I found your blog back when that guy escaped from the police's paddy wagon near Warren Park, and two citizens caught him 2 blocks from our previous apartment. Thanks for your care about our neighborhood.
I've got a little story that just happened less than 24 hrs. ago, just outside our new condo. I got home late Saturday night, turned on the TV and watched South Park that I had Tivo'd. At 1:30am I heard 2 gunshots and a car peel out at the corner outside my wife & I's condo (W. Lunt Ave & N. Washtenaw).
I looked outside the window and saw the car driving away. Less than 2 minutes later, I heard another 2 gunshots, about 3-5 blocks away. At about 2:00am I heard cops and some people outside.
I went outside and saw my upstairs neighbor, who explained to me that HE was the one who's car I heard peel out and that he was being shot at.
Quickly, the story goes like this-
As my upstairs neighbor was parking his car, a person walked out from the small, abandoned 2-flat, on the SE corner of Lunt & Washtenaw.
The guy was waving arms, as if to solicit help.
My upstairs neighbor unrolled his window to see what the guy waving his arms wanted.
When he leaned onto my neighbor's mostly unrolled car window, my neighbor noticed that the guy kept looking behind him.
This is when he saw another guy come out from the abandoned house, running toward his car.
At this point my neighbor felt like something bad was about to happen, so he peeled out and that's when one of them fired 2 shots at him.
My neighbor immediately called 911 from his cell phone while driving away, and they finally arrived on the scene 24 minutes later.
My neighbor told the police that the guys who shot at him, "came from that abandoned house," pointing across the street.
The police shined a flashlight at the house, but didn't act like it was important to go check the building any closer.
My neighbor's brother said, "Don't you think you should go and check that house," and the female cop told him to "Shut-up."
The police then split up on car and foot to go look for them.
Just after the cops left, another guy came out from the abandoned house and just walked away.
The only description I have from my neighbor is of the one guy who came up to his car:
To get more details of the story and a better description, you'd have to get the info from my neighbor.
If you're interested, let me know, and I'll give him your email.
The reason I'm emailing you is to find out if this is something that you might want to post in order to keep the West Roger's Park alert.
On June 24, 2007, there were 2 shots at 1:30am, then 2 more shots, 2 minutes later.
On June 23, 2007, I also heard 2 shots fired at 1:30am within 5 blocks of our condo.
Point is - these guys are in our neighborhood, and out looking for targets around 1:30am and we residents need to be alert.
I think we're going to print out fliers with a description of the guy and pass them out all over our neighborhood, including the abandoned house where the thugs walked out from.
Thanks for your blog, and any advice you might offer.
~Tom B.
BLOGNOTES: ALERT ROGERS PARK
Attn: 024th District – Beat 2411 [ROGERS PARK, CHICAGO]
About This Crime:
A failed carjacking attempt occurred at the corner of Coyle and Washtenaw on Sunday (6/24) at approximately 1:30 A.M. When approaching a stop sign at that intersection, the driver and passenger of the vehicle were approached by two men. The man nearest the front of the vehicle extended his left hand while hiding his right hand behind him and demanded that the driver stop the car. The car occupants refused to stop and pulled away.
A call to 911 was placed. After several minutes the driver began to circle the block in an attempt to head home. While driving westbound on the 2600 block of Morse, at least 2 shots here heard, with at least one of them hitting the vehicle. A second more urgent 911 call was placed to which multiple squads replied. Another neighbor at Lunt and Washtenaw had also called 911 to report shots fired.
The Offenders are Described As:
Suspect 1 – Latino, male, mid 20's, 150-160 pounds, 5' 10" tall, facial hair of a goatee and thin mustache, dark hair that was shaved on each side of his head, wearing long black or blue pants, a long sleeved unbuttoned dark blue shirt over a dark grey t-shirt. The suspect was also wearing a bluetooth earpiece for a cellular phone.
Suspect 2 – White, male, mid 20's, 180-200 pounds, 6' 0" tall, dark hair, wearing long dark pants and a long sleeved dark blue shirt. The suspect was also wearing a bluetooth earpiece for a cellular phone.
What You Can Do:
• Be observant and report suspicious activity especially intersections or at the ends of alley ways
• Keep you doors locked at all times while traveling
• Be observant of all activity around you when entering or exiting your vehicle
If you have any information about this incident, call the Area Three Detectives at 312-744-8266 and Reference RD# HN - 425497
33 comments:
Just so everyone is perfectly clear, this is in Bernie Stone's ward.
And I have to love the interaction with the cops: "Don't you think you should investigate the building?" "SHUTUP!"
Sums up my experiences perfectly.
Just so everyone is perfectly clear, this is in Bernie Stone's ward.
You mean you can't find a way to blame this on Moore?
That may be a first...
PLENTY OF PROBLEMS IN OUR 49TH, DON'T HAVE TO GO TO BERNIE WARD TO FIND FAULT-
FIRST LETS GET THE STINK OF GOOSE LIVER OUT OF THE 49TH----
Re: Dave
I guess Craig is looking to expand the *hellhole franchise into other wards...
Re: InkJar
The Goose Liver gag is getting old already...
MARK-
THANKS FOR THE COMMENT-
YES - THE GOOSE LIVER IS GETTING OLD AND ROTTEN MORE EVERY DAY -- THE STINK IS GETING STONGER-
Sorry Craig,
But I've just signed up for http://chicagohellhole.blogspot.com and http://midwesthellhole.blogspot.com.
I'll sell 'em to you though...
I'll defend Craig on this one -
Joe Moore's long term agenda, his on going programs, his general politics and his "blind eye" attitude to serious problems (and the truth of where they come from) are steadily dragging RP down, and it will overflow to other wards and communities. As Joe claimed over and over during the recently stolen election, crime is supposed to be DOWN DOWN DOWN - 49% down!!! What an utter batch of Joe More lies! Does the last 3 weeks or so seem like crime is down? You don't need statistics, doctored or not, to know what the truth is - our blight will infect the 50th, it will infect Andersonville, and it will blowback to Evanston. You can't crowd the poor, the uneducated, the drug addicted, the un-documented, the recently released from prison, and the marginally competent into a ghetto of sub-standard public housing, apartment buildings run by slumlord pals of the alderman, and hopeless people manipulated by self-serving NFP's without more and more of this kind of thing happening. Get used to it ….. With Joe behind the wheel, this drive by wild west Gang-Bang shooting gallery is what we are going to look like …..
Craig doesn’t need to bring Bernie Stone's turf to the Broken Heart - The Hell Hole is going to creep into whatever crevice it can. Any community adjacent to us, suffering under indifferent, destructive, self-serving leadership (the kind of “leadership” we get from Joe Moore), will go straight into the ash can .....
This is going to be a long hot summer ..... stay out of the line of fire …
RPBooster (retired)
Looks like Bernie is too far into his dotage to be equal to the new challenges to the 50th ward, presented by hoards of "problem" people being dumped into the ward and accomodated by greedy landlords who missed the chance to convert their buildings.
Bernie is intrinsically a good guy, but I don't believe he can adjust to a ward that is vastly different than it was when he was elected. He can't wrap his mind around the 50th of modern times, and that it's not 1977, or even 1995, anymore.
Their problems are our problems and ours are theirs. We don't exactly live in different cities.
how do you get from car jacking to bernie stone? don't forget to blame jomo.
thats right alderpeople are like the wizard of oz they can see whats happening everywhere every second of the night. When they can't they should be out there protecting our citizens against random cirmes and broken trees and urine in the planters 24/7. its all the aldermans fault. the puck who tried to kill this guy hes a poor sucker who just wasn't stopped by the alderman.
I say get rid of the police, you all know better.
I'm sorry Dorothy, you alder-shill, but it is the publicly avowed policy of Joe Moore to bring as many people on subsidies and as many halfway clearing-house felons and as many convicted child molesters as he can to Rogers Park.
RP has one of, if not the most concentrated populations of known registered pedophiles in the city:
http://www.familywatchdog.us/ShowMap.asp?frm=0
Watch the kiddies. I if it isn’t the bullets flying it could actually be worse. And Joe welcomes them with open arms!! What could it mean? Why would he do this??
It is Joe Moore’s concerted goal to trash our home as he establishes his left of Lenin national political credentials. He has personally told me – to my face - that there is not near enough public subsidized housing in Rogers Park. With this proactive policy of establishing Rogers-Ghetto-Park, and the money Joe's pals are making behind the scenes as the last of Cabrini Green is finally emptied into our back yard, and the perpetual guarantee of future elections easily stolen, for himself, Fagus, Jan Schakowski and all their future cronies, comes this kind of vandalism, increased shootings, muggings, car jackings and slaughtered children. What will be the final body count in the 49th this year? We’ve got to be on a record breaking pace …….. Crime is DOWN remember???
Crawl back over to the satelite service office and give Joe another big wet kiss for all of us Dorothy.
Maybe he’ll let you … Well you know what he’ll let you do.
Joe’s ego needs your love.
RPB (Retired)
Dorothy, Booster is absolutely correct.
Booster, you have just now told me things even I did not know.
So Joe wants to bring MORE SUBSIDIZED HOUSING and MORE SOCIAL SERVICES to Rogers Park. I always believed that this was the case but I never personally heard the chump say it in so many words.
Too bad you weren't wearing a wire when he said that.
I'm sure that all the folks who have paid $200K, $300K, $500K and even more will be SO THRILLED to have even more ex-cons and drug addicts and teen mommas with 6 kids living beside them.
That absolutely scotches it. I'm not buying in this ward.
The gods and goddesses work in strange ways. A massive, dreadful unexpected large expense kept me from buying here when I wanted to 4 years ago.
Now that my time is at last here and the prices are pulling back some, I will buy in Edgewater, thankyouverymuch.
rogersparkbooster-
You are great- need more of you on this blog- thanks
ps - For shure you know how to cut through the GOOSE LIVER-
You love the diversity...
You want more affordable housing...
You just don't want the underclass and the crime that goes with it...
What's Hugh's solution to the problem? Ooops Hugh has no solutions.
Toto, I can easily remember a time when "affordable" housing did not mean crime and blight.
When people speak of "affordable" they usually mean affordable for working people who make $17K to $55K a year- a stable, solid group of people who are the support of most good neighborhoods.
Edgewater is "affordable" and even has many "rent stabilized" and low-rent buildings, yet Edgewater does not have these problems.
The difference is the leadership. Mary Ann Smith doesn't tolerate buildings run like slums, that are full of bottom-dog unplaceable refugees from the projects who could be placed nowhere but in Joe or Helen's wards because they have rap sheets or drug problems or are 16 years old with 6 kids.
Joe, on the other hand, decided many years ago that this neighborhood was to be the designated dumping ground for the city's undesirables, for people who don't fit into ANY neighborhood, except for the tiers of a max security prison.
Only Rogers Park tolerates it, and, yeah, Uptown under Queen Helen. Worse, Moore as much as invites more social services that cater to the very people you definately don't want in the city, let alone your neighborhood: violent criminals and convicted pedophiles.
Northcoast I also rented in Roger Park for 5 yrs before buying (Greenleaf & Sheridan) seeing what I saw , reading the stories on this site (as well as others) I bought in Edgewater (joey is still my alderman)
Before people critize me, why would someone buy a home or condo where you have joey bringing in the "element" of criminal types in the area, yes crime is everywhere in our city, but RP is becomeing alittle more "shady" I am 6'5" I wokout 5 days a week, so I am not scared walking in RP, when I lived on Greenleaf I walked by many a punk or groups of punks who eyed me but probably because of my size they waited for a weaker prey.
So Northcoast I will welcome you to Edgewater where I promise you that you will feel the difference when walking around the area. I coffe (my treat) awaits you at the Metroplis Coffe store on Grandville!
Toto's little snippets are like those lame fortune cookie quotes you get at the bottom of a Chinese carry-out bag of food.
Even though they're old and nasty tasting - and you really don't want them - they still give you one and eat it anyway.
Ryne, you sweetie, I will take you up on that. I love that area and walk around it all the time, at any time of the day or night I want. If I want to stop at Dominicks at midnight for cocoa, I do it.
It's friendly and the eating places are great. The architecture is, too. Is not Kenmore from 5200 N clear to Devon one of the prettiest and most interesting streets on the entire lakefront?
I'm eyeballing two REALLY GOOD DEALS right now.
See ya there by winter.
I look forward to you in the neighborhood. Let me know keep in touch , winter is a good time for a cup of coffe!!
I know, move to Uptown.
Just joking, stay in RP, really stay here.
Affordable housing is a range and does mean incomes up to 52,000 for single people $105,000 for a family.
Low income is a different category it is subsidized. RP is low income.
I speaking to a friend of Totos the other day and he made a good point about RP and the difference between Edgeh20 and RP is that they built highrise condos along the lake, which created ownership in the neighborhood, and that changed the community as opposed to RP staying with the massive amount of rental buildling. Do you agree?
Oh, and I am totally not a JoMo fan, I loath him, but I don't hit him on each event in RP. I'm just not a finger pointin', chicken lickin' liberal. Just a democrat, sir.
Since I grew up here, RP & Uptown have had low income rentals.
Now do want condo conversions, which reading here no one seems to, except if its theirs, or do you want low income rental?
Oh and Craig, the Toto comment, the chinese cookie, well written my man, very funny.
Those highrises in Edgewater were once all rental, luxury rental.
Listen, Edgewater was worse than Rogers Park 10 years ago, which is why I chose to rent in Rogers Park. Much worse.
The diff is the leadership, pure and simple. I will credit Mary Ann Smith with cleaning that ward up, for when I looked for a cheap rental in '97, Kenmore was scary and nasty, what with trash strewn allover the lawns of the rentals, and thuggish looking guys lurking about. Winthrop was an absolute sump, a really wicked scary street I wouldn't walk on in daylight. That area went through hell, I'm here to tell you.
So I moved onto Fargo instead, which was better than Edgewater in 1997. I then watched as Edgewater went through a rapid transformation, along with the south end of Rogers Park, while more and more "trouble" people got dumped on the north end of Rogers Park. In 2001, scared out of my wits on Fargo, I moved to Pratt, where life has for the most part (until this weekend) been pretty nice.
While Smith rides herd on bad landlords and encourages good development and walkable streets, Joe Moore encourages the addition of social services targeting the most troublesome elements in the population.
Outside of that, the demographics of the two wards are the same.
If anything, Edgewater has more cheap rentals, not less. But it is not burdened with the excessive number of facilities catering to undesirable elements such as half-way houses for ex-convicts and pedophiles, facilities for drug addicts, and Section 8 "project" buildings serving as dumping grounds for the stragglers from the demolished projects who couldn't be placed anywhere else because of their records or the fact they have excessive numbers of kids.
apparently you foget about the building on Winthrop. What is the address??? 4848, or is it 4949, I stay away from that area..
bill, the 49XX block of Winthrop is not Edgewater. I agree, it's a grotty area, even though you can see that many residents have spent mucho $$$ fixing up their properties.
That is UPTOWN, in Helen Schiller's ward, my dear.
Edgewater starts at the 5200 block north, clear to the 6400 block north, and I swear you can see and feel the diff the minute you cross Foster.
I hate the area you are talking about. It's overpriced, makes Edgwater looks cheap. It's ugly, dirty, and stuffed with criminal lowlifes and pedophiles. The corner of Broadway and Wilson is awful and I make sure I'm nowhere near there after dark. Lots of feral, threatening, hostile, low-life people hanging around at all times, with dirty fast-food places all around. The shopping district there, along Broadway, still looks "ghetto".
I can't understand for the life of me why people pay more to live in Uptown than Edgewater but I'm glad they do. Looks like they might not forever, though, for the new highrise at 4848 N Sheridan Road, where they are asking $199K for a one bed with all the glossy stuff, a new one-bed recently went for $141K. I saw it in Last Sales in the paper. The new place at 4701 should have been finished last year but is nowhere near.
What changed Edgewater was not the alderman, not the condos, not the highrises, not the ownership, what changed it is Loyola BOUGHT EVERYTHING.
In the 70's you couldn't walk down Winthrop or Kenmore alone at night. Granville was a nightmare. People always travelled in groups.
Loyola owns most of the property at the north end of Edgewater and uses it for student housing, etc. They own most of what's west of Broadway from Devon to Granville. It got better long before the developers moved in on the rest of it.
But walk east on Devon from Broadway to Clark NOW and you see shuttered storefronts, we-buy-jewlery stores, pawn shops and payday loan places. It's starting to look like Morse.
Loyola also owns much of the strip on Sheridan to Pratt and what they don't own they're looking to buy.
They are the GIANT ANCHOR of Edgewater. Without them, it would be no different from RP.
Julie, Edgewater started improving long before Loyola started its landgrab and taking everything off the tax rolls.
Granted, they built a couple of nice buildings.
They also, however, grabbed the most beautiful and well-run rental in the entire nabe, at Kenmore and Rosemont, and defaced it with their "improvements".
The improvement of this area came because Lakeview got too expensive for most of the people who lived there in the 80s and 90s. I'm not the only Lakeview refugee who got sick of paying ludicrous rents for matchbox apts.
Mary Ann Smith has been the biggest agent of improvement, in her actions against questionable businesses and bad buildings. Sometimes she goes too far, sometimes she picks on the wrong people. But by and large she has been a massive force for the good, and has fought to keep bad elements out of the area.
The 48th Ward boundaries are south of Lawrence (includes the old Goldblatts building). Edgewater's south boundary is Foster. RP's south boundary is Devon and the 49th ward's boundary is Granville.
Dorothy, you know I don't have any friends that talk to you. But you are right. High rise home ownership saved Edgewater. Just look at our book end communities Uptown and RP. Money in the community means money to spend at businesses. And don't forget the power of the block clubs. I hear all the block clubs got a presentation by the MA Smith's chief of staff on the TIF. How more grass roots can you get. These complainers in RP could form block clubs and be a force, but that's hard work. Complaining is easy.
Chinese fortune:
May the hairy Yak from Mongolia leave his poop on your front step.
Other situations that have occurred in Edgewater compared to RP is:
Edgewater has from Lawrence to Devon, been the deliverance of refugees from Bosian to Nigerians, these cultures have become the makeup of neighborhood, displacing low income families.
You also have pockets of people who live in Edgewater who just have taken on battles to clean up neighborhoods. I know of one greek family who have singlehandledly changed Bryn Mawr.
Also in the Alderman Smith has allowed Edgewater people to creat groups as ECC, EDC and these groups have become very aggressive in bringing in new businesses and maintaining rules on established businesses.
Then there is MASmith who makes rules for example recently she sat on a liquor license of CVS (Broadway) until they bring their facade up to new standards. She also put moritoriums in place to help turn areas around.
But there is still work Bryn Mawr is still rough, Braodway underdeveloped and restricted by zoning.
After 911, the interest rate for buying and developing real estate helped to create developments have changed the neighborhood through condo conversions and teardowns of older structures.
And of course Andersonville became a stellar example of commerce development.
toto, the 48th ward boundary is Argyle St east of Broadway. I know this because I work around there, looked it up on the ward map, and we are in SSA#34, and are ministered to (if that is the word) by Helen's office, presumably.
The 48th goes clear to lawrence on the WEST side of Broadway.
There's no more sense to this ward boundary than there is to the 49th going clear to Granville east of Sheridan and Broadway while it stops at Pratt west of Sheridan.
Ryne:
Agree with your completely. I moved from Granville and Winthrop (I LOVE METROPOLIS!!!) a year ago to Pratt and Wayne. I felt completely safe in Edgewater. Mary Ann Smith doesn't tolerate the kind of crap JoMo does. It's amazing how just two L stops can make the world of difference. Unfortunately I have another year on my lease. My partner and I are going to buy, and we're definitely going back to Edgewater.
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