Uptown is a dense lakefront community area on the North Side, built mostly between the 1890s and the 1920s after the elevated line reached Wilson Avenue in 1900. It has three accessible Red Line stations (Wilson, Lawrence and Argyle), a City-landmarked entertainment district around Broadway and Lawrence, the Argyle Street restaurant corridor, and Montrose Beach and Harbor a walk east.
Housing: courtyard buildings, flats and landmark blocks
Uptown’s housing is largely early-20th-century apartment and flat buildings, with older single-family houses mixed in on some blocks. The pattern was set early: developer John Lewis Cochran built mansions near the lake and multifamily housing west of Evanston Avenue, the street now called Broadway. Large apartment buildings and hotels followed along Winthrop and Kenmore, and many large units were cut into smaller ones during the World War II housing crunch.
The classic Uptown building is the courtyard apartment: U- or E-shaped around a landscaped yard, most common in the 1920s near the lake and the L. The City’s Dover Street report cites 4601-17 N. Dover St. (1914) as an example.
Several blocks are protected. The Hutchinson Street District (City landmark, 1977) is known for Prairie-style houses, many by George W. Maher. The Dover Street District (2007) mixes 1890s houses with two-flats and courtyard buildings. Sheridan Park, Buena Park and Castlewood Terrace are National Register districts, a federal listing rather than a City landmark designation.
Getting around: three rebuilt Red Line stations
Uptown’s three L stations, Wilson, Lawrence and Argyle, are all on the Red Line and all accessible. Wilson is the big one: the CTA’s $203 million rebuild opened its new main stationhouse on October 4, 2017, and kept the restored 1923 Gerber Building at Wilson and Broadway. Wilson is a transfer point between the Red Line and the Purple Line Express, and the CTA calls it the only transfer station between Howard and Belmont. The Purple Express runs only during weekday rush periods.
Lawrence and Argyle reopened on July 20, 2025, rebuilt under the CTA’s Red and Purple Modernization Phase One project with elevators, escalators, wider platforms and large overhead canopies. You will appreciate the canopies in February.
Sheridan station sits just over the line in Lake View, and Berwyn is in Edgewater.
The entertainment district at Broadway and Lawrence
The blocks around Broadway and Lawrence are a City landmark district, the Uptown Square District, designated in 2016. In the 1920s it was “the Loop’s Little Brother,” and the terra cotta is still there to prove it.
The Aragon Ballroom opened as a dance hall on July 15, 1926, under a ceiling of twinkling stars, and turned 100 in July 2026 as a concert venue holding about 5,000. The Riviera, a Rapp & Rapp theater, has hosted concerts since 1975. Its age is disputed: 1917 per the City’s landmark report, 1919 per the Encyclopedia of Chicago, October 2, 1918 per its operator.
The Green Mill began in 1907 as Pop Morse’s Roadhouse. Today it is a nightly jazz club and home of the Sunday Uptown Poetry Slam.
The Uptown Theatre, a 4,381-seat Rapp & Rapp movie palace from 1925, has been dark since December 1981. As of mid-2026, its owner and the City had not agreed on financing a restoration estimated at $190 million to $200 million.
Argyle Street and the main streets
Argyle Street is a restaurant and shopping corridor, and its blocks between Broadway and Sheridan Road were rebuilt in 2015-16 as Chicago’s “shared street”: no raised curbs, pavers, and planted rain wells, so cars, bikes and pedestrians share one level. The “Asia on Argyle” branding came out of a 2008 planning panel. In summer, the Argyle Night Market fills the street on Thursday nights; Uptown United, the local economic development group, has run it for more than a decade.
A few blocks west, the Essanay Studios building at 1333-1345 W. Argyle St. is a City landmark from the years (1907-1917) when Essanay made Uptown a center of the American film business.
The other main streets are Broadway, the commercial spine; Lawrence and Wilson, the east-west shopping streets; and Sheridan Road, where the 1921-era Sheridan Plaza Hotel still stands at Sheridan and Wilson. The Chicago Public Library has two branches here: Uptown, at 929 W. Buena Ave., and Bezazian, at 1226 W. Ainslie St.
Parks and the lakefront
Uptown has ten parks of its own; the lakefront belongs to Lincoln Park. Montrose Beach, at 4400 N. Lake Shore Drive, sits on 1930s New Deal landfill, with a beach house shaped like a lake steamer, a dog beach at the north end and Montrose Harbor next door. South of the swimming beach, the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary has the Magic Hedge, a roughly 150-yard stretch of shrubs and trees. More than 300 bird species have been recorded at the sanctuary and the adjacent dunes. The lake wind is free and plentiful.
Clarendon Community Center started in 1916 as a municipal beach with room for more than 9,000 swimmers. It lost its lake frontage when Lincoln Park was extended north in the 1930s. Today it has ball fields, courts and a dog-friendly area, as does Challenger Park. Chase Park, at 4701 N. Ashland Ave., has an outdoor pool. On the southwest edge, Graceland Cemetery, opened in 1861, holds Louis Sullivan’s Getty Tomb (1890), a City landmark of its own.
Uptown at a glance
Uptown is official community area 3 of Chicago’s 77. Inside its lines: 3 CTA L stations, 10 Chicago Park District parks, 2 public library branches and 7 Chicago Public Schools buildings. Neighborhood names on the City’s map that fall at least partly inside: Uptown.
L stations
- Argyle: Red Line (accessible)
- Lawrence: Red Line (accessible)
- Wilson: Red and Purple lines (accessible)
Purple Line trains stop here only on weekdays during rush periods, when the Purple Line Express runs past Howard to the Loop.
Parks
- Clarendon Community Center: 12.8 acres; playground, gymnasium, community center
- Chase Park: 4.9 acres; outdoor pool, playground, gymnasium, community center
- Challenger Park: 2.9 acres; dog-friendly area
- Buttercup Park: 1.9 acres; playground
- Broncho Billy Park: 0.51 acres; playground
- Smaller parks and mini-parks: Buena Circle Park, Hickory Park, Gooseberry Park, Aster Park, Carmen Park
Library
- Bezazian branch, 1226 W. Ainslie St.
- Uptown branch, 929 W. Buena Ave.
Public schools
These are the Chicago Public Schools buildings located inside the community area. Being near a school is not the same as being in its attendance boundary: to see which schools serve a specific address, use the CPS School Locator.
- John T McCutcheon Elementary School (grades pre-K to 8), 4865 N Sheridan Rd
- Joseph Brennemann Elementary School (grades pre-K to 8), 4251 N Clarendon Ave
- Mary E Courtenay Elementary Language Arts Center (grades pre-K to 8), 4420 N Beacon St
- Walt Disney Magnet Elementary School (grades pre-K to 8), 4140 N Marine Dr
- William C. Goudy Technology Academy (grades pre-K to 8), 5120 N Winthrop Ave
- Uplift Community High School (grades 9 to 12), 900 W Wilson Ave
- YCCS-Truman Middle College HS (grades 9 to 12), 1145 W Wilson Ave
More on the neighborhood
- Cooler by the Lake, Warmer by the Lake
- The ‘L’ Lines Before They Were Colors
- The Two-Flat and the Greystone: Chicago’s Real Signature Buildings
- Our sister site lists apartment buildings in Uptown and Edgewater, building by building.
- All 77 community areas
Sources: Encyclopedia of Chicago: Uptown; City of Chicago: Uptown Square District landmark report (PDF); City of Chicago: Chicago Landmark Name List, June 2024 (PDF); City of Chicago: National Register List, May 2024 (PDF); City of Chicago Landmarks: Hutchinson Street District; City of Chicago Landmarks: Dover Street District; City of Chicago: Dover Street District landmark report (PDF); National Park Service: Sheridan Plaza Hotel NRHP record; CTA: Wilson Station Reconstruction; CTA: CTA Opens New, Modern Main Stationhouse at Wilson (Oct. 4, 2017); CTA: Purple Line; WTTW: Newly Reconstructed Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn and Bryn Mawr Red Line Stations Are Now Open (July 21, 2025); WTTW: 4 Reconstructed CTA Red Line Stops in Uptown, Edgewater Set to Open Next Month (June 18, 2025); Chicago Sun-Times: Aragon Ballroom marks 100 years (July 15, 2026); JAM Productions: Riviera Theatre history; National Trust for Historic Preservation: The Green Mill in Chicago; Chicago Architecture Center: Uptown Theatre; WTTW: Long-Shuttered Uptown Theatre Marks Centennial (Sept. 8, 2025); Preservation Chicago: Need to Restart Stalled Restoration of the Uptown Theatre (2026); WTTW: ‘Shared Street’ Model in Uptown is Here to Stay (Nov. 7, 2019); Metropolitan Planning Council: Argyle Night Market (July 23, 2013); ABC7 Chicago: Argyle Night Market returns Thursday nights (July 14, 2024); Chicago Park District: Montrose Beach; Chicago Park District: Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary; Chicago Park District: Clarendon Community Center Park; Chicago Park District: Chase (Salmon) Park; City of Chicago, community area boundaries; City of Chicago, neighborhood boundaries; City of Chicago, CTA ‘L’ stops; Chicago Park District parks; Chicago Public Library locations; CPS school locations, 2025–26. Lists checked October 19, 2026; park features are from Park District data last updated in 2022.