Today, my group and I took a trip to the south side of Chicago, particularly Hyde Park and its surrounding areas.  My group leaders, Ms. Weingartner and Mr. Amos, gave us a quick briefing on what to expect and look for.  We started by driving through Hyde Park.  It was very beautiful and was impressively diverse.  When we went past Washington Park, we came to the neighborhood of Woodlawn.  It was shocking how much changed.  It went from restaurants, high end shopping stores, and affluent houses to an area of chicago I had only previously seen on other community connection trips.  It lacked resources, and from what I saw the only places to get food were bodega like stores.  Not 10 minutes later from leaving Woodlawn we were back into Hyde Park and we got off our bus.  I was extremely shocked. How could these two completely different areas be right next to each other?  

As we continued our tour through Hyde Park, I made sure to note the differences between each of the two neighborhoods.  Hyde Park reminds of me of Lincoln park for the most part, just more diverse.  I had been down there before, but never beyond Washington Park.  Woodlawn did not even feel like Chicago to me, which was a weird and uncomfortable feeling.  It was not because I was scared or because I had never seen a less affluent area before, but because of how segregated Chicago is just by a meer border just over one street.  When we arrived to the University of Chicago Church.  There we met with an old student from Francis W. Parker.  We then had a discussion about borders in Chicago and if development was good thing or not.  I was excited to get an opportunity to ask a question about the history of lincoln park.  He told a very interesting story about how when he went to Parker in the 60s, he was one of the few black kids and that how clark street used to be primarily bodegas and Puerto Rican communities.  

Overall i thought today was a very good first experience.  As we were one the bus back to school, I reflected on all of my studies of affluence and segregation in Chicago.  It was funny to me that despite learning about these neighborhoods that were less than 30 minutes away, i had never even been to them.