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Stand in the place where you live
CORNERING THE MARKET Positive loiterers in Uptown keep watch over their ’hood.Photo: Brad Bretz
Photo: Brad BretzAt 11pm on a recent Friday night in Uptown, about 100 people, including state Sen. Heather Steans and her husband, literally took a stand against crime on several street corners along Sheridan Road between Wilson and Lawrence Avenues. Chatty residents held up signs that read WE LIVE HERE. WE CALL THE POLICE. And that’s exactly what they did. One group dialed 911 to report some squatters who’d entered an abandoned building on Leland Avenue. Another called to complain of a man drinking alcohol on the sidewalk.
On everyone’s mind was the video of a large gang spat on Sheridan at Leland that, in mid-August, went viral on YouTube. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Richard Thale, who helped organize the ’hood’s positive-loitering events as a beat facilitator in the 23rd District’s Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) group. “As a positive loiterer, you’re the eyes and ears of the police department,” Thale says. “Spend an hour out there and you’ll notice things: people hanging out on a corner for a long time and cars keep pulling up to talk to them—it’s probably narcotics.”
In Boystown, positive-loitering events along Halsted Street and surrounding alleys began in response to recent muggings in Lincoln Park and Lakeview. But last week at a jam-packed CAPS meeting (it moved from Nookies restaurant to the adjacent Sherwin-Williams parking lot due to high attendance), a group of mostly white residents also expressed interest in using positive loitering to combat traditional loitering. Several speakers indicated an ostensible trouble spot: the Center on Halsted, the two-year-old LGBT community center, which has become a meeting place for mostly nonwhite teens seeking an accepting environment. But when the Center closes at 10pm, residents say the teens—too young to patronize Halsted’s bars and clubs—loudly linger on corners and stoops. “They’re out there in droves, 20 or 30 people, making noise,” says Stu Zirin, who owns Minibar, located in the heart of Halsted’s gay nightlife district. “If you’re not clients of the stores and bars, you shouldn’t be here.”
Along with 23rd District police commander Kathleen Boehmer, Zirin, who helped organize Boystown’s three positive-loitering events thus far, sings the strategy’s praises. “When we’re here, people sitting there get up and leave. We’re saying, ‘We’re in your face. We’re in your space. You don’t belong there. You have no right to be here.’”
The tone is far less confrontational at Edgewater’s weekly positive-loitering event along Thorndale Avenue, Neighborhood Nights, which draws a diverse crowd and takes the form of a neighborhood festival: chess, checkers, hot-dog grilling, face painting and—the week we visited—a magician and juggler. A year ago, Edgewater used the same approach as Uptown and Lakeview. “People would just gather on the sidewalk with their cell phones out and try to report what they saw,” says Dan Kleinman, housing director of the Edgewater Community Council, which sponsors Neighborhood Nights.
But when Kleinman was hired eight months ago, he took a different tack. “Instead of trying to deter negative activity through fear and pressure, we’re trying to do it simply by filling that space with positive activity. It’s a more community-creating than community-dividing approach,” Kleinman says. “People often say, ‘We need to do this for the community.’ That begs the question, ‘Who is the community?’ The answer we’re trying to give is that we’re all the community.”
Time Out Chicago / Issue 237 : Sep 10–16, 2009
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Watch the gang "rumbles" carefully. They were not real fights. I doubt that the Vice Lord Nation would allow them to engage in wimpy squirmishes. Their sole purpose was to intimidate potential witnesses to their drug dealing into staying off the streets. Recently, the cops stopped me and questioned me for daring to jog in Uptown at midnight. I told them about the young males walking up and down the street, but the cops did nothing. They simply tried to scare me by telling me they might rob me.
"I don't think much of a bunch of folks standing on a corner calling cops about a guy publicly drinking. They don't do that !taround Cubs Park. " Mimi If I lived in Cubs Park, I'd call for public drinking there, but I don't live there. I live in Uptown. Areas in Uptown with high amounts of public drinking also have high amounts of drug trafficking. The Broken Windows theory about crime appears to have some legitimacy, at least in Uptown.
There are a hosts of places for kids to attend in Uptown to stay out of trouble. No one is helped when we suggest that it wasn't so bad because no one was hurt. The video was frightening and that's why it made national news. Area residents have a right to feel safe in their own neighborhood. Period. People can call it racist, but this behavior would not be tolerated by black leaders on the Southside. They would be marching the streets, too, and they do all the time.
Youth! Youth of Color! On the sidewalk! Freak Out! Stay in your homes! Can we all grow up a little with our analysis, terminology, and sense of community? Can we have a conversation about crime that doesn't turn into a witch hunt? there is a vast difference between working toward solutions & the tactics that the uptown residents portrayed above are using. We need to remind ourselves that we live in a vastly racist city and act accordingly to change that.
the racism + classism in this article and some of these comments makes my stomach turn. do people like stu zirin and "brad" know that many of the kids who hang out in boystown are indeed homeless, alienated from their families + communities because of their sexual and/or gender orientation? they're at risk of physical + sexual assault in "their own" neighborhoods and the government does nothing to help them or any other homeless people. some compassion would go a lot further than ignorant hatred
In many places, positive loitering is just a natural part of street life. Creating welcoming public places and encouraging people to enjoy our neighborhood would do more good than harm and put more eyes on the street. Unfortunately, some people in Lakeview would rather not create more welcoming streets for people to enjoy hanging out on for fear of a few bad apples. I'm personally flattered that some people find my neighborhood so accepting that they'll go out of their way to hang out here.
has anyone noticed that GILL PARK has gone to the drunken homeless? they scream and yell at each other and you can hear them from blocks away! i would think more people would care about a PARK- a family area! when i walk by Gill Park, i am VERY afraid these homeless will become agressive towards me! yesterday I walked through Gill Park and I swear I saw a prostitute about ready to turn a trick to an old man! and a young male selling drugs to another young male. CLEAN UP THE PARKS!
These COH houligans, "urban youth" whatever the H. you wanna call them are just a waste of space. This "vulnerability" the bleeding hearts wanna talk about all the time is just another excuse that these criminals use to allow for their unacceptable behavior...go back to your own neighborhoods! We don't go and hang out in yours! If you wanna move up here and pay the taxes we do then maybe you can have a say...but until then...stay out!
I don't think much of a bunch of folks standing on a corner calling cops about a guy publicly drinking. They don't do that !taround Cubs Park. And since when does someone not belong on a public street unless they are a paying customer in a bar or business. When we were teens we all hung out on corners and stoops. But I do think a lot of Dan Kleineman's positive loitering in Edgewater that builds, celebrates and includes everyone is the community.Yesm let's accentuate the positive!
I'm really torn by this story. On one hand, I think this action is really effective and positive way to combat the recent violence in Uptown. In the case of Boystown-- I'm a bit more hesitant. These are urban teens who are often very vulnerable to becomming homeless. Straight families are moving into Boystown and telling gay bars their music is too loud and telling vulnerable young members of my community "you have no right to be here." That rubs me the wrong way.
If Edgewater and Uptown had decent elected officials we wouldn't have to stand out on corners. A pox on both their houses.