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.
The Essence of Chicagoland Areas 