Chicago's Neighborhoods

"I love The Local Tourist and recommend it often!" M. Sullivan, Friends of the Parks, Chicago

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. Each has its own character, given by the buildings, the businesses, and the residents within, and also by the people each draws. Following are brief descriptions of downtown's enclaves.

Gold Coast

Mansions, see-and-be-seen restaurants and bars, exclusive shops, celebrity sightings: welcome to the Gold Coast of Chicago. This neighborhood stretches roughly from Lake Michigan to Clark Street and from Division to North Avenue. Within is the rowdy Rush & Division corridor lined with bars, as well as the area created by the merge of Rush & State Streets crowded with upscale restaurants. Oak Street provides the most exclusive shopping in the Midwest.

The Loop

Traders, attorneys, and financiers, oh my! The Loop got its name from the L tracks that "loop" around the area. Now it's Chicago's money powerhouse. It's characterized by people in suits and skyscrapers creating canyons of the city streets. If you happen to see a grown person in a mesh shirt, you're not thrown back to the 80's or in Boys Town. That's the trader's uniform. This area also includes the Palmer House Hotel, the Sears Tower, and Buddy Guy's Legends. The renovation trend has taken over and more and more people are choosing the Loop as their home instead of just a place to lunch with their attorney or stockbroker.

Magnificent Mile/Streeterville

Shopping, glorious shopping. Chicago's most famous stretch of shopping is on Michigan Avenue from the river north to Oak Street. The western boundary is approximately State Street, and the eastern boundary is Lake Michigan. The Mag Mile is also home to the Hancock Building, the historic Water Tower, and the 4th Presbyterian Church with its serene courtyard. Where Michigan Avenue meets the Chicago River, two of the city's most recognizable buildings reside: the Wrigley Building, with it's clock tower and skybridge, and the Tribune Tower. The Tribune Tower's architecture is the result of a contest held for the "most beautiful office building in the world." Streeterville, just east of the Mag Mile extending to Navy Pier, is some of the most expensive real estate in Chicago. And it began as a sandbar.

River North

The area formerly known as Smokey Hollow is now Chicago's gallery district, with the highest number of galleries outside of Manhattan. River North began as an industrial area and became a warehouse district when industry subsided. By the 1970s it was a collection of empty, run-down buildings, which always attracts artists due to low rents and open spaces. In the last 30 years it's morphed into an upscale neighborhood containing high-end galleries and shops, new and renovated condiminiums, and the largest concentration of restaurants and bars in Chicago (including the city's three Brazilian churascurrias). It's boundaries are the river on the west and south, and roughly State Street on the east. The northern boundary reaches to Cabrini Green, the infamous housing project, on the west. It jogs south to Chicago Avenue around LaSalle Street, where the Gold Coast takes over.