Before visiting Hyde Park, I was not immune to the common misconception that it’s a dangerous place to be. I never could’ve imagined how incorrect this image was. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, Rosalind Yang — a Medill sophomore who lives 15 minutes away from Hyde Park and attended a high school affiliated with and located on the University of Chicago’s campus — took me on a tour of the area, and I was taken aback by how swank it actually was.

“Hyde Park used to be the rich white neighborhood of Chicago before everything moved up north,” Yang said before explaining why Hyde Park has gotten such a bad reputation. “The area around the university is really posh and nice, but once you get outside the pocket of that area it gets a little sketchy.”

Our first stop before walking onto the university campus was the Japanese garden behind the Museum of Science and Industry at 5700 S. Lake Shore Drive. With lily pads, stone walkways, trickling water and even semi-circle bridges, the garden is a serene, Zen-like atmosphere in the middle of a bustling city — perfect for a stressed-out college student. Despite the beauty of this area, Yang claimed it is under appreciated.

“People really should take advantage of the grounds,” she said. “The fact that this is actually in the city is amazing and no one knows about it … and (at this time of year) everything is green and lush and has come alive.”

While the gardens were beautiful, I was skeptical as to what the rest of Hyde Park would look like once we moved closer to the university. But to my surprise, the campus is only a 10-minute walk west of the museum and is even more quaint and alluring. Nothing about the area seems blatantly modern, which makes Hyde Park an architecture zealot’s paradise. The campus buildings exemplify gothic architecture — gargoyles, stained glass windows and spires — and the Robie House at 5757 S. Woodlawn Ave., designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is an archetype of classic Chicago style.

Even the bookstores, of which there are many, are reminiscent of another time when impersonal distributors like Borders were non-existent. Yang spouted this simple equation for the Hyde Park novice: Bookstores = underground mazes.

This couldn’t be truer, as the bookstores along 57th street — the main “drag” of Hyde Park — and the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, at 5757 S. University Ave., remind me of wine cellars, preserving books by winding them through endless rows of shelves.

“It’s really disorienting, but it’s fun to get lost in,” Yang said of the bookstores, her favorite places to frequent during the summer.

Yang’s other favorite pastime — eating — is also nourished by Hyde Park’s large selection of restaurants, including the popular Medici, an Italian restaurant at 1327 E. 57th St., that actually encourages graffiti on its walls.

A bit further down the road at 1333 is Noodles Etc., a restaurant that specializes in Asian cuisine. Despite the namesake, the best thing the restaurant has to offer is the Vietnamese coffee, which is served in a mug with a tin strainer that brews coffee on top of condensed milk while you watch.

As Yang and I sat eating at Noodles Etc., I noticed that it’s difficult to make out where the campus ends and the residential area begins, and that most of the places Yang had pointed out to me that afternoon were seemingly on university grounds.

“The community and campus are enmeshed together,” Yang explained. “The campus is right up against the residential area. People’s lives are here (on campus).”

While piling back into the car to head back to Northwestern, I recognized only one problem with Hyde Park that would prevent me from coming back more often: the location. Unless you have a car, there’s no easy way to get there. Neither the Red nor Green El line comes very close to this part of Hyde Park, and the Metra line that runs right through it is different than the line in Evanston. Despite this, Hyde Park is good enough to warrant a trek down there at least once.