Hey guys!
I'm moving to Chicago this fall for grad school. I've visited Chicago a couple of times, but I don't know much about it. Any pointers you guys can give me?
I've heard south of Roosevelt Rd is considered the south side of Chicago, and everything north is north Chicago..? Can anyone school me on the north vs south thing. Any places I should definitely go to? Places to avoid?
I'm a 26-year old male, if that matters.
Chicago in a nutshell. Chicago is built on a grid system where every 8 blocks make one mile. The grid is cut by two diagonal streets in the north and three(?) in the south.
Technically, the midline of Chicago is Madison Street (0 N, 0 S). From there the grid goes in two directions north and south (The next street north is 100 N, then 200 N. Same goes for south). Roosevelt Road is 12th street (and, in a rare exception to the Chicago grid system, one mile south of Madison St.). South of Roosevelt, East-West streets are numbered every 8th of a mile. 13th, 14th...116th-ish is the last one in Chicago I think. Going north, all the streets are named. State Street is 0 E, 0 W and the North South roads are also numbered (sometimes called avenues). Most street corners will indicate the street names with a number underneath them indicating how far east and west they are (if the street runs north to south) and how far north or south they are (if the street runs east to west).
When you were told Roosevelt was north, he's probably referring to the fact that most (certainly not all, not all parts are safe, either) of the most popular (and safest) places to live in Chicago are north of Roosevelt Road. You probably shouldn't expect to spend a lot of time on streets that are numbered like 95th street, etc. The south side of Chicago used to be home to a large portion of immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Italy, etc. More recently, those groups have been displaced by gang activity and violence. There are, however, a few popular locales on the south side, particularly US Cellular Field (Home of the White Sox, 35th street) and Chinatown (off of Cermak - also 22nd street).
For someone in their twenties (I moved to Chicago from the suburbs when I was 22), the most popular neighborhoods are Lincoln Park (most popular north side neighborhood where DePaul is), Wicker Park/Bucktown (hipster central), and Lake View (Wrigleyville, Boystown area).
Where are you going to school?
