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I’ll be teaching at the University of Chicago Law School in the fall, and one of the places I may live is at East 55th and S. Dorchester in Hyde Park. I’m wondering whether one can get by without a car there in terms of grocery shopping, restaurants, and the like. Please e-mail me or post comments below. Any other tips about that area would be welcome. Many thanks.
Dear Professor Leiter,
At 55th and Dorchester, you will be about a block away from the local co-op grocery store, and very close to several restaurants and a coffee shop.
From 55th street, it probably takes 20 minutes to walk to the law school when the weather is nice and longer when the sidewalks are covered in snow.
You *can* get by, in the sense of surviving. But nearly everything interesting to do in Chicago is quite a distance from Hyde Park, and the community is not well-served by public transportation. (There are a couple of Thai restaurants and cafes in Hyde Park, but Chicago is a world-class restaurant city and none of the good ones are nearby.) You'd be much happier with a car.
You need a car. Trust me. You'll want to leave Hyde Park at some point. Besides, it's not safe getting around HP at night w/o a car.
Yes, you could do it. But I wouldn't recommend it.
You're a bit too far from campus–particularly from the law school, on the far side of campus–to be comfortable in the winter. Some would say (not me, but reasonable people) that planning on walking at night in Hyde Park isn't a good idea. Given the work habits of the average professor at the Law School, you'll likely be spending many evenings working late, so that certainly is a factor.
There are a couple of restaurants nearby, and they'll do fine for the occasional meal, but a good meal will require leaving Hyde Park.
Taxi service is also a bit spotty in Hyde Park–you'll be fine at your building, but you can't rely on getting a cab at the Law School (or most anywhere else in the neighborhood) to get home.
If you do take a car–and I'm confident you will–I'd encourage you to remember the impulse you had to leave it behind. Hyde Park is a better neighborhood than some of us make it sound like, and it is a particularly enjoyable place on October afternoons, when the weather is at its best and students and the rest of the neighborhood are on the streets. Join them, at least from time to time.
Brian,
How things look re public transit, restaurants, etc, and the need for a car, probably depends on where you're coming from and what you desire. I live at 55th and Blackstone, one block east of where you're thinking of staying, and bike to work every day (5 minutes or less). I drive my car almost exclusively on weekends. But I have a family. I go out of Hyde Park for shopping and to cart my kids around, and to get into the city on weekends.
Sean Carroll is right that there aren't a lot of good restaurants in Hyde Park, and virtually no night life.
Hyde Park also doesn't offer really decent grocery shopping and there is not much retail other than bookstores (the best in that department). The Hyde Park Co-op is two blocks from 55th and Dorchester, and very convenient, but the pricing is irrational and the stock is undependable. There is a nice little grocery on 53rd (an easy walk with a cart) — Hyde Park Produce — but you can't get everything there. The closest good big chain grocery story is at Roosevelt Road (12th Street), the closest deparment store (Target) is also there, the closest Whole Foods is north of the Loop (off the "Magnificent Mile").
Public transit to the Loop (downtown) is really pretty good. The number 6 bus gets you there in about 20 minutes and runs frequently from 55th and Hyde Park Blvd (about five blocks east of 55th and Dorchester). This costs $2.00. There is also a Metra train stop at 55th and Lake Park (even closer) and this gets you downtown even faster, but runs much less frequently except in rush hour. The cost is a bit more than $2.00. Given that parking downtown can easily cost $16.00 or more, if there's just one or two of you it's a lot cheaper to go public.
On the other hand, if you want to go beyond downtown — to Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Wicker Park, Andersonville, etc — all more interesting neighborhoods are north of the loop — public transit is much less fun. You have to transfer, the buses can take a long time, the el is possible but not so fast. You can take the 55 bus west of Hyde Park to catch the Red or Green el lines which will take you to points further north, but the neighboorhood where you have to catch the el is a bit dodgy.
Cabs are possible but will get expensive to go beyond downtown.
I think you will find it is convenient to have a car, but not absolutely necessary — you'll probably need it a few times a week — but you can live a lot of your life in Hyde Park without driving. But as I say, it depends on what you want out of the city.
You might want to check out a car-sharing outfit, called I-go, that has cars in Hyde Park. The website appears to be this (from Google — I found what looks like an IP address in the URL a bit strange but it seems to be the right site): http://216.211.131.236/chicago-i-go/
–Michael Kremer
Re safety: Again, it all depends on where you're coming from. It's the city. Bad things happen. Bad things have happened to people I know. But it's not a really really scary place, unless all US cities are scary to you.
Anyway, where I live (and ditto for 55th and Dorchester) having a car is not going to prevent you from having to walk in Hyde Park at night, since at night you often will end up parking three blocks away from home.
If you want a sense of the frequency of crime in Hyde Park, go to https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/safety-awareness/ and look through the monthly threads for "safety awareness alerts". But just remember there are something like 50,000 people in Hyde Park/Kenwood and also note that most of the crime happens outside the area you're likely to frequent most of the time.
I suspect the crime you're most likely to be a victim of while in Hyde Park is actually: motor vehicle theft.
-make sure you have breakfast at Valois on 53rd Street
-you may get mugged, but they won't hurt you. don't carry a lot of cash.
-get a membership at the seminary co-op bookstore
-public transportation is really annoying and unreliable. if you have a car you should probably bring it. parking isn't that bad in hyde park but you might have to park a few blocks away late at night.
Michael Green has some good info/tips about hyde park on his blog:
Many thanks for these very informative comments–and also to those who e-mailed comments to me directly. This is very helpful. I look forward to meeting some of you in person in the fall.
Having lived from 1972 to 1990 in Hyde Park and spent a fair amount of time there since (seeing parents and the like), I can say that at 55th and Dorchester you're as well positioned for pedestrianism as one could be in HP: within two blocks of each of HP's three major business districts, namely 53d St, 57th St, and 55th and New Lake Park Ave.
At the same time, various commentators are right that there is very little to do in HP. Will you need a car to get out of HP? At 55th and Dorchester you're very close to a train station which runs to the loop; taxi service runs about $40 round trip.
Crime fears have always struck me as vastly overblown and based more in racism than in statistics.
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