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The densest square miles in the city: between the river and the lake, from the Chicago River up to North Avenue, the Near North Side holds River North, the Gold Coast, Streeterville, the Magnificent Mile, the south half of Old Town and the industrial island in the river. Community area 8, and about 105,000 people.
The Near North Side is bounded by the Chicago River on the west and south, Lake Michigan on the east and North Avenue on the north. Inside that box the city changes character every few blocks: the towers of Streeterville and the Magnificent Mile along the lake, the landmark mansions and rowhouses of the Gold Coast north of Oak Street, the converted warehouses and galleries of River North west of State, the frame cottages of Old Town along Wells, and Goose Island, the artificial island the North Branch Canal made in 1853, still mostly industrial.
The first known permanent settlement in Chicago was here: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable built his home near where the Michigan Avenue bridge lands in the 1780s. Pioneer Court marks the spot.
River North, the Gold Coast and Streeterville have a joint guide: the loft district that Albert Friedman named in 1974 when he began restoring its warehouses, the mansion district Potter Palmer started on Lake Shore Drive in 1885, and the towers east of Michigan on the landfill that Captain Streeter squatted on.
The Magnificent Mile is Michigan Avenue from the river to Oak Street, with the Water Tower, the John Hancock Center and the Drake Hotel at its north end. Old Town straddles the North Avenue line: its southern blocks, around Wells Street and the Sedgwick station, are Near North Side, and the Old Town Triangle north of North Avenue is Lincoln Park; our Old Town guide treats it as one place, the way residents do. Goose Island is the river island between the North Branch and the canal, home to the Wrigley company’s headquarters since 2012 and a growing set of offices and breweries.
The blocks west of Old Town around Division and Larrabee, the former site of Cabrini-Green, have been rebuilt as mixed-income housing since the last tower came down in 2011; the newer name is simply Near North.
After du Sable, the area filled with lumberyards, breweries and the working population of a port city. The 1871 fire took nearly all of it. The rebuilding produced the Gold Coast, once Potter Palmer moved north in 1885 and the city’s wealth followed him from Prairie Avenue, and the Water Tower survived as the neighborhood’s symbol. Navy Pier opened in 1916, the Michigan Avenue bridge in 1920, and the Magnificent Mile was planned around that bridge.
The Frances Cabrini Homes opened in 1942 and the high-rises followed in 1958 and 1962; their demolition ran from the 1990s to 2011. River North’s warehouses became galleries, then restaurants, then residential lofts and towers, and the Merchandise Mart, once the largest building in the world, became a technology hub.
Four Red Line stations (Grand, Chicago, Clark/Division and North/Clybourn) and three on the Brown and Purple Lines (Merchandise Mart, Chicago and Sedgwick) mean nothing here is more than a few blocks from a train. Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive carry the driving traffic; the Lakefront Trail runs the whole eastern edge from Navy Pier to North Avenue Beach. Most residents walk to work, or to the Loop across any of the river bridges.
High-rise condominiums and apartment towers hold most of the population: 1920s co-ops and hotels on the Gold Coast, 1960s and 1970s concrete towers along the lake, and glass towers from the last thirty years in River North and Streeterville. Underneath them are the survivors: Gold Coast mansions and rowhouses on Astor and State Parkway, Old Town’s frame and brick cottages, and River North’s converted loft buildings with timber columns and twelve-foot ceilings.
Assessments, reserves and the building’s rules matter more here than anywhere else in the city; our condo rules guide and the questions to ask are the place to start before an offer.
River North, the Gold Coast, Streeterville, the Magnificent Mile, the southern half of Old Town and Goose Island are all inside the Near North Side, Chicago’s official community area 8.
Both. North Avenue is the official line: the blocks south of it, around Wells Street and the Sedgwick station, are Near North Side; the Old Town Triangle north of it is in Lincoln Park.
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