Berwyn, Illinois. From social paradise to toxic social desert.

[traveller]

In the 1980s and earlier, the Chicago, Illinois suburb of Berwyn was a friendly and sociable small town. People used to hang out with their neighbors, even sit on their porches and chat, there were places people could go and mingle, even a few stores like Woolworth, which used to be in the Cermak Plaza Shopping center, had mini cafeterias where shoppers could mingle. People used to hang out and mingle at Proksa Park, the old Berwyn Depot district, Pavek Pool, and Janura Park.

Then the 1990s came, and the entire social atmosphere began to collapse.

You could first see it at the schools, especially at Morton West High School, as with each new class that came in, the student body became more anti social, fake, standoffish, and then downright toxic as you got into the Class of 1999 and later. Students stopped making friends and started getting other students in trouble for trying to be friendly with them as Morton West High School, as well as Berwyn, literally went over a social cliff. By the Class of 2003 and afterwards, there were no more friendly students anymore. Even the Morton West school administration became very toxic by 1997, first banning cheerleaders from hugging guys while in uniform in 1997, and then banning them from talking to guys while in uniform in 1999.

As a huge, mad exodus out of Berwyn started and then accelerated drastically in the 1990s and 2000s, Berwyn began to lose it's entire social atmosphere as friendly Europeans fled into the country and toxic, self-centered people began to flood into Berwyn like a tsunami. People stopped hanging out with their neighbors. They stopped hanging out at the parks, including Proksa Park. Berwyn's "Oktoberfest" began to divide into it's cliques which became closed to the point where breaking into them is harder than breaking through ten feet of cast iron. Eventually, even the popular Maria SS Lauretana festival was no longer held in Berwyn anymore.

Today, Berwyn is a toxic, hateful, heavily racist, prejudiced, man-hating, extremely misandrist, and heavily lesbian city. Berwyn today is one city/community that every man should avoid. In fact, I'd have to say Berwyn is actually worse than DuPage County. Berwyn women actually go farther than DuPage women by saying; "We aren't allowed to talk to guys." Even if it is business-related, communications between men and women are still heavily discouraged and forbidden in Berwyn. And even the Berwyn Police Department is somewhat involved in enforcing it all. It's practically even illegal under Berwyn city law for any male to communicate with any female. Berwyn area residents are also the kind of people that actually label people of black/African descent "non-human!" They likely teach their kids how to hate people of color, they likely tell their kids that blacks are "feral apes" and "walking demons." Berwynians even hate people of Hispanic, Asian, and Mexican descent. Berwyn is easily the most likely city where an ethnic person (black, Hispanic, Asian, etc) will get told to "go back to your country, or else!"

Berwyn residents today are also easily the most immature people in North America. People as old as 35 years old speak like they are still in 6th Grade, and their body language is very much like 6th Grade and younger. Approach them even with friendly intent, and they scurry away, hide, and call for help like immature spoiled 6th graders. You can literally hear the plastic and the immaturity in their voices when they speak.

The sad thing too is that in Berwyn today, even the Hispanics walk around with toxic hate shields and iron barriers. In other words, in Berwyn, even Hispanic women are totally unapproachable, most likely having been brainwashed by the now toxic atmosphere and the cruel rules now in place at Morton West High School. I am very sure Morton cheerleaders are still forbidden to talk to guys per school rules. Plus Berwyn still has very powerful "Stranger Danger" lectures that have contributed heavily to the toxic hate atmosphere in Berwyn. Now I have ridden a bicycle through Berwyn countless times, even at night and encountered nothing. But Berwyn area residents today act like Berwyn is more dangerous than Syria.

Stickney and Forest View, by the way, are just as bad as Berwyn in terms of the social atmosphere.

[Contrarian Expatriate]

Berwyn is a Chicago suburb which means people there are forever paranoid about the dangers of Chicago infecting their town. What is striking is that it is 30% Latino and that whites are being pushed further and further away.

Suburban areas of huge metropolitan cities tend to follow that same pattern. If you want friendly women, go to the hinterlands. For example, I am giving up on Miami ever since I discovered the girls of Daytona, Jacksonville, and Tampa areas are so much more friendly. Same thing with Atlanta. I hate that city, but the girls north of that hellhole in Marietta, Alpharetta, Cumming (no pun intended) and Duluth are wonderful now.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

Chicagoland of course was not always like that. Even Berwyn used to be a much friendlier town. And I could literally see the collapse of the social atmosphere even at Berwyn's Morton West High School. The classes of 95 and 96 had a lot of friendly, down-to-Earth students. The Class of 97, it started sliding. And from the Class of 98 onwards, I could literally see as each new class became more and more fake, phony, plastic, and socially disconnected. The Classes of 2001 and 2002 had the worst students, nothing but fake, immature kids, most of the kids in the Class of 2002 were downright toxic, as were even a few in the Class of 1999. I could literally see the entire social atmosphere in Berwyn turning over like the fictional S.S. Poseidon as it was struck by the rogue wave. Even as early as the Fall of 1997, I felt a sudden social vacuum at Morton West High School, and high school no longer felt like paradise anymore after the Class of 97 graduated. Not to mention in Fall of 1997, Morton cheerleaders and pom pons were banned from hugging while in uniform. In Fall of 1999, they were banned from talking to guys while in uniform. About 2003, even the Berwyn Rec Center and Pavek Pool on 31st and East Avenue no longer felt welcoming anymore as the social atmosphere in Berwyn continued to crumble. Over a decade later in 2011, I had noticed that Morton's Hoffman Stadium during football games was no longer open seating anymore. Students were crammed like sardines into just two sections of the bleachers while alumni and parents were put in other separate sections to eliminate any possibility of mingling.

As a native New "Yaaaawkkah" currently based out of Chicago when in the USA (I'm abroad in India at the moment), I can say that when I first came to Chicago when Club, House, & Techno music were beginning to die down (Chicago used to be known for it...like producers Steve "Silk" Hurley and etc, 5AM clubs, cheap 3-dollar monster burritos, more Puerto Ricans in Chicago proper - a lot got flushed out from gentrification to the immediate western Chicagoland suburbs or to East Chicago/NWIndiana and Lorrain, Ohio/Cleveland, OH), it was on-part to the 80s/90s NYC club scene: partying...gettijng ONS with women straight from the club....relationships beginning from the club...Mexican-American and Puerto Rican women actively looking for new dick and loving NYer's (e.g. "Wow you're from NY??? Let me suck your dick, baby").

Since the dirty south took over culturally and musically in the U.S. of Gay, Trap music has been big in Chicago for the last 7, 8 years, so Chicago women are no longer impressed by NYC at the slightest. There are at least THREE Chicago stations that play Trap music as if it were gong out of style. Trap music (not really TrapSoul is a subpar attempt of "real" R&B over Trap music) really reflects the gangsta Chicago theme that another poster brought up earlier on this thread.

Also since Obama became "the 44th", Chicago became more institutionally racist. When Bush Jr. was "the 43rd", Chicago Puerto Ricans and Mexicans/Mexican-Americans were pretty chill and down with dating inter-racially and sometimes miscegenation. Trump in office hasn't changed those bigoted/"viva la raza"-nationalist attitudes unfortunately.

Berwyn is an all Mexican-American family dustbowl.

[traveller]

Berwyn, Illinois is the ultimate LGBT destination and community in America today. And in fact, Berwynians today are practically required to be gay/lesbian because in Berwyn today, males are forbidden to talk to females, and females are forbidden to talk to males, and they tell you that very clearly. I am surprised Berwyn isn't flying with LGBT flags and LGBT pride all over town.

[jamesbond]

Here is Svengoolie talking about the city of Berwyn, Illinois!

[jamesbond]

Svengoolie's "Werewolves of Berwyn!"

[HappyGuy]

The boot bandit

[traveller]

I also saw how Morton West High School continued to change for the more anti-social. When I was in high school, people could sit anywhere they wanted to at Morton West's football stadium. Students used to be allowed to mingle with alumni in the bleachers. But in 2011, those days were a thing of the past as the bleachers were segregated with students assigned to sit in the two sections on the north end of the bleachers, parents and alumni assigned to sit in the middle section, band members and cheerleaders assigned to the south end of the stands. And the staff at Morton don't care how crowded the two north-end sections get; they cram the students in like sardines and they block students from going outside the "student zone," and I am sure students have likely gotten detention for sitting outside the student zone. Morton West High School has become like a prison.

[CannedHam]

What's the fascination with Berwyn? I lived in Chicago for many years way back when, and often went to Riverside, the town that bordered Berwyn. From what I could tell, Berwyn (along with its neighbor Cicero), were your typical Chicago hispanic ghettos that had seen their heydays decades ago.

[jamesbond]

lived in Chicago for many years way back when, and often went to Riverside, the town that bordered Berwyn. From what I could tell, Berwyn (along with its neighbor Cicero), were your typical Chicago hispanic ghettos that had seen their heydays decades ago.

Riverside is a very nice suburb, with a lot of expensive homes. As you already know, Berwyn and Cicero are the exact opposite of Riverside! Oak Park is just north of Berwyn and is a very nice suburb (especially the north side of Oak Park which has a lot of large, expensive homes) but it does have it's fair share of crime, primarily home and car robberies.

[traveller]

Forgot to mention, every summer, I used to enjoy going to Berwyn's Pavek Pool a lot. Pavek Pool is Berwyn's main public swimming pool and is a very popular cool-off spot during the summer. Located on 31st and East Avenue at the Berwyn Recreation center, it has a water slide and your usual diving boards. When I was in high school, that place was almost like a paradise, a place to escape the social limbo of summer break. But as all the nice people graduated high school and moved out into the country, out of state, and what not, I could feel the social cliff even at Pavek Pool, and by 2003, it was no longer my favorite hangout spot anymore; I could feel the toxic social atmosphere that had flooded into Berwyn and turned Berwyn literally upside down. I could sense people looking at me, a single guy, like I had even escaped from prison. And so 2003 was the last time I ever went there.

[WisconsinMan82]

Up here in Wisconsin, we get a lot of rich Illinois residents coming up in the summer going to their cabins/vacation homes, driving badly, and crowding the north woods. We have a term for them: FIBs (F**king Illinois Bastards).

[traveller]

What's the fascination with Berwyn? I lived in Chicago for many years way back when, and often went to Riverside, the town that bordered Berwyn. From what I could tell, Berwyn (along with its neighbor Cicero), were your typical Chicago hispanic ghettos that had seen their heydays decades ago.

I originally grew up in Berwyn.

[Mercury]

In the 1980s and earlier, the Chicago, Illinois suburb of Berwyn was a friendly and sociable small town. People used to hang out with their neighbors, even sit on their porches and chat, there were places people could go and mingle, even a few stores like Woolworth, which used to be in the Cermak Plaza Shopping center, had mini cafeterias where shoppers could mingle. People used to hang out and mingle at Proksa Park, the old Berwyn Depot district, Pavek Pool, and Janura Park.

Then the 1990s came, and the entire social atmosphere began to collapse.

You could first see it at the schools, especially at Morton West High School, as with each new class that came in, the student body became more anti social, fake, standoffish, and then downright toxic as you got into the Class of 1999 and later. Students stopped making friends and started getting other students in trouble for trying to be friendly with them as Morton West High School, as well as Berwyn, literally went over a social cliff. By the Class of 2003 and afterwards, there were no more friendly students anymore. Even the Morton West school administration became very toxic by 1997, first banning cheerleaders from hugging guys while in uniform in 1997, and then banning them from talking to guys while in uniform in 1999.

As a huge, mad exodus out of Berwyn started and then accelerated drastically in the 1990s and 2000s, Berwyn began to lose it's entire social atmosphere as friendly Europeans fled into the country and toxic, self-centered people began to flood into Berwyn like a tsunami. People stopped hanging out with their neighbors. They stopped hanging out at the parks, including Proksa Park. Berwyn's "Oktoberfest" began to divide into it's cliques which became closed to the point where breaking into them is harder than breaking through ten feet of cast iron. Eventually, even the popular Maria SS Lauretana festival was no longer held in Berwyn anymore.

Today, Berwyn is a toxic, hateful, heavily racist, prejudiced, man-hating, extremely misandrist, and heavily lesbian city. Berwyn today is one city/community that every man should avoid. In fact, I'd have to say Berwyn is actually worse than DuPage County. Berwyn women actually go farther than DuPage women by saying; "We aren't allowed to talk to guys." Even if it is business-related, communications between men and women are still heavily discouraged and forbidden in Berwyn. And even the Berwyn Police Department is somewhat involved in enforcing it all. It's practically even illegal under Berwyn city law for any male to communicate with any female. Berwyn area residents are also the kind of people that actually label people of black/African descent "non-human!" They likely teach their kids how to hate people of color, they likely tell their kids that blacks are "feral apes" and "walking demons." Berwynians even hate people of Hispanic, Asian, and Mexican descent. Berwyn is easily the most likely city where an ethnic person (black, Hispanic, Asian, etc) will get told to "go back to your country, or else!"

Berwyn residents today are also easily the most immature people in North America. People as old as 35 years old speak like they are still in 6th Grade, and their body language is very much like 6th Grade and younger. Approach them even with friendly intent, and they scurry away, hide, and call for help like immature spoiled 6th graders. You can literally hear the plastic and the immaturity in their voices when they speak.

The sad thing too is that in Berwyn today, even the Hispanics walk around with toxic hate shields and iron barriers. In other words, in Berwyn, even Hispanic women are totally unapproachable, most likely having been brainwashed by the now toxic atmosphere and the cruel rules now in place at Morton West High School. I am very sure Morton cheerleaders are still forbidden to talk to guys per school rules. Plus Berwyn still has very powerful "Stranger Danger" lectures that have contributed heavily to the toxic hate atmosphere in Berwyn. Now I have ridden a bicycle through Berwyn countless times, even at night and encountered nothing. But Berwyn area residents today act like Berwyn is more dangerous than Syria.

Stickney and Forest View, by the way, are just as bad as Berwyn in terms of the social atmosphere.

Berwyn Il = Little Toronto.