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Logan Square
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Neighborhood Promotion and Neighborhood Map Thumbnail
Explore This Neighborhood
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Logan Square continued...
And now, something completely different.
On Kedzie Boulevard, near where it meets Logan Boulevard to form the actual Logan Square, is the Lula Cafe. It hasn't been here nearly as long as Margie's or Sam's. On its modest menu are elements of the following cuisines: Moroccan, Italian, Mexican, Indonesian, Japanese, Jewish, Greek and German.
One daily special features stinging nettles. "There are thorns," advises the waiter, "but they soften during cooking." A spicy peanut butter sandwich is enhanced with, among other enhancers, red onions, sambal (a chili-based sauce) and Indonesian soy sauce.
Across Kedzie Boulevard from the Lula Cafe -- back to boulevards -- is Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church (1912), familiarly known as Minnekirken, still conducting services in Norwegian. Down Kedzie Boulevard are many other good things. Same with Palmer Boulevard and Humboldt Boulevard and Logan Boulevard, things that have nothing to do with eating at all.
To drive today along Humboldt, Palmer, Kedzie Boulevards and, especially Logan Boulevard is to see the architectural equivalent of Margie's Candies -- a sweet preservation of something very special from another time.
Logan Square was strongly Norwegian in the early 1900s -- Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne, a Norwegian immigrant, lived here as a boy -- but it has always been diverse culturally and economically. Five years before the Norwegians built their church, the Irish built St. Sylvester's on Humboldt Boulevard. A few blocks south, on Fullerton just east of Kedzie Boulevard, stood the grand Logan Square Congregation Shaare Zedek (1922).
Mansions, most built in the first years of the 20th Century by immigrants who hit it big (among them Ignaz Schwinn, the bicycle maker), coexist with more modest houses of the time and with apartment buildings and with churches.
On side streets are humbler houses, many in great shape, some not, and more churches, some Norwegian, some not.
Dominating all is the Illinois Centennial Monument, on Logan Square, designed by Henry Bacon, same man who did the Washington Monument. Erected in 1918, the 70-foot column topped by an eagle has been the Logan Square landmark.
So intact were these 2.5 miles of tree-lined boulevards that the system was designated a National Historic District in 1985; the city followed 20 years later by designating the district a Chicago Landmark, further protecting it.
There has been change, of course. The synagogue is gone, demolished in the 1970s; St. Sylvester's now conducts some of its masses in Spanish. But the neighborhood remains one of first- and second-generation immigrants -- 65 percent are Hispanic, from all over -- and that, plus pockets of gentrification, have generated an unusually eclectic mix of restaurants.
Locals and visitors find all the Cuban classics (ropa vieja, cerdo estofado, the familiar sandwiches) at Siboney on Western Avenue and at Cafe Laguardia on Armitage Avenue. Mexican offerings range from common taquerias to the uncommon moles at Fuego and at Real Tenochtitlan, both on Milwaukee Avenue.
Mofongo, the Puerto Rican favorite, can be found at cozy Cocina Boricua on Fullerton Avenue. Go Peruvian for the cau caus at Rosa de Lima on Ashland or, around the corner on Armitage, at Rio's d'Sudamerica.
But there's also Italian -- Buona Terra does sophisticated Northern Italian goodies on California Avenue at rational prices -- and barbecue (ribs and rib tips at Fat Willie's, on Schubert Avenue, are favorites), and coffee shops, and more.
For shoppers, Wolfbait & B-girls, on Logan Boulevard, draws the boutique crowd, and there are a few other specialty stores. Music happens here, at larger venues (the Congress Theater, Logan Square Auditorium) and at clubs scattered about the neighborhood.
Add a throwback: The Logan Theater, on Milwaukee Avenue near the Centennial Monument, dates to 1915, and though it's gone from single-screen to a four-screen mini-multiplex, it nonetheless represents one of Chicago's few remaining stand-alone neighborhood movie houses.
Kind of like Sam's Red Hots being one of a vanishing breed.
"Everything is steamed -- your hot dogs, your polish, the tamales, the buns," says Julia Rempala. "We do it the original way."
Hold the stinging nettles.
For more information about Logan Square, please contact:
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Chicago Greenside Map: Logan Square
