Even in the 1980s. N. Broadway spooked me a bit. I was there with a friend going to a kosher butcher, and even though the neighborhood was upscale enough to have a Jewel supermarket, there were signs of problems.
First was the skinny woman on the street injecting herself with heroin or something, looking whacked out. (this was the ‘80s, heroin wasn’t as big a deal, and the big drugs like crack were not displayed openly on the street, and weren’t used as much by white women).
The Jewel also had an indoor parking garage. Now, Phoenix has indoor parking garages for supermarkets in upscale areas for shade, but I had not seen that in Chicago. I am sure it was for safety. Anyway, I felt an unease that I did not feel on the south side, because there I felt the dangers could take unfamiliar shapes. I never had a reason to return.
To my knowledge I've never driven on N. Broadway or N. Clark when in Chicago but always admired from the air (on my way out of town) how orderly the nearby Loyola campus looked.