Edgewater is a lakefront neighborhood on the North Side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is located seven miles north of Chicago’s Loop.
Edgewater’s boundaries are Foster Avenue on the south, Devon Avenue on the north, Ravenswood Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the east. Today, the Uptown community lies on Edgewater's south, Lincoln Square to its west, West Ridge to its northwest and Rogers Park to its north.
Edgewater was first developed around the 1880s as a summer home for Chicago's elite. Today it includes the Bryn Mawr Historic District and other historic districts. It includes many high-rise apartment buildings, condominium complexes and many homes.
Edgewater is 1.703 square miles in area and its population is 57,257. The zip codes in Edgewater are 60640 and 60660. The median household income in Edgewater in 2011 was $46,658, compared to the median income of $43,628 in Chicago as a whole. The median monthly rent in Edgewater in 2011 was $833, compared to Chicago’s median rent of $789.
The racial makeup of the neighborhood is as follows: whites 54.65%, blacks 14.34%, Hispanics 16.49%, Asians 11.65% and other 2.88%.
Edgewater attracts many single people and small families as residents. According to the 2010 census, the average household size in Edgewater was 1.8 people, while the average household size for the city of Chicago was 2.6 people. The percentage of family households in Edgewater is 23.8% compared to 43.5% as a whole.
Educational attainment in Edgewater is higher than in other areas of the city. About 27% of Edgewater residents hold a bachelor’s degree compared to 20% in the rest of the city.
Edgewater is home to several Chicago Public Schools as well as private schools. The local public high school is Nicholas Senn High School, established in 1913. There are several Catholic and other religiously affiliated schools in the neighborhood. Four of the neighborhood's elementary schools — Hayt, Swift, Peirce and Goudy — achieved a level 1 (excellent) status from the Chicago Public Schools in 2013.
The Loyola University Chicago campus borders northeastern Edgewater. The college was established on Lake Michigan at the north end of Sheridan Road, where it crosses into the Rogers Park neighborhood, in 1906.
The Edgewater neighborhood is served by the Chicago Transit Authority’s Red Line trains. The Red Line runs north to the city limits and south to Wrigley Field, the downtown Chicago Loop and ends on the South Side at 95th Street. Edgewater's elevated Red Line tracks run just off Broadway Avenue, and its four stations are Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Thorndale and Granville stations.
Along Edgewater's western border are the commuter rail tracks of Metra’s North Line, with stations in the nearby community areas at Ravenswood and Rogers Park providing transit to downtown.
During the 1870s, Edgewater was largely farms and forestland. Developers began buying up the orchards and farms and cutting down the dense forest in the 1880s to make way for development. From 1870 to 1887 the population of the township, then north of the City of Chicago, grew from 2,000 residents to 45,000. In 1885, the northeastern section of Lakeview was given the name Edgewater by a prominent developer, John Lewis Cochran. He built the first residential subdivision in the area. A few years later, Edgewater was celebrated as "the only electric lighted suburb adjacent to Chicago." Cochran was originally a tobacco salesman from Philadelphia who moved to the area in 1885. Every street in Edgewater at the time was named after a train station on the former Philadelphia main railroad line, and most of those still exist today. The "sunset" pink Edgewater Beach Apartments building is a landmark at the north tip of Lake Shore Drive in Edgewater.
Kreisman Law Offices handles Illinois lawsuits for the entire Chicago metropolitan area, including the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. Chicago's Robert D. Kreisman of Kreisman Law Offices has over 40 years of trial experience and specializes in a wide range of legal services, including Illinois personal injury law, mediations and arbitrations, Illinois product defect/product liability law, Illinois medical malpractice claims, real estate law, commercial litigation and Illinois nursing home abuse cases. Please call us 24 hours a day at 312.346.0045 or toll free 800.583.8002 for a free and immediate consultation, or complete a contact form online. Our office handles Spanish speakers with our bilingual staff.
Our Chicago loop office is in a convenient location for Edgewater residents. Kreisman Law Offices is located at the corner of Dearborn and Monroe Streets. There are many convenient modes of public transportation to Kreisman Law Offices at 55 West Monroe Street #3700, including the Metra and CTA.