Wicker Park, Bucktown & Logan Square neighborhood guide
Development
Wicker Park is named for Charles and Joel Wicker, who bought land along Milwaukee Avenue in 1870 and laid out a subdivision around a four-acre park they donated to the city. After the 1871 fire, large Victorian houses rose on Pierce Avenue and Hoyne Avenue, where brewers’ homes earned the name “Beer Baron Row.” The Wicker Park District became a Chicago Landmark district in 1991. Bucktown began as a Polish working-class area, and its name is traditionally tied to goats once kept there. Chicago annexed the last of Logan Square in 1889. Its boulevards, lined with graystone two- and three-flats and single-family houses, form the Logan Square Boulevards District, a Chicago Landmark district since 2005, with the 1918 Illinois Centennial Monument at its center.
Parks & Recreation
Wicker Park, at 1425 N. Damen Avenue, has a fieldhouse, playground, and gardens. Logan Square’s parks include Palmer Square on the boulevard system and Kosciuszko Park, dedicated in 1916. The Bloomingdale Trail, part of The 606, opened in 2015 as a 2.7-mile elevated trail on a former rail line from Ashland Avenue to Ridgeway Avenue.
Transit
The CTA Blue Line serves Wicker Park at Division and Damen, and Logan Square at Western, California, and Logan Square stations, with 24-hour service between O’Hare and Forest Park. CTA bus routes include 56 Milwaukee, 50 Damen, 49 Western, 72 North, 70 Division, and 74 Fullerton.
Community Area
Wicker Park is in West Town, community area 24. Bucktown and Logan Square are in Logan Square, community area 22.
