Lol - I was planning on building a flat bottom barge with a shack on it. Reminiscent of a turn of the century shanty. However, my luck turned for the better and I never did it. So no, this is not my boat.

Sometimes I wish I did though. If my luck turns even better and I have a financial windfall, maybe I’ll build it just for fun. I’ll dock it near the strip so it doesn’t bother anyone as much.

During the Great Depression there were large shanty communities built along our rivers, so it wouldn’t be the first time. If there’s going to be a bunch of people living on the river, I’d rather they be some shanty folk than rich people in their 500K houseboats.

This kind of reminds me of the time I had the genius idea in my 20’s to build a shanty boat and dock it at the North Shore. I did my research at the time and found that there’s essentially no law stopping anyone from doing that - which is pretty crazy. So if the going gets tough and you need to move to a shanty boat, you can.

I chose to live here because at the time I was 27, I wanted to live IN the city, and I found a nice apartment that checked all the boxes here.

I also grew up in urban areas, and I used to skateboard all over the city as a teen in the early 00’s. Suffice it to say, normal city issues don’t really bother me that much at all, and are worth the conveniences of living in a dense urban area.

I can’t stress enough how much value walkability adds to my life. I fucking hate driving, and avoid it as much as possible. I love being able to walk basically everywhere I need to go for life’s necessities in 10 mins or less.

I like the parks, I like the river trails, I like living in a central location, I like being close to friends, I like having the city at my fingertips.

I just don’t like the odd chance that a bullet might hit me or one of my neighbors, and for that reason I’m leaving. I understand why people like the burbs, but that’s just not me. When I leave the city in a year or so, it’ll be to my farm in the middle of nowhere.

It looks further on a map - that shooting happened about a 2 minute walk from the front of your dream apartment building, with a direct line of sight to where it occurred.

Your car won’t get “broken” into most likely - but never leave it unlocked. When you step out of for breathe of fresh air, chances are at least one person is going to bug you for money or something between your walk from the building and across the street and up towards the fountain part of the park. I mention the fountain part of the park because the part of the park closest to your building is a drug market.

You won’t like this part of the neighborhood, I can tell from your comments. Your partner has PTSD from an assault when they were younger, and they would likely get triggered weekly here. I highly suggest you look in the area around ACB, Max’s, and the Schoolhouse apartments if you want to be in Deutschtown. Or look at the Mexican War Streets and Allegheny West if you just want to be in the North Side.

DM me if you want. I’ve lived in the building you’re looking to move into for 5 years and I’m leaving this July for good reason.

I’ll save you from having to DM me lol.

The North Side is great overall. I moved here for the convenience. It’s nice being able to walk or bike places when the weather is nice. The farmers market is amazing in the summer. First Fridays are a good time. I love banjo night and I dearly miss Park House, but have fallen in love with ACB.

When I first moved here in 2017 I knew what I was getting into, I thought. It was kind of sketch, but if you have common sense you’ll be fine. For the first 3/4 years of me living here that assessment was generally correct. There were nuisance issues, all of my packages would get stolen, so I had to either mail them to my office, or an Amazon locker. People loitering outside of my building, sometimes being threatening but usually just annoying. People screaming and fighting at the bus stop outside my windows at all hours of the night. Rampant drug use in the park and on Cedar between East Ohio and the GE. All in all the kinds of things I thought I should expect as regular occurrences. I was generally unbothered and the benefits absolutely outweighed the negatives.

Things started to change in 2020. I just kind of noticed a mood shift which was definitely due to the pandemic, so not necessarily surprising, but jarring none the less. That was the summer the fireworks never ended. Just non stop every night for months there were people lighting fireworks. Then came the roving gang of dirt bikes and quads. I also felt like I got harassed more by strangers after 2020 - and peoples attitudes became more mean and slightly violent. In December of 2021 there was a shooting directly in front of my bedroom windows on Cedar Ave, broad daylight, was working from home. Shit was terrifying. Fortunately nobody was hurt - but it rattled me a bit.

Fast forward to spring of 2022. I had been away for the weekend visiting my parents out of town, and I drove back Sunday afternoon, probably around 3/4pm - nice sunny spring day. Parked my truck on Cedar and was walking to my passenger side door to unload my vehicle and then bang bang bang - what looks like a 12 year old is in the middle of Cedar about a block and half away with a hand gun the size of his forearm just shooting wildly into the GE parking lot. It was at this point that I started to seriously reconsider living here. I can deal with the crack heads and other shit - but I don’t want to hear, see, or worst case become a victim of a shooting.

Summer of 2022 was violent here. Many shootings within ear shot - many don’t make the news due to a lack of victims. But then the Sunoco shooting happened and that sealed the deal for me. I’ve been looking into where I’m going to move to since then. I had just resigned my lease before the shooting happened - so I’m stuck here for several more months.

Last weekend on Sunday morning around 11:30am I walked out to my vehicle to head to the gym. I get in - get situated and start my vehicle when I notice movement in my rear view, there’s three guys, two hanging back and one charging up to my driver door - I quickly locked the door like 2 seconds before this dudes hand hits my handle. He feels it’s locked and then runs away with his crackhead buddies. These dudes were going to jump me, a 6ft pretty big dude - at 11:30am on a Sunday. Sigh.

It’s really sad - because I do love this neighborhood. But after 5 years going on 6 of living here - I’ve been able to fully make the assessment that it’s just not worth the benefits. Of course, this is just my opinion. But I’m being honest when I say that if anyone I loved or deeply cared about lived where I do, I would worry about them. The chances of becoming a victim in this specific little section of the North Side are high enough to worry about it.

Hope this helps a little.

I lived in an old apartment in Mt.Lebanon that had radiant heat. The system always seemed to get air in it which made my radiators useless. I bought a radiator key from rolliers and had to bleed them daily in order to stay warm. Might be worth getting one so you can do it yourself.

My neighbor told me a guy shot himself in the leg by the liquor store on East Ohio. Doesn’t seem connected, but who knows.

I commute 4 days a week and typically Monday is the day I WFH. Traffic is light heading to work on Friday - but usually pretty bad on my way home. Not sure how to make sense of that.