Edgewater

In 1885, a Philadelphia-born developer named John Lewis Cochran purchased a large tract of vacant land in the Town of Lake View and set out to build something distinct. He built the first residential subdivision in the area and promoted it with the promise of electric streetlights, paved streets, and functioning sewers, at one point claiming Edgewater was the only electrically lit suburb adjacent to Chicago. Every street he platted was named after a station on the Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line, which is why Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Granville, Thorndale, and Ardmore still mark the neighborhood today.

By the early 1900s, Edgewater was regarded as one of Chicago’s most prestigious communities. Mansions dominated the lakefront, while large single-family homes spread inland. The symbol of that era was the Edgewater Beach Hotel, a sprawling resort that opened in 1916 on the lakeshore. The glamorous pink Spanish-style hotel attracted celebrities and dignitaries from across the country. Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt all passed through. The main building came down in 1967, but the adjacent Edgewater Beach Apartments still stands on Sheridan Road, its distinctive pink facade now a neighborhood landmark and a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

The building boom peaked in 1926 and property values reached their height in 1928. Then came the Depression, the war years, and the postwar migration to the suburbs. Like many Chicago neighborhoods, Edgewater lost population and prestige through the mid-20th century. The northward extension of Lake Shore Drive cut off easy access to the lake, contributing to a decline in the neighborhood’s status, as high-rises replaced mansions and longtime residents left for the suburbs.

The comeback took decades, but it held. A resurgence began in the 1970s as high-rise condos were built along the lake, and in the 1980s Chicago’s City Council helped new businesses establish themselves in the area. Loyola University also began encouraging students and faculty to embrace Edgewater during this period. The push for formal recognition culminated in 1980, when Edgewater became Chicago’s 77th and final officially designated community area, separating at last from Uptown after decades of advocacy by residents who knew they lived somewhere different.

Today Edgewater sits six miles north of the Loop, bounded by Foster Avenue to the south, Devon Avenue to the north, Ravenswood Avenue to the west, and Lake Michigan to the east. It contains several distinct sub-neighborhoods: Andersonville to the northwest, Edgewater Glen in the center, and the Edgewater Beach area along the lakefront. Broadway runs north and south as the main commercial corridor, separating the high-rise lakefront from the lower-scale residential blocks to the west. The Red Line runs underneath it, making the neighborhood one of the better-connected on the North Side.