Living in Dunning: a neighborhood guide

The lay of the land

Dunning takes its name from the county farm and institutions that once occupied its land; the Read-Dunning Memorial Park now remembers the people who lived and were buried there, a small, serious place worth knowing about in a neighborhood that is otherwise ordinary in the best way. The blocks around it filled after the war with brick homes, and Schorsch Village, south of Addison around Narragansett, is the showpiece: Tudors and Georgians built in the 1930s and 40s with real variety house to house.

Wilbur Wright College’s campus, with its pyramid-topped learning center, anchors the middle of the neighborhood.

Parks and the everyday

Shabbona Park’s fieldhouse and ball fields carry the north end and Merrimac Park the south, both with the leagues-and-fieldhouse rhythm the Northwest Side does well. The Harlem-Irving shopping cluster sits at the neighborhood’s corner, Belmont and Irving Park carry the daily errands, and the forest preserves along the Des Plaines are ten minutes west.

The housing stock

Brick Tudors, Georgians and Cape Cods in Schorsch Village, post-war ranches and raised ranches across the wider grid, and a steady mix of well-kept originals and updated interiors. Tudor details, slate, steel casements, arched doors, bring their own upkeep questions; our roof guide and window guide cover them, and the house systems guide handles the rest.

The neighborhoods inside Dunning

Dunning is community area 17 of Chicago’s 77, on the Northwest Side. The names people use inside it: Belmont Heights, Belmont Terrace, Irving Woods and Schorsch Village.

The community areas have been the city’s official map since the 1920s; the neighborhood names inside them are the ones people use. All 77 on one interactive map.

Guides worth reading before you tour here

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