Rain, snow, or shine, Maurice Grant has been walking Hyde Park’s streets to provide assistance to the neighborhood for the past eight years. As a lifelong South Side resident, he is a knowledgeable resource for newcomers to get to know the Hyde Park community.
“Hyde Park really is a friendly, cozy place, and being a safety ambassador means I get to have a great connection with the community,” Grant said. I love chatting with students and neighborhood residents every day out on 53rd street.”
Grant is one of University of Chicago’s Safety Ambassadors, who patrol campus and nearby areas on foot and by car to provide accessible points of contact for all members of the community including students, neighborhood residents, and visitors. The yellow-vested ambassadors can assist with directions, provide information about the neighborhood, or coordinate safety escorts for individuals, helping to foster a community of safety among UChicago students, nearby residents, and visitors to Hyde Park. As trained security professionals, UChicago Safety Ambassadors know how to identify dangerous situations and are prepared to act quickly in a crisis, contacting the University of Chicago Police Department if necessary.
The University partners with Allied Universal on the program, and recently expanded it with the support of local aldermen to place safety ambassadors in residential neighborhoods and other public spaces in Hyde Park, Kenwood, and Woodlawn, including the 53rd Street business corridor.
Grant currently works as a pathfinder on 53rd Street, or what he calls “Downtown South Side,” an area of restaurants, stores, and apartments that has become a place to be for not only Hyde Parkers but many people across the city. Whether helping a community member having car trouble or equipping prospective and incoming students with accurate information about their new home, Grant is ready to lend a hand.
“There are a lot of stories that get told about Chicago,” he said, “It’s important to be straightforward with people about it and give them good information, because Chicago is a beautiful city with many great places to go.”
Grant’s earliest recollections of the UChicago community go back to his childhood. Growing up in Bronzeville, he and his friends would make the trip from State Street to the lakeshore to visit the Museum of Science and Industry, walking through the UChicago campus en route. In those days, campus was even visible out the window of his 16th-floor apartment. Since then, the place that was off on the horizon has become an important community for Grant.
Raquel Nabors, Campus Community Supervisor, expressed pride in Grant’s work. Recently, she was with Grant in a parking lot when he identified an intense argument occurring between two family members.
“He was able to go over there and diffuse the situation,” she said. “Without him, the situation could have escalated a lot. I love this man. He’s a good person.”
Grant emphasized that it is care and compassion that make him able to perform his role, and those are sentiments that many show him in return.
“Students and residents say, ‘Thank you for being out here’ and ‘Thank you for your help,’” he said. “They have ways of showing appreciation for our time. When it's cold out here, some of them bring hot chocolate to give us a little warmth.”
Though Grant once found himself researching Canadian hockey gear to beat the Chicago winters, he has since developed considerable hardiness against the cold, and he appreciates every effort UChicago students and community members continue to make to connect with him.
“It really is a connection,” he said. “We may not know all of them, but we reach a lot of them.”
