Chicago Apartment Hunters

Burnside

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:24:53 +0000

Burnside was dubbed “the jewel of the Southeast Side of Chicago,” by Dempsey Travis, a Chicago author and real estate developer, and is home to some of the city’s most successful African-American-owned businesses. Burnside, a triangle-shaped neighborhood bounded on all sides by railroad tracks, is the smallest of Chicago’s 77 community areas and takes its name from Ambrose Burnside, a Civil War general and former company official with the Illinois Central Railroad.

It’s fitting that Burnside, one of the city’s more pleasant residential neighborhoods, would have one of Chicago’s most vibrant commercial streets.

What makes 79th Street all the more interesting is almost every storefront is not only occupied (not a given anywhere in America these days) but is occupied by local entrepreneurs.

Burnside is a solid middle-class neighborhood, almost entirely African American, a community mostly of older and newer Chicago bungalows and two-flats.

True, visitors might not be drawn to the barbershops or dentists or grocery stores on 79th Street between the Dan Ryan Expressway (Interstate Hwy. 94) and Cottage Grove Avenue.

But if you like Caribbean jerk chicken or American fried chicken or succulent, smoky barbecue or soul food done right or delicacies that make mouths water in Senegal…

Public Transportation:

El: Red Line to 87th. Bus: 3, 87. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com

Currently available in the Burnside area

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Boystown

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:19:53 +0000

Located within Lakeview, Boystown is the heart of Chicago’s thriving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Colorful rainbow pylons welcome people of every background and sexual orientation to enjoy Boystown’s LGBT-oriented shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the Center on Halsted, one of the premiere LGBT community centers in the world. The Pride Parade is a major annual tradition that attracts tens of thousands to Boystown every June.

Public Transportation:

El: Red Line to Addison or Belmont, Brown Line to Belmont; Bus: 8, 36, 151 For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.

Currently available in the Boystown area

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Norwood Park

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:04:09 +0000

Formerly a Northwest Side suburb, Norwood Park was annexed into Chicago in 1893. This quaint, mostly residential neighborhood is characterized by elegant single family homes, plenty of parks and greenery, and spacious streets that follow a curving pattern, unlike that of Chicago’s grid system. One of Chicago’s oldest houses, the Noble-Seymour-Crippen House, is located in Norwood Park. Built in 1833, the landmark is now home to the Norwood Park Historical Society.

Norwood Park is a neighborhood a few minutes’ drive from O’Hare International Airport with one essential historic site and one iconic restaurant.

And more.

The community’s single “destination” restaurant — at least, the one most known by folks who live outside the neighborhood — is the Superdawg Drive-In.

Does it serve the city’s best hot dog? Let’s just say it likely would be a nominee. For sure, no other restaurant in Chicago — and it’s been in business here since 1948 — sports two curiously dressed, 12-foot winking weenies on its roof, provides car-hop service and offers, among other items, something called a Whoopskidawg.

Public Transportation:

El: Blue Line to Harlem, Bus: 88, 90. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.

Currently available in the Norwood Park area

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O’Hare

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:02:14 +0000

A major Midwest transportation hub on Chicago’s far Northwest Side, O’Hare International Airport serves over 60 million travelers a year. What began in 1942 as a World War II military airfield and manufacturing facility became the world’s busiest airport by 1962, after a major expansion project. O’Hare held this distinction for over 30 years, and remains one of the top five busiest airports in the world today.

Originally called Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field in its military days, the airport was renamed for naval aviator Lt. Cmdr. Edward ”Butch” O’Hare, a World War II flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient. A replica of Butch O’Hare’s Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighter plane may be seen today in the airport’s Terminal 2. O’Hare Airport’s three-letter airport code, ORD, is a holdover from its original Orchard Place/Douglas Field designation.

A 2001 O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) to upgrade existing airport infrastructure incorporated several groundbreaking initiatives to make its facilities and operations more environmentally friendly. The installation of green roofs on several passenger terminals and the Federal Aviation Administration’s first green-roofed control tower are among the innovations outlined in a landmark 2003 OMP Sustainable Design Manual. Click here for more information about the greening of O’Hare Airport.

While this veritable ‘city within a city’ is not actually home to any Chicago residents, it was designated one of Chicago’s official community areas in the 1980s, along with Edgewater, bringing the total number of community areas to 77.

Public Transportation:
El: Blue Line to O’Hare. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.

Currently available in the O’Hare area

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Oakland

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:58:01 +0000

Kenwood is a history buff’s dream with its architecturally diverse mansions and famous residents, both past and present. Some of Chicago’s most successful businessmen lived here, like mapmaker William Rand and meatpacking magnate Gustavius Swift. Most people know it today as the Chicago home of U.S. President Barack Obama. Though primarily residential, neighboring Oakland also contains historic sites like the former Abraham Lincoln Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

A news reporter on a Chicago TV station – a Chicago TV station – told us this shortly after Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

“Right now, Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood is preparing for President Barack Obama’s homecoming,” said the enthusiastic reporter, who was interviewing a woman “who lives just four doors from President Obama’s Hyde Park home.”

If she lived four doors from Obama, the woman – like the president – lived in Kenwood.

Kenwood-Hyde Park is, to be fair, a geographic distinction, not an intellectual one. Kenwood’s southern border is Hyde Park Boulevard, but the boulevard is not so broad nor so busy as to cut itself off from that University of Chicago mystique.

Public Transportation:

El: Green Line to 43rd. Bus: 4, 14, 26, 43. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.

Currently available in the Oakland area

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Old Town

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:55:34 +0000

Upscale 19th century townhomes and cobblestone streets characterize this picturesque neighborhood on the city’s Near North Side. Visitors are drawn to Old Town by its vibrant dining scene, plentiful boutique shopping and thriving entertainment district that includes several world famous Chicago theater institutions, including the Second City improvisational comedy club, the Steppenwolf Theatre and Royal George Theatre. Old Town is also home to one of the nation’s oldest annual summer art fairs.

Old Town is — and always has been — one of Chicago’s great destination-neighborhoods. It’s that simple.

Yet locals — and especially locals older than, say, 50 — find it irresistible to regale visitors with tales of what it was, not because it was necessarily better back then but because Old Town for a time seemed to reinvent itself every 10 or 15 years, and that makes for individualized sets of memories.

There was the artist era when rents were cheap, then the folkies took over Wells Street and then the hippies and then the gentrifiers. For a time, Ripley’s Believe It or Not provided a certain . . . presence. There were burger places and bars with peanut shells on the floor, and across the street an adult club next to a French restaurant and down the street a steak joint next to Second City, which was across from Earl Pionke’s pub. (How sweet the sounds that flowed with the beer at The Earl of Old Town.)

Public Transportation:

El: Brown Line to Sedgwick. Bus: 11, 22, 36, 72. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com

Currently available in the Old Town area

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Portage Park

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:52:18 +0000

Currently available in the Portage Park area

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North Park

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:51:42 +0000

North Park is a stronghold of Swedish culture, and home to North Park University, founded in 1891 by the Swedish Covenant Church. Cutting through North Park is the North Branch Trail, 20 miles of walking, biking and jogging paths that run along the Chicago River in this neighborhood.

Public Transportation:

El: Brown to Kimball, Kedzie. Bus: #78 Montrose, #81 Lawrence, #82 Kimball/Homan and #93 California/Dodge. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.

Currently available in the North Park area

Primarily residential, a mix of single-family dwellings (many of them, especially in west Albany Park, the familiar Chicago bungalows) and small to mid-size apartment buildings.

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Average rent in North Park

Studio	1BR	2BR	3BR
$577	$763	$1,066	$1358

Pullman

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:51:08 +0000

Originally built to house employees of his railcar company, George Pullman’s model community is one of Chicago’s most unique neighborhoods. In its heyday, this ‘town within a town’ had its own amenities catering to residents of Pullman’s French-inspired row houses and colonnade apartments. Today, an information center and the country’s first African-American labor history museum serve visitors to this well-preserved National Historic District.

Pullman was a company town. That’s what George Pullman had in mind when he built it in the 1880s to house the employees of his railroad-car company.

Today, it’s the Pullman Historic District – a National Historic Landmark District – but it’s more than that.

“Yes, we are a historic area, but we are also a small town in a big city,” says DeeDee Fabris, a lifelong resident who helps coordinate tours out of Pullman’s visitor center. “That’s exactly what this neighborhood is.”

For sure, it’s like no other Chicago neighborhood. Here, in the heart of what remains a largely industrial area, is this time capsule, a residential pocket built more than 120 years ago for workers, craftsmen and executives. It was a community then boasting a deluxe hotel, plus a Market Hall for meats and produce, an Arcade that was a precursor to the modern shopping mall, plus a church and hospital and park and other good things.

Public Transportation:

Bus: 34, 119, 353. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com

Currently available in the Pullman area

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Ravenswood

admin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:48:31 +0000

The North Side neighborhoods of Lincoln Square and Ravenswood combine the Old World charm of German village architecture and plenty of German food with hip, urban boutiques and retailers. The cobblestone stretch of Lincoln Avenue that most people associate with Lincoln Square is a picturesque row of storefronts that includes a gourmet cookware store, an authentic German restaurant and tavern, a European patisserie and an old-fashioned apothecary among many other unique businesses.

The neighborhood, familiar to Chicagoans as the heart of the city’s German culture, was called “Lincoln Square” even before they put the president’s statue there in 1956. In truth, the speck of an island where Lincoln, Lawrence and Western Avenues meet was never exactly monumental, but it was enough to give this community a name and the statue room for a pedestal.

There’s much here in Lincoln Square. Rosehill Cemetery, the largest in Chicago, takes up the far northeastern chunk of it. Permanent residents include eleven Chicago mayors, Oscar Mayer, Richard Sears of Sears and Aaron Montgomery Ward of Ward’s, the Hinkley of Hinkley & Schmidt and the Hertz of Hertz Rent-a-Car. The limestone gate off Ravenswood Avenue is on the National Register.

Public Transportation:

El: Red Line to Wilson or Lawrence, Brown Line to Western. Bus: 49, 81, 145, 148. For more travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.