Avondale, Irving Park

Bounded on the east by the Chicago River and bisected by the Kennedy Expressway, Avondale and Irving Park were Chicago suburbs that were annexed in 1889. Traditionally the heart of Chicago’s Polish community, Avondale has seen a recent influx of artists and young professionals attracted by affordable housing and its proximity to the Loop. Irving Park is largely residential, with many historically and architecturally notable homes that date back to the Victorian era.

Avondale/Irving Park: Welcoming North Side Neighborhoods

Written by Alan Solomon, with research assistance from the Chicago Neighborhood Tourism Project.

Midtown Produce, a corner grocery on Milwaukee Avenue, has this inscribed on its front window: "owoce, makarony, warzywa." Alongside those words, same window, are these: "carne y pastas, vegetales."

Today's Avondale is a little more complicated than that -- "tri-lingual," adding English, doesn't cover all the options in a neighborhood where nearly half the population is foreign-born -- but those six words, in a community that was once almost solidly Polish, are an indicator.

Changing as it is, Avondale's western precincts along Milwaukee Avenue nonetheless retain a Polish identity that dates back to at least 1894, when records show 40 families from the old country settled right here.

As often happened back then in Chicago, the immigrants almost immediately established a church. St. Hyacinth parish dates to that beginning.

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