For Izamarie Montiel, a DePaul junior, the oddly-shaped park across the street from DePaul’s Loop campus is a place to avoid.

“I always get off at the Harold Washington Library stop in the mornings to get to class, and I usually walk faster past those outside of the station to avoid any confrontation. The threat is there,” Montiel said.

The park, less than an acre in size, has transformed into a lot littered with trash and a hangout for the Loop’s homeless population. The reality of this urban park is very different from the idyllic description on the Chicago Park District’s website, which calls the lot “a small restful green space in Chicago’s vibrant State Street Corridor.”

The park is named after Cindy Pritzker, a member of one of Chicago’s wealthiest philanthropic families, who led a movement to expand Chicago Public Libraries. Her late husband, Jay Pritzker, is best known for successfully expanding the Hyatt hotel chain into a global powerhouse.  The park, at the intersection of State and Van Buren Streets, opened in 1992.

Crime and vagrancy have given the State Street Corridor’s neighbors cause for concern. John Marshall Law School, DePaul University and other colleges with Loop campuses participated in a meeting last fall to express concerns about the park to several attendees. Some action has been taken since then, but students and the homeless population have both said that police presence is still lacking.

Many DePaul students avoid activity in Pritzker Park during their daily commutes to classes at the Loop campus across the street. In the last year, more than 85 crimes, ranging from simple assault to battery and drug possession, have been committed in and around Pritzker Park, according to city records.

DePaul journalism and public relations student Jennifer Hirsch described some of the incidents she has witnessed during her daily commute to DePaul’s loop campus, on the Red Line from Lincoln Park. “I remember one time I was walking past to go to the CDM building and there was a fight that broke out between four guys,” she said. “Although I was on the other side of the street, it was scary to see how many people rushed to the area to see what was going on.”

Neighbors have voiced concerns that the park has become a gathering spot for the homeless and drug dealers. Chicago’s homeless population totals more than 125,000, according to a 2014-2015 study by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

“I’m homeless and I stay at Roosevelt Road and State Street for shelter,” said Dean, a homeless man in Pritzker Park who asked his last name not be included. “Occasionally I walk through this park and nothing has changed. There’s still drug dealing going on and homeless people like myself.”

Chicago Police Department first district commander Robert Klich has met with neighbors, including representatives from John Marshall Law School and DePaul University, to improve conditions. But he said police have only limited authority to deal with the homeless men and women who hang out in Pritzker Park. 

“Vagrancy in and of itself is not a crime,” Klich said. “It’s completely lawful to be homeless, and homeless people can sit and use that park during hours of operations.”

To address growing concerns over how the park is being utilized, the park’s closing time was moved to two hours earlier, from 11 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to Klich.

“We’ve stepped up patrols there. Park District has stepped up security, their checks of the park to see that their actions are lawful. So we worked with the Alderman’s Office, colleges in the area and park district to better control the area,” Klich said.

Improving the security around the park and decreasing the hours of operation has made a slight decrease in crime, according to Klich. The first district commander says complaints to Chicago police have decreased since Oct. 1, 2016, with only 120 calls, the majority of which are for suspicious persons. “That number is down from what it used to be,” Klich explained.

But Dean, who calls Pritzker Park his home, denies seeing a greater police presence. “There is no police here at all,” Dean said. “You see some bike guys coming by every once and awhile but not really too much of anything.”

In 2015, the city of Chicago Department of Planning and Development announced that it was looking to sell the nearly one-acre site. The city planners were looking into using the developmental proposals for commercial and retail parking for the park district. But by eliminating the park, it would leave the community without a public open space. Developer proposals were due by the end of 2015, no bids were high enough to continue with the project.

Many DePaul communications, CDM, law, and business students exit off of the Brown Line Harold Washington Library and Red Line Jackson “L” stops. When exiting the train station, students of Robert Morris University, Columbia College, John Marshall Law School and DePaul University are faced with groups of people circling around the exits that enter into the Pritzker Park area. Ten to 15 people, depending on the time of the day, surround the station exits, according to student observers. The train tracks can provide shelter during bad weather.

“When making my way off the station, I first check who is at the exit,” Madeline Wong, a junior at DePaul University said. “I tried to avoid eye contact with those around the exit. Pritzker Park looks beautiful by itself. However, those who inhabit it make it way less appealing.”

John Marshall Law School’s Loop campus sits adjacent to the park. “Pritzker Park is one of the last green spaces in the South Loop,” Darby Dickerson, dean of  John Marshall said. “The John Marshall Law School and our neighbors including DePaul University, Robert Morris University, Roosevelt University, the School of the Art Institute, Columbia College, the Harold Washington Library and other members of our community including the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Park District, and Alderman Sophia King are working to restore Pritzker Park to a gathering space for our students, residents, and visitors.”

“The Office of Community and Government Relations itself does not have any plan or suggestions for students walking by or through Pritzker Park,” Fran Casey, Director of Community Relations at DePaul University said. “That is why we, along with our public safety office joined forces with John Marshall Law School, the first District CPD, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Loop Alliance and other stakeholders to see how we could address this problem together.”

Casey also outlined past programming at the park that attracted tourists, included a large eyeball sculpture during Chicago’s summer sculpture series. That was “a few years back,” according to Casey. “Maybe once CPD feels that they have managed to deal with the criminal activity in the park, there could be renewed programming attempts that could stimulate more use by the students,” Casey said. “We are continuing to work on exactly that.”

Written by: Amy Betulius, Abigail Flores, Maryam Hampton, Daniel Reyes, Jack Ladd and Natalie Wilson