North of what?
It’s not north of Wrigley Field, De Paul, Loyola, or other North Side landmarks. Yet North Avenue is a significant transit artery in Chicago and the western suburbs.
Chicagoans might realize that at the time of the Great Chicago Fire, North Avenue was indeed the northern boundary of the city. Residents of the western suburbs or Du Page County don’t have such an identification. Nonetheless, North Avenue is a major lifeline of their towns, traipsing through sometimes pricey, sometimes funky, sometimes bordering-on-seedy neighborhoods. If you have an afternoon, it’s a scenic, enlightening and fascinating drive.
Old Town
North Avenue starts about a stone’s throw from the namesake beach. In fact, a nearby sign advises pedestrians to take an underground walkway to the beach, which on a good summer day is filled with 100,000 people.
This is not the low-rent district. North Avenue marks the northern terminus of such streets as Astor Street, once known as the home for Chicago’s wealthy. One residence in particular bears note-the 19-chimney home of Chicago’s archbishop, currently Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
That Great Street, State Street, also ends here. Anyone traveling due north would not touch land again until they reach Manitowoc, Wis. A neatly manicured flower garden across from State Street leads to Lincoln Park’s statue of Abraham Lincoln.
History, in more ways than one, fills the neighborhood. Clark Street marks the turnaround point for the North Avenue bus line, which was one of the last electric trolley buses in the city before changing to gasoline-powered buses in 1973. The Chicago Historical Society, the city’s unofficial attic, stands just north of the Avenue at Clark.
Middle-aged wanderers may recall a bit of personal history here. Was it really that long ago that they wandered Wells Street and North Avenue, the heart of the Old Town nightlife district when it was the spot for the young to congregate in Chicago? Yes, as a matter of fact it was-about a quarter of a century ago. A few Old Town landmarks from that era remain-Second City Theater just to the north on Wells, and the Old Town Ale House on the southeast corner of North and Weiland.
A few blocks west, where North runs into Halsted and Clybourn, one finds more landmarks. The Golden Ox on nearby Clybourn is the only remaining culinary reminder of the time when North Avenue was called “German Broadway.” A bank located opposite the multicolored New City YMCA used to house Sam’s Cut-Rate Liquors, where yuppies stopped in the evenings to buy their wine and a considerably less upscale clientele stopped in the mornings to do the same. Sam’s has relocated to North and Sheffield, a building that used to house Meister Brau, at one time the city’s only brewery.
Just past Sam’s, you pass the Chicago River. Take a (pardon the expression) gander to the left and you’ll see Goose Island, a manmade island. This industrial-based island has been proposed at one time or another for everything from high-rent residential property to a Chicago world’s fair. But much of it stands as vacant-looking urban landscape, the kind of place where drug deal scenes are shot for cop movies.
West Town
Yuppies make forays into the land west of the river and the Kennedy Expressway. Some even live here, in places like the Langendorf Clothing Company, a condo building near Hermitage that replaced an old clothing factory.
West of Damen, however, the barrio soon takes over. Across the street at Hoyne from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a resource center for environmental issues, is Association House, one of the city’s oldest and most renowned social service organizations. This area is the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. A mural at a patio near Oakley celebrates aspects of Puerto Rican culture-sugar cane cutting, cockfights, and portraits of several Puerto Rican heroes.
You can’t miss El Mercado, the city’s first indoor Hispanic market, at Washtenaw, a block east of Humboldt Park. Bright tropical scenes painted on outside walls and a huge sign identify it immediately.
El Mercado, like markets in Latin American countries, has stalls devoted to individual products-toys, plants, baby clothes, tacos, you name it.
Somewhere west of the Helene Curtis cosmetics headquarters at Grand Avenue, the ethnic complexion of North Avenue changes from Hispanic to black. Churches now are likely to be of the storefront variety and more likely to be Missionary Baptist than Iglesia Pentecostal.
The All New Shorty’s City Lounge graces North Avenue just east of Cicero. Across the street, a sign proclaims “The success of 4 years of Effort-Washington Shopping Center-Percy Giles, Alderman.” There is a Goldblatt’s store half a block south on Cicero, but otherwise Washington Square resembles a prairie.
If Washington Shopping Center hasn’t yet come to fruition, other businesses abound. Do you want the self-proclaimed “King of Breakfast”? Go to North and Leclaire. A mini-jog to the west, Bayou Fish Market at Lockwood offers fish that are “fresh, alive, and kicking.”
DaVinci Manor, a banquet hall, stands at North and Central, a name commemorating the time when this was a solidly Italian neighborhood. Some of those Italians moved west of Austin Boulevard, to neighboring Oak Park.
West of Harlem, Oak Park turns into River Forest. The city gained a reputation as a home for mobsters when reputed mob boss Tony Accardo lived here. But River Forest also lays claim to the Illinois Police Association Inc., located in the 7500 block of North Ave. River Forest also is home to Nielsen’s, one of the Chicago area’s few Danish restaurants.
On to Maywood
River Forest becomes Maywood west of 1st Avenue. Off to the left lies the town’s signature attraction, harness racing’s Maywood Park. A miniature train, scooters, and tractors mark Kiddieland off to the right. At one time, several such juvenile amusement parks dotted the Chicagoland area. Kiddieland is about the only one left. Just up the street on 1st Avenue is Triton College, a junior college that contains the Cernan Space Center and a monthly planetarium show.
And if kiddie rides, horses and stars are not enough activity for one afternoon, a roller rink just up the road at 5th Avenue can take the kinks out of car-weary legs. The south side of North Avenue here contains the Super Bowl, a bowling alley, and Chicken Bowl-a restaurant, not a bowling alley for chickens.
Now we’re in Melrose Park, a largely industrial suburb. Jewel Drive marks the former national headquarters of the supermarket chain. Past 25th Avenue, we can see the central division headquarters of Benjamin Moore paints. After passing a land of couch warehouse outlets, North Avenue becomes more spacious with limited access. Frontage roads exit to side businesses. At Hillside, a Wal-Mart appears, a sure sign that the inner city is well past us.
Suburban sprawl
Past the Tri-State Expressway, North Avenue is solidly in Du Page County. The atmosphere is small-town suburban bordering on rural, homes that look lifted from a 1950s Saturday Evening Post.
Elmhurst is certainly more affluent than neighborhoods we’ve left behind. In West Town, you find beeper stores. Here, you see cellular phone stores. Look past the auto-related businesses and fast food outlets, and you can find Fun Seekers Comedy Night Club.
It’s not all “American,” though. Grace’s Irish Imports sells Celtic goods (including Irish meats). Three nearby restaurants offer cuisines of Mexico, China and Pakistan.
On the south side of the road in Villa Park, you can find North Avenue Plant Land. Oh, you can get plants there, plus accessories such as volcanic rock, colored gravel, cattle manure, mushroom compost and whiskey barrels. But the real attractions are the lawn ornaments easily seen from the road. Is your front yard short a flamingo or two? Here’s the place to replenish the flock. They have geese (with or without raincoats), lawn jockeys (white or black), dwarfs, and burros pulling carts.
If all of this lawn shopping makes you hungry, food is a couple of minutes’ drive away. Little Europe Cafe, just west of Ardmore, specializes in Polish and Hungarian cooking. Across the street, the Princeton Restaurant is a pancake house that presumably does not specialize in New Jersey cuisine.
Exurban sprawl
Years ago, all roads led to the central city. Times change. Now cutting across North Avenue is Interstate Highway 355, a tollroad ending at Interstate 55 that eventually may be extended south of there to connect Joliet with the northern suburbs.
The new tollway perhaps represents the dividing line between suburbia and exurbia. Or perhaps that line is represented by Art’s RV just west of the road. Buy a recreational vehicle here, or spend your pennies up the road at Kisses, a restaurant that advertises the “Hottest looking girls in town.”
A golf course and driving range are part of Glendale Heights. They also mark the beginning of more open spaces. Houses by the side of the road have large stacks of firewood piled neatly by the basketball goal. Lest anyone think this is purely WASP territory, one merely has to stop at Los Larrales Super Mercado, a grocery that offers Mexican handicrafts, food and Cantinflas videos.
Carol Stream has Boston Sea Party, a restaurant located a considerable distance from Boston or anything that’s been a sea since about the Silurian era. There’s an industrial park, and then cornfields.
Once a symbol of exurban (and even suburban) rurality, cornfields are dying out in Chicagoland. Windsor Park Manor, a pseudo-Tudor-style retirement center, lies on the south side of the road, opposite the corn. Can it be long before the ears on the north side of the road belong to apartment dwellers rather than corn plants? Now, however, the atmosphere is definitely rural. One can find not only cornfields, but also the occasional barn. If you stop at the Sunny Acres Farm, you can even buy straw.
North of North Avenue, a lonely-looking deserted farmhouse stands by itself. The Baker Homestead, circa 1843, is one of the oldest buildings in Du Page County, and a campaign is underway for its renovation. Addresses are listed by double numbers here, like 28W240-an address 28 miles west of the Chicago Loop.
Idyllic ruralism may be interrupted by a sudden loud buzz coming from above. To the south of North Avenue, Du Page County Airport looms. A busy small-plane airport, as well as being the official temperature center for the county, Du Page County Airport is the third busiest airport in Illinois.
You barely get west of the airport before arriving in St. Charles, which the city fathers boast is the home of the Boys 1983 state swimming championship. St. Charles is also home of Pheasant Run, a former farm that is now one of the best-known dinner theaters and resort centers in the Midwest.
If it’s getting late and you have your credit card-what the heck, you can stay the night. Or if you feel energetic, retrace your route. The Old Town Ale House should still be open for a quick one.
