Living in Irving Park: a neighborhood guide

The lay of the land

Irving Park began as a railroad suburb in 1869, when a group of investors bought a farm and platted house lots around the new station, and the oldest streets still read that way: Italianates and Queen Annes on lots wider than the city norm, set back behind real front yards. The city annexed it in 1889 and filled the edges with bungalows and two-flats, so the neighborhood today is rings of eras around a Victorian core.

Old Irving Park, roughly Montrose to Addison around the Kennedy, is where the showpieces are; Independence Park’s blocks carry the same DNA a few streets south.

The Villa District

The Villa, a pocket between Addison, Avondale, Pulaski and Hamlin, is a City of Chicago landmark district of Craftsman and Prairie style houses built mostly in the 1910s, laid out on streets with planted parkway medians. It is small, about 126 homes, walkable in twenty minutes, and one of the best places in Chicago to see what the bungalow era could do when it stretched out.

Getting around

The Blue Line runs the Kennedy’s median through the neighborhood with three stops, and the Metra UP-Northwest shares the Irving Park stop, so the Loop is reachable two ways and O’Hare is a one-seat ride the other direction. The Kennedy itself has ramps at Irving Park and Addison for driving days.

• Blue Line to the Loop runs about 20 minutes; O’Hare about 20 the other way.
• Metra reaches Ogilvie in about 15 minutes.
• Six Corners shopping sits just west across the Portage Park line.

Parks and landmarks

Independence Park hosts a farmers market in season and gives its name to the surrounding blocks. Horner Park, along the river on the neighborhood’s east edge, brings ball fields, a dog park, and access to the riverbank trail. The building everyone photographs is Carl Schurz High School at Milwaukee and Addison, Dwight H. Perkins’s 1910 Prairie School landmark, all brown brick planes and deep eaves.

The housing stock

The range here is wider than almost anywhere on the Northwest Side: 1870s frame houses and Victorians in Old Irving, landmark Craftsmans in the Villa, brick bungalows and Georgians on the outer blocks, and two-flats near the rail lines. Older frame houses ask different questions than brick, so bring our older-homes guide and the spotter’s guide to a showing, and if a Victorian has caught your eye, read up on foundations before you fall in love.

The neighborhoods inside Irving Park

Irving Park is community area 16 of Chicago’s 77, on the Northwest Side. The names people use inside it: Old Irving Park (Grayland), Kilbourn Park, Merchant Park, The Villa and Avondale Gardens.

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.

Questions people ask

Which neighborhoods are in Irving Park?

Irving Park is community area 16 of Chicago’s 77, on the Northwest Side. The neighborhoods inside it are Old Irving Park (Grayland), Kilbourn Park, Merchant Park, The Villa and Avondale Gardens.

What are the ZIP codes for Irving Park?

The ZIP codes for Irving Park are 60618 and 60641. ZIP codes are mail routes, not neighborhood lines, so each one also reaches into the areas next door.

Guides worth reading before you tour here

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