Oak Forest HS Students Tour Historical Crime Spots

Students in Oak Forest High School teacher Eric Gomez’s Sociology classes took a tour of historical crime hot spots last week. Students were supplementing their Sociology unit on Deviance and toured some of Chicago’s historical crime hot spots. The stops on the tour included the location of the Chicago Coliseum, the Congress Hotel, the Iroquois Theater, the Biograph Theater, and the location of the Valentine’s Day Massacre. People included and related to those locations were Big Jim Colisimo, Johnny Torrio, Bugs Moran, John Dillinger, John Gacy, and of course Al Capone.

Oak Forest High School Senior Reggie Bush said, “The tour was pretty fun. It was pretty cold though.” Temperatures were in the high teens the day the students toured. “We toured a graveyard that the tour guide said was the first graveyard in Chicago. It was by the lakefront.” Students didn’t realize that there was a graveyard there because most of the deceased have been relocated to another graveyard, save for one crypt. Oak Forest High School Senior DeVonn Henderson enjoyed touring the flower shop across from the cathedral where a major crime happened. “This tour went along with social deviants and how people react to certain things.” Oak Forest High School Senior Yuri Rodriguez said, “I was scared because some of the tour stops were places where lots of people died. We got off the bus at Suicide Alley, where the tour guide said there were ghosts. I was scared there too!”