited many different neighborhoods on my quest for good food and I have not had any problems or felt unsafe. Yeah, its the big city, crime happens. Do you take precautions? Sure, but I have not been to a location in Chicago that I would tell people not to go to because of the neighborhood. Are these statements based on racism or do these people just not get out enough. I think these people are living in a little too sheltered of a world if they think a busy area with lots of foot traffic is to be avoided at night. End of rant.

It is interesting to look at the actual crime statistics. Actually your wallet is much safer from the possibility of being picked in the vicinity of Irazu than it is in the vicinity of RL, for instance.

Too often working class neighborhoods are mistaken for crime-ridden neighborhoods, and while they may be a little moreso than others, I rarely worry too much about any area that has a lively commercial strip.

I have worked in the projects of Detroit and St. Louis on a daily basis during the crack epidemics of the late 80's and early '90s. The notion that every neighborhood in Chicago (or Detroit or St. Louis) is alright is polyannish and unrealistic.

As a general rule, I don't send people into bad neighborhoods without fair warning of the problems of the neighborhood. For example, in St. Louis, the area along St. Louis Ave. by Crown Candy Kitchen is a hotbed of drug activity and has been for years. One of my foodservice employees in St. Louis was shot down the street from the place. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. When I hear someone saying "oh, it's an OK neighborhood," I laugh. No, it's a bad neighborhood. And yes, I have been to Crown Candy on a number of occasions.

On the Chowhound website, I told someone who was unfamiliar to Detroit to print out a Mapquest as some of the neighborhoods around Detroit's Eastern Market were very rough. I was accused of being a racist and a neanderthal (and the recepient of a lot of hate e-mails). I worked in that neighborhood and Detroit Receiving Hospital gets about 3-5 gunshot wounds from that area daily. Should you go to Detroit's Eastern Market? - certainly, as it the BEST market in the midwest. Just don't go wondering out of the area on foot.

Crime rates are down but that does not alleviate the need to be cautious in unfamiliar neighborhoods.

I've wandered looking for chow in some potentially dangerous neighborhoods in Europe and Mexico, and since I was a 10-year-old kid taking the bus to Carl Shurz High School for summer school, I’ve found that when I’m in a potentially threatening situation (or a situation I perceive to be such), it helps to simulate madness. In hostile surroundings, I get demonstrably figedety, let my eyes roam nervously (but, and this is important, I do NOT make eye contact with potential assailants), and walk in somewhat unpredictable patterns, with the appearance of being controlled by a higher, and most likely insane, power. The message I hope to send: Don’t touch me; I’m a real live wire.

Hammond

I just swing my machete in front of me as I walk down the sidewalk, it clears a path without ever even making contact. At least usually.

Seriously, of course there are scary places in the world, at least at certain times, they don't decorate with bulletproof glass at barbecue joints because they think it looks spiffy, but the idea (as was suggested in a NY Times piece once) that, say, west of Western on Division should only be visited by armored personal carrier is simply preposterous.

Mike G wrote:Too often working class neighborhoods are mistaken for crime-ridden neighborhoods, and while they may be a little moreso than others, I rarely worry too much about any area that has a lively commercial strip.

I agree whole-heartedly. While it would be silly for anyone to think all the neighbourhoods of Chicago are safe –– and, indeed, there certainly are some that are still pretty bad –– simple, common-sense precautions will generally suffice in order to allow someone from one part of the city and one ethnic background to go and visit and enjoy a restaurant in another part of the city inhabited predominantly by members of another ethnic background.

Amata and I have been spending a lot of time in Mexican neighbourhoods around town for a lot of years now, for long enough a period of time that we have seen noteworthy and, in some cases, amazing change in the character of some of these neighbourhoods. Many of our friends have always thought us slightly mad for going to a place which they have heard about only in connexion with gang-shootings in order to eat gorditas but, to echo what MikeG says above, reasonably busy commercial areas, even in neighbourhoods with some serious problems, are in our experience quite safe.

And as David suggests, if and when trouble seems imminent, just feign (or display) madness.

Antonius

People with disabilities (including psychiatric disabilities) are subject to a high rate of violence. Attempting to "pass" for reasons of personal safety is not only erroneous, but a bit insensitive to the real circumstances of their lives. As is swinging a machete to clear the way for food pioneers, while perhaps intended as fun, a bit off the mark, at least for me.

Be alert, be engaged, and try to engage others who seem, like most people anywhere, reasonably well-meaning and curious.

I'm just tryin' to get what's different about Hammond acting that way.

annieb wrote: As is swinging a machete to clear the way for food pioneers, while perhaps intended as fun, a bit off the mark, at least for me.

You think MikeG perhaps intended his comment as "fun"? Could be.

Hammond

One person's "bad neighborhood" is another person's home. It's all a matter of persepctive. Frankly, having lived in urban apartments my entire life, I get nervous at night in wide open spaces. My idea of a bad neighborhood is nighttime in the wilderness.

I think judgements such as this (as well as taste in food) need to be viewed as subjective judgements. It certainly helps a reader's understanding to know more about the writer's background, posting history, and personal proclivities. If Antonius describes a neighborhood as very dangerous, I'm inclined to take it to heart. If a new poster from a rural area made the same statement, I'd question it a bit more until I understand their definition of "dangerous". Once I understand their definition, if I disagree, I still wouldn't consider that person "wrong". It's just a dangerous neighborhood for them.

Personally, I would never make an assumption that a person's neighborhood judgement is based on racism or a sheltered upbringing.

Best,
Michael / EC

I may point out as well that people's judgements about neighborhood safety and security may also be influenced by their gender and whether they will be out alone or in a group. Call me paranoid or practical but as a single woman in her twenties, I am very cautious about where I go alone after dark (and sometimes during the day, depending where I am). That is common sense. And that holds true from Humboldt Park to Lincoln Park to Rogers Park. We live in a wonderfully large and diverse city and it would be foolish to play down the risks that go along with that--if someone here (in the city) lives in a neighborhood that is free of crime please tell me where I can find it!

All I'm trying to say is that the dangers that a neighborhood poses are based on many considerations. Anyone who gives one-dimensional advice (from "don't go there it's too dangerous" to "don't worry about a thing") is doing a disservice.

This reminds me of a thread recently posted on another board that I follow, that's based in Detroit. The thread started off giving advice to tourists that would be visiting Detroit for the Superbowl - and rapidly became a festival of paranoia.

What follows is a friend's tounge-in-cheek response to the other posts.

if you pull into someones drveway, they will come out and eat you.
detroiters have been known to smell fear like dogs and bees, from up to a 1/2 mile radius.
they will know how far you are from their driveway from your smell, and will be waiting in the bushes.

should you encounter an actual detroiter face to face, or if you see one approaching you from down a street or across a lot, do not bother trying to shoot or stab the detroiter, as you can be sure a mature detroiter has built up thick calice's over their body from the wounds encountered during detroit adolescence. rather, your best bet is to try to blend in, and hope the detroiter dosent see you as prey. one of the better ways is to begin screaming at the sky and tearing your clothes off. this will tell the detroiter that you are a homeless person already beaten in by the city, and will therefore not attack as a non homeless detroiter has little interest in homeless people as they have little nutritional and resale market value.

also, when entering detroit, its not a bad idea to urinate into a container, such as an empty soda (or "pop", in detroiter) bottle. if you should encounter a detroiter, quickly pour it into yourself, not only will the urine mask your smell of fear, but it will also help you camouflage yourself as a homeless person.

...and some more...

and to add to doc's very important information about detroit....

always run red lights. if you stop at a red light, you will be car jacked, kidnapped, and stripped of your kidneys, eyes, heart, and testicles. detroit is the center of the worlds illegal human organ chop shops. it is very important to never stop for anything, even for hitchikers. if you see a hitchiker, do not attempt to run it over. hitchikers in detroit are terminators sent from the future. hitchikers can also run as fast as your car and extend blades from their arms to attach themselves to your decklid. you need to drive away as fast as you can. DO NOT stop for police cars either. detroit cops are the toughest liquid metal cyborgs in this star system. always run from the police if you want to live.

Regardless of the neighborhood, I've generally found this passage from Frank Herbert's "Dune" to pretty much hit the mark.

The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear.
Pg 19 of Dune

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

And I shall eat well !!!

If I thought this thread was really over, I wouldn't be posting, leaving it to close out with the great quote above. But I'm sure I'm not the only with person with more thoughts on this subject, so I won't resist the temptation.

As a former Detroiter (yes, in the city, and I LOVED the quotes above) and as someone who has worked in the Garfield-Austin and North Lawndale neighborhoods in Chicago, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.

1. If you are a crime victim in a poor neighborhood, it is likely to be of a property crime. The fact that a neighborhood has a high murder rate does not mean that you run a substantial risk of being murdered if you go into that neighborhood. (This is not to downplay the cautions, appropriately expressed above, about the risks that young women may face in any neighborhood).

2. White skin gives, though certainly not protection, at least an edge. Any experienced thug knows that the police and the courts will come down far harder on a crime against a white visitor to a neighborhood than they will against a similar crime committed against a neighborhood resident.

3. As mentioned above, pay attention to the precautions taken by those who know the neighborhood better than you. For a while I walked the four blocks from the Blue line stop at Kedzie south to my office until I noticed that my black colleagues always waited in the el stop for the bus. If the women in the neighborhood don't carry purses, maybe you shouldn't either.

4. Mike G, Antonious, and others are correct about the relative safety of busy streets. Eric Klinenberg's terrific analysis of the heat-related deaths during the Chicago summer of 1995 looked at why elderly Latinos were so much more likely to survive than their African-American counterparts. There's an interview with him here that includes this quotation.

I wrote Heat Wave to make sense of these numbers—to show, for instance, why the Latino Little Village neighborhood had a much lower death rate than African American North Lawndale. Many Chicagoans attributed the disparate death patterns to the ethnic differences among blacks, Latinos, and whites—and local experts made much of the purported Latino "family values." But there's a social and spatial context that makes close family ties possible. Chicago's Latinos tend to live in neighborhoods with high population density, busy commercial life in the streets, and vibrant public spaces. Most of the African American neighborhoods with high heat wave death rates had been abandoned—by employers, stores, and residents—in recent decades. The social ecology of abandonment, dispersion, and decay makes systems of social support exceedingly difficult to sustain.

5. I've personally been a crime victim once. I was mugged In front of my southwest Oak Park house.

There's also the difference between actual danger and perceived danger. In neighborhoods where people know each other, the "back of the fence" phenom happens - I tell my neighbor about the car break in, she tells her neighbor, suddenly everyone knows about all the car break ins that are happening. In another neighborhood, I might not tell anyone, staying inside. No one knows about the crime, so it seems safer. Thus the first neighborhood may seem scarier than the second, but it is not.

Also, we are far more afraid of some things than we should be (flying in airplanes) and far less afraid of others than we should be (driving in cars).

I don't think this was mentioned yet. Here's a link to look up all reported crimes by address:
http://www.chicagocrime.org/

Marquee wrote:reviewer makes special note of the neighborhood being bad and or dangerous. This has been mentioned in reference to places such as Nuevo Leon

hmf. why didn't people tell me earlier?!? Pilsen is/was known as a crime-ridden neighborhood w/ 4(?) rival gangs. Then again, Bombon is right across the street from NL and you don't see anyone complaining about a 'rough' neighborhood. Surely someone can elaborate on Pilsen's history?
I believe, besides myself, another LTH'er just moved into Pilsen recently, no?

Whatevers man, I go down to Barbara Ann's past midnite on a relatively regular basis. dying by getting shot while eating tips is *almost* as glorious as dying by wrecking while racing car/motorcycle/bike.

I moved here about 2 months ago. Haven't had any problems. Great neighbors, lovely neighborhood.

-ed

Hi,

I wish I could claim I found this myself, though credit is due to Mike G, on benign neglect from simply not repairing broken windows can quickly escalate into chaos.

Regards,

Whether or not a neighborhood is dangerous to you depends as much on who you are as to what the neighborhood is like. Your race, your gender and your street smarts all play a role, as do numbers. A group is almost always safer than an individual. And time of day matters, too.

There are plenty of white neighborhoods where, if I were a young black man, it could be dangerous to be out walking alone at night. There are too many neighborhoods where women aren't safe alone. That this is deplorable doesn't make it any less true.

When I first moved to Chicago two decades ago, advice given me was, "If you are riding the L and you find yourself in the numbered streets, don't get off, or you will die." For a relatively clueless, young, white woman, not long out of a college town and unaccustomed to public transit, that was the right advice at the time. (Indeed, there had been recent murders of just that sort, somebody blundering into a dangerous neighborhood, not to mention quite a number of rapes at L stations.)

As recently as five years ago, I quoted that advice myself to a group of conventioneers, with a proviso that while it wasn't as bad as that sounded, judging the relative safety of the neighborhoods around public transit stations on the South Side (and the Far North Side) required street smarts and local knowledge that the visitors were unlikely to have.

I wouldn't give that precise advice now, because the neighborhoods have changed, but if I were recommending a restaurant in any area where extra alertness seemed called for, I'd think it was worth mentioning that fact, just as I'd mention it if the restaurant requires advance reservations or has a dress code. I also mention it when the neighborhood in question seems unusually plagued by street beggars. Or if the restaurant staff doesn't speak English well. All of that is part of properly preparing someone for the dining experience.

All sorts of people from all kinds of neighborhoods and backgrounds read these boards; I don't think that anyone ought to blithely assume that just because you've never encountered trouble somewhere that an area is safe for everyone.