dangerous neighborhoods – The Essence of Chicagoland Areas

Brighton Park Chicago Times

On the South side of 51st street a couple blocks West of western Avenue lived a young Mexican kid. He was maybe 25 years old or so. I told him that I lived a couple blocks away from there at 5005 South Artesian in Chicago back in the early 90s. He said that it was a dangerous neighborhood. I told him that it was a nice neighborhood when I lived there.
The alderman lived down the street from me North one block. Across the street from me was a really beautiful Italian girl that always tanned out in front of her house. Two doors down from him, about 4 doors from the corner, lived a kid a couple years older than me that played guitar like I did. One door South of me were these glam rock band guys that played guitar on the lower level of their house. Behind our house, from the alley, you can hear some older men play music in their garage. They were a blues band. Everyone in the neighborhood was white for the most part. There was a Mexican family at the South edge of the block. A bunch of Mexican youths would always sit on the front porch and steadily watch you walk by. Every now and then they would throw big Mexican parties while they blasted their Mexican ranchero music loud enough that you could hear in the house. We did not have central air, so all the windows were open, and you heard everything outside. White prostitutes used to walk up and down Western Avenue, but they were rarely seen. It was a nice and clean neighborhood. It was really quiet for the most part. We had everything we needed there too. On the Northwest corner of 51st and Western used to be a Butera grocery store, now a family dollar. There was a VCR video store and Nintendo game rental store on the Southwest Corner of 50th and Artesian, I believe turned into a Mexican joint. There weren’t any taco places in the neighborhood when I lived there, but now there’s a few in every direction.
This kid told me that the neighborhood became really dangerous at a time. Latin gangs filled the streets. Shootings and robberies were frequent. North of 51st street had become the more dangerous side, but the South side where he lived was a little more tranquil. He stays home and plays video games now because he is used to not going outside.
He graduated from school in the year 2015. He went to Curie high school. Curie used to be a nice school, but Bogan to the South was even better than that. I got accepted to both, but my dad sent me to De La Salle instead around 1991. He said that Curie had become a dangerous and bad school. Kids were forced to cross the street at the intersection because kids were getting killed j walking across the street from the train. He said that they even had race wars in the school. Black kids against Mexican kids. It felt like near a hundred kids outside fighting sometimes. He never participated in the fights, but he remembered them well. He believes the school is getting safer though since he attended.
There was a teacher in the school that was in the SD gang. He and his friends were Latin Kings. The teacher started throwing gang signs. Nobody had him as a teacher, so they treated him just like anyone else. They ran across the street and started fighting him in front of the dollar general store.
It was dangerous at school and at home in the neighborhood. One day after school, on his regular 20 minute walk home, he was robbed with a 45 pistol to his head, demanding money. He was safer in some parts of the neighborhood than others. Although he did hear shootings quite frequently at night. There were “two six gang members” on one side, and Latin Kings on the other side. Constant battles. He witnessed a Latin King get shot in the neck across the street from his house.

He lived in Bridgeport for a while. Said that it wasn’t too dangerous in that neighborhood. 31st or 33rd street near Morgan was one of the areas to avoid in that neighborhood. You want to stay away from there or keep an eye out. He said that 51st and Western was more dangerous than Bridgeport.
50th and Western was a nice neighborhood at one time. The craziest times back then were when the biker guys used to throw parties on the center of the boulevard. There were a lot of bars on the West side of Western Ave. That’s where the biker guys came from. They would bring games for kids, carnival rides, and beer tents, and loud classic rock music blasting. I went there a couple of times and hung with the locals. I didn’t know anyone there, but I was welcomed to sit with some bikers and their families on the picknick tables that they brought onto the grass. Hopefully the neighborhood gets back to that level of safety and social bonding.

Puerto Rican Liked the Polish Establishments in Little Village Chicago

He moved out in 1989. Moved to Arizona. He keeps in contact with a few friends in the old neighborhood. He can’t believe how bad it has become in the Chicago Little Village neighborhood. He says that there was trouble before, but not like today. There used to be a lot of Polish and other European descent people in Little village by the 1980s, but it was mostly white with little bits of Latin Americans moving in. He loved the food. He remembers all the Polish delis and bakeries. He would name off a few foods that he liked. “Man, your don’t know what you’re missing if you haven’t tried it. I miss those places. The food was so good back then”.

He said that the white kids would sometimes pick on him. He had friends there, but sometimes he would run into the white gangs that would sometimes be around. “The two-two boys, the cobras,…” and others. Although he still misses the old neighborhood and how it used to be.

Being in the little village neighborhood before it became all Latin, it was a very safe neighborhood. He said that they didn’t call it little village, it was North Lawndale. It was a very safe and clean neighborhood. He missed the food and the people there, but not the trouble makers of the area.

I started speaking with an older Mexican woman that lived in the same neighborhood. She agreed that the food was really good and that the neighborhood was really nice. But she didn’t agree with the first guy I spoke with. She said that Little Village was mostly Polish in the 60s and part of the 70s when Mexicans started to take the area, pushing the European neighbors out.

She said she misses the old neighborhood and good food there. Her aunt worked at the furniture store that’s in the picture attached to this document. She opened a Mexican restaurant in the 70s with her husband in the area.

She said it was a nice place. But in the 60s when they first moved in, the white gangs burned their garage down, because they didn’t want the Mexicans to move in. The Mexicans moved in anyways, and all the European types moved out.

Gun Shots Are Easily Ignored in the Austin Neighborhood

Shirley is almost 51 years old. She grew up in the Austin neighborhood. A couple of her daughters live with her. She says that the neighborhood is not what it used to be. She advises me not to walk around the Austin neighborhood without backup with me.

I asked her how she liked living there now. She said she can’t wait till she moves. She was hearing gunshots last night. She says that she thinks they were gunshots but nowadays she doesn’t really listen for them because they’re so often. She said that she’s numb to it already. She can’t wait till she moves out of the neighborhood I’m going to a safer neighborhood.

She says that people aren’t as respectful as they used to be. Kids are dangerous now and very disrespectful. She just wants to move out of the area. Says that she’s been there too long.

I told her that I had heard from a few old timers that the Austin neighborhood was really beautiful back in the 1950s and ’60s. Shirley agreed with me. But I told her that the neighborhood was coming up and getting better especially north of Chicago avenue. She once again agreed with me.

It’s too Dangerous In Chicago

A youth from the back of the yards neighborhood lived there for half his life, originally from the Little Village neighborhood. He said Chicago is dangerous. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to walk around here.”

He says that he hears shootings every now and then in the back of the yards neighborhood. I told him that I wanted to interview people with my camera, but he refused to be on video. He advised me not to walk around in the neighborhood on the main streets or in the neighborhood. He says he takes Uber everywhere he needs to go because it’s so dangerous there, he doesn’t want to walk anywhere unless it’s going straight to the bus. He advised me to show up at some Street event to where there will be a lot of people that may deter gangbangers from doing anything. The event passed. It’s a summer event.

On Thursday two men were shot on 47th and Justine Street. 47th is a dangerous path it seems. A 37-year-old man was shot in the head on Tuesday near Ashland and 46th Street. A kid robbed a store with a gun on 51st Street. A house was raided on Ashland and found six guns with kids sleeping upstairs. On Sunday, 51st and Hermitage a guy got stabbed out in front of church after Mass at our Lady of Guadalupe, apparently the guy was at church and when he came out of church some dude tried to rob him, but he got stabbed instead. The criminal may have been a neighborhood youth that had been loitering the week before.

Stay away from the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago. This is a place where kids are afraid to go outside or avoid going to certain streets or going out after dark.

Back of the Yards Chicago Attempt

Have you ever wondered what shapes the essence of a Chicago neighborhood? What was it like then, and is it still gang infested now? Who were those Lithuanians living in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, why did they leave? Now Latin Americans(and some undocumented ) shape the future. All the taverns, brothels, bath houses, and bakeries that once numbered in streets between the residences of the neighborhood are mostly only in the dying memories of part of the fading past. But some of the old, gritty structures still stand. The old bricks once housed sweat and tears, currently replaced by blood and fear, of the brown eyes peeking through the shades of the window. I want to see the people and document their stories. I will capture the history and also record current stories for future Chicagoans to uncover.

Driving up Ashland to 47th, then West to Wood street, and North. Keeping an eye out for some old store fronts or taverns that had been shut down, but all I seen in the streets were Mexican people in various areas. I was fed up with driving aimlessly, so I stopped and asked a guy who was with a group of other guys hanging out on the street for insight.
I asked him if he knew of any historical spaces in the area or even the historic gate in the back of the yards. He was of some Latin descent, but his eyes were almost silver. I couldn’t really notice because he kept shifting his head and eyes all over the place. He almost seemed to think it was funny that I asked him the question. He may had been looking around to see if I had back up somewhere or if I was a cop. He was definitely on some type of drugs. He may have been a gang member with the others. They let me leave instead of killing or carjacking me. He must have thought that nobody was crazy enough to stop some drug addict gang bangers in the streets for neighborhood insights.
He denied having any insight of old buildings in the neighborhood. He pointed me in the wrong direction to the historic gate of the historic stock yards that the neighborhood is named after. He may have been more freaked out than I had been, but for different reasons. His eyes were scanning down the street and at all the cars, while his friends kept their eyes steadily on me.
There were about 12 incidents this week in the back of the yards near the same streets that I drove down. Some Latin nurse girl was doing Uber for extra cash in her neighborhood, and a group of guys used a fake account to have her pick them up. They stuck a gun into her side, then demanded that they drive. The Latinos then demanded that she go buy them some food. Near 47th and Kedzie, they had her run into the taco joint while they stole her car and left her at the taco place, which luckily was not far from where she lived. There had been at least 3 carjackings in the back of the yards this week, a huge cocaine bust, and several people getting shot or killed near 47th Street this week. I grew up a mile away from this place, now I am here to capture the history, but it’s so darn dangerous. Other incidents involved armed robberies where nobody was shot this week. There’s also an amount of carjackings that go unreported. I drove through this neighborhood as if it were 1990 still. I want to record people’s lives and the history of a neighborhood while also making history for others to read about. I’m not interested in recording the crime of the area, but sometimes that one aspect overshadows all of the other things and the essence of a community and families in a neighborhood.