OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
LOGAN SQUARE
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Logan Square is an official community area, historical neighborhood, and public square located on the northwest side of the City of Chicago. It is centered on the public square that serves as its namesake, located at the three-way intersection of Milwaukee Avenue, Logan Boulevard and Kedzie Boulevard.
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Logan Square was voted the best north side neighborhood in 2020, a title that we're proud of. The community is unique to Chicago and has seen an influx of new residents that have rapidly changed the landscape of the neighborhood. Today, the area is home to old-school panaderias, hip late-night bars, trendy restaurants, a cool music scene, and so much more!
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Boasting stunning boulevards, part of the city's 26-mile Chicago Boulevard System, and a constantly expanding selection of restaurants and bars, Logan Square is one of the city's trendiest neighborhoods, balancing family-friendly amenities with a thriving nightlife. Walk along Milwaukee Avenue and you'll find cocktail bars and gastropubs as well as dive bars and late night eateries, all packed with young crowds watching local bands or playing vintage arcade games. The variety of diversions present in Logan Square attracts record lovers, musicians, pinball wizards and dining aficionados to this scenic section of Chicago.
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
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Logan Square is named after General John A. Logan, an American soldier and political leader. One of the most striking intersections in the city, the square itself is a large public green space (designed by architect William Le Baron Jenney, landscape architect Jens Jensen and others) formed as the grand northwest terminus of the Chicago Boulevard System and the junction of Kedzie and Logan Boulevards and Milwaukee Avenue, which was once known as "Northwest Plank Road" and traces its origins back to a Native American trail, prior to 1830.
At the center of the square, known as Logan Square is the Illinois Centennial Monument, built in 1918 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Illinois' statehood. The monument, designed by Henry Bacon, famed architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and sculpted by Evelyn Longman, is a single 70-foot (25-meter) tall "Tennessee-pink" marble Doric column, based upon the same proportions as the columns of the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, and topped by an eagle, in reference to the state flag and symbol of the state and the nation. The monument was funded by the Benjamin Ferguson Fund. Reliefs surrounding the base depict allegorical figures of Native Americans, explorers, Jesuit missionaries, farmers and laborers intended to represent Illinois contributions to the nation through transportation as a railroad crossroads for passengers and freight (represented by a train extending across the arm of one of the figures), education, commerce, grain and commodities, religion and exploration along with the "pioneering spirit" during the state's first century.
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DEVELOPMENT
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Originally developed by early settlers like Martin Kimbell (of Kimball Avenue fame) in the 1830s, forming around the towns of "Jefferson," "Maplewood," and "Avondale', the vicinity was annexed into the City of Chicago in 1889 and renamed Logan Square. Many of its early residents were English or Scandinavian origin, mostly Norwegians and Danes, along with both a significant Polish and Jewish population that followed.