With the summer winding down, so, too, appear to be tensions in Lakeview, where just over 30 people turned out to a Sept. 7 CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy) meeting.
After months of controversy due to a perceived increase in crime, the battle between youth who say they are targeted by anti-crime efforts and residents who say that those conversations have distracted from their efforts to make a safe neighborhood seem to have quieted.
The September CAPS meeting for beats 2324 and 2331, which encompass Boystown, focused less on less on current crime and more on solutions that had been found.
"My sense is some people are feeling some progress," Captain Thomas Lemmur told Windy City Times, adding that dropping temperatures will also mean a drop in crime.
Police confirmed that additional officers had been put along Halsted Street earlier in the summer, but a string of shootings in neighboring Uptown in late August diverted some resources back to that part of the 23rd police district.
"We've had serious incidents earlier in the year [in Lakeview], and we have not had them since," Lemmur said.
Many residents said that they felt the new weekend parking ban had much to do with a decrease in problems along Halsted.
A pilot project of the 44th Ward alderman's office, the ban restricts weekend parking on Halsted from Belmont to Buckingham and on Belmont from Clark to Halsted from midnight to 5 a.m. Residents who advocated for the ban said that visitors to the neighborhood often used their cars along Halsted as a home base to party and drink, keeping residents awake at night and blocking the sidewalk from view of police.
Despite some protest over the ban, residents at the meeting reported that they felt the ban was working.
"There is a very different feel…with the parking ban," said one Halsted resident. "I was walking home and was like 'wow, this is great.'"
Another young person said he felt the parking ban was complimenting efforts to make the neighborhood safe. "We [youth] fully support the parking ban," he said.
Finally, residents inquired about the recent Halsted fire that destroyed the home and office of Stacy Bridges, publisher of GRAB magazine.
The fire, said Lemmur, is "believed to have been an accident," not arson.
The meeting wrapped up in just 20 minutes.
Residents of the 44th Ward are encouraged to submit their feedback on the parking ban to the alderman's office by emailing ward44@cityofchicago.org .