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Avondale, Irving Park
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Neighborhood Promotion and Neighborhood Map Thumbnail
Explore This Neighborhood
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Avondale/Irving Park continued...
The present church building was completed in 1921 -- and if visitors need a reason to come to Avondale more noble than hunger for pierogi and kielbasa, this certainly is one of them. Elevated by Pope John Paul II to basilica status in 2003, St. Hyacinth (open to the public most days; check the side doors), on the 3600 block of Wolfram Avenue, is a Baroque masterwork, from its three spires to the interior painting and mosaics to the stained glass dome that, together, truly deliver a sense of awe.
In a neighborhood that increasingly speaks with a Spanish accent, this remains a Polish church: Four of its seven Sunday masses are in Polish; the other three are in English.
Street signs still call this parish "Polish Village" -- and on Milwaukee Avenue, the storefronts along the four blocks from Central Park to Hamlin add their confirmation: Kurowski Sausage Shop, Pasieka Bakery, Staropolska Restaurant and Deli, Eva Polish Bookstore (author Dan Brown's bestseller "Deception Point" here becomes "Zwodniczy Punkt."), and Czerwone Jabluszko (Red Apple) Restaurant.
Festooned in the red and white colors of the Polish flag is Polski Sklep -- the Polish Store, where a big seller is a red T-shirt reading "Polska. Est. 966."
Across from Midtown Produce is Endy's, a sausage shop. Four women behind the counter take orders for a dizzying array of sausage options, all the women speaking Polish.
"What's good?" asks a customer, in English. The woman he asks responds with panicked silence and calls for help. Help comes swiftly.
"What's good?" the customer asks the second woman.
"You like garlic?" The customer nods. "The wiejska."
It is, in fact, good. Lesson: In a Polish shop with a dizzying array of sausage options, you can trust the woman who speaks a little English.
But Avondale isn't just a few Polish blocks of Milwaukee Avenue and one Polish church. Avondale is also live theaters -- the Galaxie and Prop Thtr. It's Guanajuato #3, a mile east of Polish Village on California Avenue and one of several Mexican restaurants. Avondale is Hot Doug's, just north of Guanajuato #3 on California, where folks line up -- literally waiting in long lines -- for such wiener exotica as lutefisk and pork sausage, or cognac-infused lamb sausage, or foie gras and sauternes duck sausage -- or just a classic Chicago hot dog with everything.
And Avondale is La Humita, on Pulaski Road, Ecuadoran. Kuma's Corner, on Belmont Avenue, with its addictive burgers. Or Chief O'Neill's, on Elston Avenue, Irish, which is a couple of blocks south of the Abbey Pub, also on Elston, also Irish -- but the Abbey is in the Irving Park neighborhood, a world of its own.
Irving Park -- much of it subtitled Old Irving Park -- is Avondale's neighbor to the north. It's primarily a quiet neighborhood of attractive older homes in various architectural styles, interrupted by two-flat apartments and larger multifamily buildings.
Most of the residences aren't this old, but the John Gray Home, at the corner of Grace Street and Kostner Avenue, dates to 1856 (ancient for Chicago), and several others are from the 1870s and 1880s. The Villa District, a residential wedge that extends from the corner of Pulaski Road and Addison Street north to the Kennedy Expressway (Interstate Highway 90-94), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The neighborhood is also home to popular restaurants in a variety of ethnic flavors. There's nothing else in the city -- and possibly nothing in Bangkok -- quite like much-celebrated Arun's (Kedzie north of Irving Park Road), where the cost of a Thai dinner can easily exceed $100 per person. Less costly (as well as less spicy) is Mirabell, a convivial Austrian-German restaurant on Addison Street just east of the Kennedy. Romanian is the theme at Little Bucharest, on Elston, not far from the Irish pair of Abbey and Chief O'Neill's, both of which are also music venues. Strolling musicians liven up the Italian fare at Sabatino's on Irving Park at Kenneth Avenue, a longtime neighborhood favorite.
Two welcoming neighborhoods. Come visit.
Dziękuję. Gracias. Thanks.
For more information about Avondale/Irving Park, please contact:
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