All Gold Coast / Old Town in Chicago

Gold Coast and Old Town are adjacent Chicago neighborhoods within the Near North Side and Lincoln Park community areas, on the city’s North Side. The Gold Coast sits along Lake Michigan just north of the Near North Side’s downtown core, while Old Town lies to its west, extending toward the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Gold Coast is roughly bounded by North Avenue to the north, Lake Shore Drive to the east, Oak Street to the south, and Clark Street to the west. Old Town has no legally defined boundaries; it has historically been described as the triangle formed by North Avenue, Clark Street, and the former path of Ogden Avenue, with the area south of North Avenue near the CTA’s North/Clybourn stop sometimes marketed by developers as “SoNo.”

Development

Gold Coast took shape after the Great Chicago Fire, when Potter Palmer relocated there in 1882 and built a 42-room mansion designed by Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Sumner Frost, draining swampland that became Lake Shore Drive. The Gold Coast Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and retains Victorian and early-20th-century architecture in Moderne, Italianate, and Queen Anne styles alongside luxury high-rises. Old Town’s Old Town Triangle Historic District dates largely to the 1870s, built by German and Luxembourgish immigrant families after the 1871 fire; the Old Town Triangle Association formed in 1948 to help preserve the area’s 19th-century building stock.

Parks & Recreation

Gold Coast has lakefront access at Oak Street Beach. Old Town includes several small parks and playlots within its historic residential blocks and adjoins Lincoln Park, one of Chicago’s largest lakefront parks, to its north.

Transit

The CTA Red Line stops at Clark/Division, serving Gold Coast, and at North/Clybourn, serving Old Town’s southern edge. The Brown and Purple Lines stop at Sedgwick in Old Town, built in 1900 and among the oldest standing elevated stations in the system.