Pulaski Park Pulaski Park is a neighborhood directly west of
Goose Island and east of Wicker Park. The generally accepted boundaries of Pulaski Park are Ashland (1600 W) to the west, the
Chicago River and Elston Avenue to the east, the
Bloomingdale Line on the north, and Chicago (800 N) on the south (although some people extend the southern border only to
Division Street). Pulaski Park derives its name from the
historic park and fieldhouse that was designed by
Jens Jensen between 1912 and 1914. 1,200 people were displaced, leading to the razing of a number of buildings while others were moved to nearby locations in the neighborhood. The park and fieldhouse were listed on the
National Register of Historic Places on August 13, 1981. It became an official
Chicago Landmark on July 29, 2003. The neighborhood borders on
Polonia Triangle which was considered to be the center of Chicago's
Polish Downtown, the city's oldest and most prominent
Polish settlement, functioning as the capital of
American Polonia. Because of this, the headquarters of many major Polish organizations in the
United States were found in Pulaski Park such as the
Polish National Alliance, the
Polish Daily News and the
Polish Women's Alliance. Pulaski Park is listed within "Polonia Triangle" as one of the 11 neighborhoods included in
The Labor Trail which chronicles Chicago's history of
working class life and struggle. The neighborhood is also home to two of Chicago's
Polish Cathedrals:
St. Stanislaus Kostka and
Holy Trinity Polish Mission. Pulaski Park was the area of West Town that served as Chicago Congressman
Dan Rostenkowski's base of operations. The family still owns the building opposite
St. Stanislaus Kostka church at 1372 Evergreen from which he ran his operations. Although Pulaski Park has declined from its heyday days as part of the city's
Polish Downtown, the entire West Town area has undergone a renaissance as gentrification has transformed the area. This area's higher population density gave it a more working-class population than Wicker Park. As opposed to other areas of West Town, much of the original housing stock of Pulaski Park has not been torn down for new construction in recent years.
Wicker Park Wicker Park is a Chicago neighborhood northwest of the
Loop, south of
Bucktown and west of Pulaski Park. Charles and Joel Wicker purchased of land along
Milwaukee Avenue in 1870 and laid out a subdivision with a mix of lot sizes surrounding a park. The
Great Chicago Fire of 1871 spurred the first wave of development, as homeless Chicagoans looked to build new houses. Before the turn of the twentieth century,
Germans and
Scandinavians tended to live in the area's north and northwestern sections. Wicker Park became the abode of Chicago's wealthy Northern European immigrants. The district proved especially popular with merchants, who built large mansions along the neighborhood's choicest streets—particularly on Hoyne and Pierce, just southwest of North & Damen, known then as Robey. Hoyne was known as
"Beer Baron Row," as many of Chicago's wealthiest
brewers built mansions there. With the end of the 19th century the area was subsumed into the surrounding
Polish Downtown and the area adjacent to the
park which gave the neighborhood its name became known as
"the Polish Gold Coast". In the 1890s and 1900s, immigration from
Poland and the completion of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Lines greatly boosted the population density of West Town, especially in areas east of Wicker Park. The area around
Division,
Milwaukee, and Ashland was once known as '
Kostkaville', and the intersection retains the moniker "
Polish Triangle" to this day. The provisional government of Poland met in Wicker Park during
World War I. The near Northwest Side is home to many of the most opulent churches in the
Archdiocese of Chicago, built in the so-called '
Polish Cathedral style'. Polish immigration into the area accelerated during and after
World War II when as many as 150,000 Poles are estimated to have arrived between 1939 and 1959 as
Displaced Persons (DPs). Like the Ukrainians in neighboring Ukrainian Village, they clustered in established
ethnic enclaves like this one that offered shops, restaurants, and banks where people spoke their language.
Division Street was referred to as
Polish Broadway.
Nelson Algren's literary output lionized the Division Street strip in his books such as
The Man With The Golden Arm and
Never Come Morning focusing on the stories of junkies, gamblers, hookers, and drunks in the Polish ghetto. and resulted in the book
Never Come Morning being banned for decades from the
Chicago Public Library system over the massive outcry by
Chicago Polonia. For decades, the festival centered on the
Flatiron Arts Building and was typically held during the month of October, Chicago's Artist Month. "Around the Coyote" revised its preferred locations for the annual festival, which in 2008 was held coincidentally with
Looptopia in May in Chicago's Loop. Today, the neighborhood is best known for its numerous commercial and entertainment establishments and being a convenient place to live for downtown workers due to its proximity to public transportation and
the Loop.
Gentrification has made the area much more attractive to college-educated
white-collar workers, although it faced considerable resistance from the
working-class Puerto Rican community it displaced. Crime has drastically decreased and many new homes have been built as well as older homes being restored. The area has become a desirable neighborhood and this has led to increased business activity, with many new bars, restaurants, and stores opening to serve individuals. The neighborhood is known for hosting local art stores and independent businesses. Wicker Park is the setting of a 2004
film by the same name. However, the filming of this movie was done on location in
Montreal,
Quebec. Another film of note that uses Wicker Park as its background is
High Fidelity (2000) directed by
Stephen Frears and starring
Evanston-born
John Cusack. Former independent record company
Wax Trax! Records, a pioneer in releasing
industrial music, had its offices in Wicker Park.
Ukrainian Village in the Ukrainian Village, as seen in 1906.
Ukrainian Village is a
Chicago neighborhood located west of
Chicago's downtown and south of Wicker Park. Its boundaries are
Division Street to the north, Grand Avenue to the south,
Western Avenue to the west, and Damen Avenue to the east. Ukrainian Village, like neighboring East Village began as farmland. Originally
German Americans formed the largest ethnic group in the vicinity; however, by the turn of the century the neighborhood was largely
Slavic. Similarly to the
Lithuanian Downtown in the Chicago neighborhood of
Bridgeport, Ukrainians settled in the district because of their familiarity with
Poles who lived in the surrounding
Polish Downtown. Dense settlement of the neighborhood was largely spurred by the 1895 construction of the elevated
Logan Square branch along Paulina Street that would close in 1951 and be demolished in 1964. Over the past half century, it has remained a middle-class neighborhood, populated largely by older citizens of
Eastern European ethnicity, bordered (and affected) on many sides by more dangerous areas. It was insulated somewhat from surrounding socioeconomic change in the large industrial areas on its south and west borders by the strong fabric of ethnic institutions as well as the staying power of the Orthodox and
Ukrainian Catholic congregations. These local ethnic institutions include the
Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, the
Ukrainian National Museum, and the Ukrainian Cultural Center. Although Ukrainian Village continues to be the center of Chicago's large
Ukrainian community, the gentrification of West Town is rapidly changing the demographic. Ukrainian Village continues to be home to approximately 10,000 ethnic
Ukrainians. Other notable local landmarks include Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral,
Roberto Clemente High School, St Mary's Hospital, and
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral, the latter having been commissioned by
St. John Kochurov and designed by famed architect
Louis Sullivan. On December 4, 2002, the
Ukrainian Village District, centering on Haddon Avenue, Thomas Street, and Cortez Street between Damen and Leavitt Avenues, including portions of Damen, Hoyne and Leavitt Avenues, was designated a
Chicago Landmark District. Extensions to the district were designated in 2005 and on April 11, 2007. Neighboring "East Village", the area east of Ukrainian Village extending from Damen to Ashland, was originally known as "East Ukrainian Village". A few scenes from the popular Russian movie from the 1990s,
Brother 2, were filmed in and around Ukrainian Village.
East Village East Village or "East Ukrainian Village" is a neighborhood directly east of Ukrainian Village. The generally accepted boundaries of East Village are Ashland (1600 W) on the east, Damen (2000 W) on the west, Division (1200 N) on the north, and Chicago (800 N) on the south (although some people extend the southern border to Grand Ave). The East Village Association neighborhood group in 1984 identify the boundaries as Division Street to Chicago Avenue and Damen Avenue to Milwaukee Avenue (800 – 1600 W). Although
German-Americans were initially the largest ethnic group in the area, by 1890
Poles were the clear majority, organized around a dense network of Roman Catholic churches such as
Holy Innocents and other institutions within the vicinity of
Polish Downtown. and to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 to preserve its character with these development pressures.
River West , one of the city's many
Polish Cathedrals. The small area within West Town east of the
Kennedy Expressway and west of the North Branch of the
Chicago River, between Division Street (1200N) and Grand Avenue (500N) is referred to as River West, complementing the
River North area of the
Near North Side. The small area is bisected by the elevated
Union Pacific Railroad tracks. It contains several large loft buildings, most converted in the mid-1980s for residential use; several housing developments;
St. John Cantius church; The
Chicago Academy for the Arts located in St. John Cantius' former school; the
Chicago Tribune's
Freedom Center printing facility; some nightclubs and restaurants, and a few blocks of historic residential areas. During the Lori Lightfoot administration, the 30-Acre
Freedom Center in River West was selected to be the location for the first Chicago Casino.
Bally's Corporation is behind the new project dubbed
Bally's Chicago and aims to create a $1.7+ billion "Flagship Destination" to showcase "The Best of Chicago" according to their website. Initially, the development was going to house the
casino building, a 500 room hotel tower, several residential/multi-use high rises, an entertainment center, exhibition spaces, museum venues, and other large scale public amenities. The plan also would also include improvements to public infrastructure throughout the area. While developers have since scaled back the initial scope, they still intend on providing the much needed infrastructure improvements such as a public river walk and green space, new arterial streets, underground parking structures and the reconstruction & reconfiguration of the Chicago Avenue &
Halsted Street Viaduct.
Noble Square Noble Square is directly east of East Village. The generally accepted boundaries of Noble Square are the
Kennedy Expressway on the east, Ashland (1600 W) on the west, Division (1200 N) on the north, and Chicago (800 N) or Grand (500 N) on the south. The name apparently refers to Eckhart Park, a one-block square park at the northeast corner of Chicago and Noble (1400 W). Its identity may be disappearing: real estate agents have been including its northern half as an eastern section of Wicker Park, while the southern end of this neighborhood has been identified as West Town since around 2000. This neighborhood was listed as "West Town" in 19th-century census records.
Erie Neighborhood House, a social service agency tracing its roots to the settlement house movement of the 19th century, has operated in the neighborhood since 1870, providing services ranging from early childhood education and after-school programming to ESL and citizenship classes for adults. Its historic location is near the intersection of Erie (632 N) and Noble (1400 W).
East Humboldt Park The western portion of the West Town community area is commonly referred to as "Humboldt Park" or "East Humboldt Park," even though it is not in the Community Area of that name. The 104-block area's boundaries are Western Avenue to the east, Chicago Avenue to the south, North Avenue to the north, and Humboldt Park, the
208 acre park that gives the area its name, to the west. This area has recently become known as "
East Humboldt Park/West Town" to indicate its distinction from the Humboldt Park Community Area to the west of the park itself. It is perhaps best known for
Paseo Boricua, a half-mile stretch of
Division Street between Western and California Avenues. This stretch of Division is bookended by two -tall steel
Puerto Rican flags, and contains many Puerto Rican stores and restaurants. The community that resides here has made efforts, through community improvement work, to resist the forces of gentrification that have moved them further west from West Town, Wicker Park, and Ukrainian Village. However, as creatives, young professionals, and families are priced out of adjacent Wicker Park and Bucktown, Humboldt Park has increasingly become a target of gentrification, and was named the "tenth-hottest" neighborhood in the country by Redfin in 2014. Additional commercial areas are along North Avenue, which is home to a large number of vintage clothing and mid-century furniture boutiques, and Augusta Avenue, which has seen the opening of a number of destination restaurants. In June 2024, the part of the Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago known as Puerto Rico Town or Paseo Boricua officially changed its name to Barrio Borikén.
Smith Park Smith Park, or
"The Patch", lies within Chicago's West Town community. Its formal name comes from the city park on its south border. Bounded by Chicago Avenue (800N) on the north, Grand Avenue (550N) on the south, Western Avenue (2400W) on the east and Washtenaw Avenue (2700W) on the west; the majority of the neighborhood sits within Chicago's 26th Ward, with a small portion a part of the 1st Ward. Originally settled primarily by Italian immigrants of various old country locales who moved west from the "Little Sicily" area on Sedgwick Street, near where the
Cabrini–Green housing projects were built, and from the Italian neighborhood along the Grand Avenue corridor, it is a very old community with many families that have lived in the neighborhood for over six generations. In 1929, when a
quarry that had been converted to a large city
dump in the West Town neighborhood had been completely filled, the Bureau of Sanitation transferred part of the site to the Bureau of Parks and Recreation. The city named the area Smith Athletic Field for Joseph Higgins Smith, alderman of the surrounding 32nd ward from 1914 to 1933. In 1959, the city transferred Smith Park to the
Chicago Park District, at which time an artillery piece was placed in the park. A WWII
tank was moved to the southeast corner of the park in the early 1990s from its former home at Grand and Western Avenues. This is the landmark by which most Chicagoans recognize Smith Park. The Park District added a spraypool, swimming pool, and bathhouse in the late 1960s and in 1979 a large, modern fieldhouse was constructed. Nine years later, the Park District dedicated its gymnasium to Tom Positano, a high school student who had been active at the park and who posthumously received a Junior Citizenship Award. ==Transportation==