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Near North Side is a Chicago neighborhood and official community area immediately north of the Loop, bounded generally by the Chicago River to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, North Avenue to the north, and Halsted Street to the west. It is Chicago’s largest community area by population and among its most densely populated, encompassing several distinct sub-neighborhoods including Gold Coast, Old Town, River North, Streeterville, and Goose Island.
The neighborhood’s commercial core is the Magnificent Mile, an approximately one-mile stretch of North Michigan Avenue running from the Chicago River to Oak Street that separates Streeterville to its east from River North to its west.
Development
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable established the area’s first known permanent settlement in the 1780s near the present-day Michigan Avenue Bridge, a site now marked by Pioneer Court. The Michigan Avenue Bridge opened in 1920, replacing earlier swing bridges and enabling commercial development to extend north from downtown. The Magnificent Mile corridor originated in Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago and was built out during the 1920s in place of Pine Street’s former factories and warehouses; real estate developer Arthur Rubloff coined the “Magnificent Mile” name in 1947.
Parks & Recreation
Pioneer Court, at the Michigan Avenue Bridge, marks the neighborhood’s founding site. The historic Chicago Water Tower, one of the few structures to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, anchors the district near Water Tower Place.
Transit
The CTA Red Line stops at Chicago and Grand along State Street, two blocks west of Michigan Avenue, and the Brown Line stops at Merchandise Mart. CTA buses and seasonal trolleys also run along North Michigan Avenue.
