Hyde Park is ranked among the most dangerous regions in Chicago, so that people flinch away at the sound of it. I have to do her justice: the beauty of Hyde Park is marred by gunshots and theft. Indeed, some alleys and elementary schools south of Woodlawn, a living common in Woodlawn, are gloomy and uninhabited - like decommissioned Detroit factories. But that doesn't mean the campus is somehow dangerous.
A huge meadow traverses the campus, roughly separating it into north and south. North and South are bridged by a cement-paved bridge as well as several sketchy little passages that I wouldn’t even bother calling bridges or roads. But one might very well avoid ado by trampling the lawn.
The Northern division starkly contrasts the Southern division in the sense that the former is Gothic-tempered, cosmopolitan, and hence eclectic, while the latter is austere and freaky, save for the grandiose Law Quad-especially at night. For this reason, I will skirt around it and introduce what is more worthy of introduction.
The Gothic temperament of the Northern Division manifests in its cathedrals, churches, and chimes. It is sheer pleasure to amble along the sideways on the weekends while listening to the chimes jostle and tingle, delivering a silvery clinking. August and grossly symmetrical, the churches’ pinnacles soar into the sky, subjugating pedestrians while questioning their significance.
Shops and laboratories are rendered in a quaint Gothic fashion, such that we feel as if we are European aristocrats and magistrates meandering in chaste manors, relaxed and rejoiced, sipping on hot tea and nibbling Madelines, save that it is Starbucks in our hands. So are the Joseph Regenstein Library and the Issac Museum, the latter of which, incidentally, contain loads of Mayan and Egyptian relics, and the former of which contained a immense anthology of fiction, poems, nonfiction and dictionaries. The Gothic realm probably extends till the crossing that demarcates the border between the neighborhood and campus (though I’m not sure whether the neighborhood is part of campus.) Beyond that border, the landscape reinstates simplicity and plainness like every other place in campus.
At the immediate vicinity of thus (roughly a quarter on foot, five minutes by car) is Lake Michigan. I do not mean to go too far off track, but the lake is mighty broad. What’s particularly enrapturing is when the transient daylight turns into dusk and the glistening afterglow illuminates the undulating lake, making the lake seem to me like deflecting bits of gold. From which vantage point one can behold the obscure silhouette of downtown- characterized by the looming and soaring buildings- in the distance, which is pretty plausible, as downtown is but a 20-minute drive.
Truth be told, I felt pretty lonely and nostalgic in this place far from home. At the start I wanted nothing more than escape, such that I gladly accepted the fact that not completing one of the mandatory forms meant being deported. But fragmentary yet meaningful moments like dining at BARDAVID, shooting photos of the cathedrals at dusk, strolling to Target on weekends, discussing Antigone with my professor, risking being caught by a drug abuser in an isolated park, and plenty more all made great memories. I was beginning to love this place.