Living in Morgan Park & Mount Greenwood: a neighborhood guide

The lay of the land

Morgan Park shares the Blue Island Ridge with Beverly next door, the highest ground in Chicago, and its oldest blocks were laid out in the 1870s as a picturesque commuter village: curving streets, big trees, and Victorians looking down Longwood Drive’s slope. Mount Greenwood, west of it, filled in later with brick Georgians and ranches and keeps a small-town main street along 111th.

The South Side Irish Parade marches up Western between the two each March, and the Beverly page covers the Ridge’s northern half; this guide takes the south end.

The farm, and the green edges

The working farm on 111th Street belongs to the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, seventy-some acres of crops and pasture inside the city limits, with a farm stand in season and livestock visible from the sidewalk. Mount Greenwood Park adds a pool and fieldhouse, the Dan Ryan Woods forest preserve sits just north on the ridge, and three of the region’s great cemeteries frame the area with old-growth trees.

Getting around

The Rock Island’s Beverly branch stops at 107th, 111th and 115th on the Morgan Park side, running to LaSalle Street downtown in about half an hour. Mount Greenwood runs on buses and cars, with 111th as its spine and the Tri-State a short drive west. This is a corner where a garage earns its keep.

The housing stock

Victorians, foursquares and Prairie-influenced houses on the ridge blocks off Longwood, sturdy brick Georgians and Cape Cods through Mount Greenwood, and post-war ranches toward the county line, nearly all houses and nearly all owner-kept. Ridge-top frame houses ask different questions than flatland brick; our older-homes guide and foundations guide cover both, and the home styles field guide helps you name what you are looking at.

The neighborhoods inside Morgan Park

Morgan Park is community area 75 of Chicago’s 77, on the Far Southwest Side. The names people use inside it: Beverly Woods, Kennedy Park and West Morgan Park.

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

Written by our team, free, no sign-in.