Lincoln Park Neighborhoods: A Guide to Every Pocket

Lincoln Park, Chicago community area #7, runs from North Avenue to Diversey Parkway and from Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, and it is really a patchwork of smaller pockets, each with its own neighborhood association. The seven associations recognized by the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce are Old Town Triangle, Mid-North, RANCH Triangle, Lincoln Central, Park West, Sheffield and Wrightwood Neighbors. This guide covers each pocket’s boundaries, housing, main streets and Chicago Landmark districts, plus the changing industrial corridor along the North Branch of the river.

Lincoln Park neighborhoods at a glance

Community area	Lincoln Park, Chicago community area #7
Outer boundaries	North Avenue (south), Diversey Parkway (north), Lake Michigan (east), Chicago River (west)
Size	About 3.2 square miles
Neighborhood associations	Seven: Old Town Triangle, Mid-North, RANCH Triangle, Lincoln Central, Park West, Sheffield, Wrightwood Neighbors
Oldest association	Old Town Triangle Association, organized in 1948
Largest landmark district	Mid-North District (designated 1977, extended 2004), about 480 buildings in the original survey
Other landmark districts	Old Town Triangle, McCormick Row House, Arlington-Deming, Arlington & Roslyn Place, Armitage-Halsted, Bissell Street, Burling Row House, Fremont Row House, Lincoln Avenue Row House, Lakeview Avenue Row House
National Register district	Sheffield Historic District (listed 1976, enlarged in the 1980s)
Main ZIP codes	60614, plus parts of 60657 and 60610

How Lincoln Park’s pockets are defined

Lincoln Park’s sub-neighborhoods are defined mainly by volunteer neighborhood associations, not by the City, so their lines come from each association and from the aldermen who work with them. Those with published founding dates were organized between 1948 and 1963, during the postwar push to restore older housing, and they still weigh in on zoning, landmarking, parks and street festivals.

A few things to know before you dig into the map:

Association areas and landmark districts are different things. An association covers a whole pocket. A Chicago Landmark district is a set of blocks the City Council has protected, and exterior changes there need review by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
Boundaries sometimes differ by source. Wrightwood Neighbors, for example, gives its western edge as Ashland Avenue, while the 43rd Ward’s map lists Lakewood Avenue. Check the association’s own map for a specific address.
Ward lines don’t match association lines. The 43rd Ward’s own neighborhood map notes that it is clipped to ward boundaries and that some associations reach beyond the ward.
Informal names are still common. People say “the DePaul area,” “Armitage and Halsted” or “Lincoln-Halsted-Fullerton” for spots that sit inside the formal association areas.

For the bigger picture on daily life, start with our complete guide to living in Lincoln Park. For how the pockets came to look the way they do, see our history of Lincoln Park.

South of Fullerton, east of Lincoln Avenue: Old Town Triangle and Mid-North

The southeast corner of Lincoln Park, between the park itself and Lincoln Avenue, holds its oldest blocks and its two largest landmark districts.

Old Town Triangle

Boundaries: The Old Town Triangle Association describes “the Triangle” as the area bounded by North Avenue, Clark Street and the former Ogden Avenue right-of-way. The Chicago Landmark district inside it is bounded by Lincoln Avenue, North Avenue, Wells Street and the old Ogden right-of-way.

Character and housing: German immigrants settled here in the 1850s, and St. Michael’s Church, first dedicated in 1852, anchored the community. The 1871 Fire burned the area and gutted the church, though its walls survived and were reused. Residents first rebuilt with small wood-frame workers’ cottages. After the city banned wood construction, they built brick and stone houses, and row houses and apartment buildings went up on the eastern side. Expect narrow, tree-lined streets, Crilly Court’s 1880s row houses and apartments, and a mix of cottages, row houses and small flats.

Landmark status: The Old Town Triangle District became a Chicago Landmark district in 1977. The Commission on Chicago Landmarks notes that 1940s neighborhood activism here was among the nation’s earliest neighborhood revitalization efforts.

Main streets and landmarks: Wells Street, North Avenue and St. Michael’s. The association has run the Old Town Art Fair, held on the second weekend of June, since 1948. The Second City is at Wells and North Avenue. The Hotel Lincoln and its J. Parker rooftop face the park at Clark and North.

Mid-North

Boundaries: The Mid-North Association, founded in 1950, covers the area bounded by Lincoln Park (the park) on the east, Fullerton on the north, Lincoln Avenue on the west and the Ogden right-of-way on the south. The Mid-North landmark district inside it is roughly Fullerton to Armitage between Lincoln Avenue and Clark Street, with some irregular edges.

Character and housing: The City’s landmark report counted about 480 buildings, most built between 1871 and 1900. The mix includes Chicago cottages, flat-front and bay-front houses, row houses, two- and three-flats, and larger apartment buildings. The 1871 Fire damaged the district’s eastern blocks before dying out near Fullerton, and a few pre-Fire buildings survive. Among them is the 1869 Bellinger cottage on Hudson Avenue, designed by W.W. Boyington. Look also for the 1883 Ann Halsted house on Belden by Adler and Sullivan. The blocks nearest the park also hold larger apartment buildings, some with park views.

Landmark status: Mid-North was designated a Chicago Landmark district on August 31, 1977, and an extension was added in 2004. The small Lincoln Avenue Row House District (1928–36 N. Lincoln Ave.) was designated in 2009. Its 1875 Italianate row houses, faced in yellow Joliet limestone, were built by mapmaker Andrew McNally.

Nearby: The Lincoln Park Zoo, the Lincoln Park Conservatory, the Green City Market at the park’s south end, RJ Grunts across from the zoo, and Gemini on Lincoln Avenue. To see how Mid-North compares with a pocket north of Fullerton, read Mid-North vs. Wrightwood Neighbors.

Between Halsted and Lincoln Avenue: Lincoln Central

Lincoln Central is the wedge between Lincoln Avenue and Halsted Street that runs south to North Avenue, built around Oz Park and the Armitage-Halsted shopping district.

Boundaries: The Lincoln Central Association lists its boundaries as Lincoln Avenue on the northeast, Halsted Street on the west and North Avenue on the south. Its website map shows the exact outline.

Character and housing: These are residential side streets of brick and frame homes, two- and three-flats, row houses, and newer single-family and condo buildings. Two of the city’s best 1870s row-house groups are here, both built after the Fire under the new rule requiring masonry construction:

Burling Row House District (2225–2245 N. Burling St., designated 2000): ten Italianate brick row houses from 1875 that share one intact wooden cornice.
Fremont Row House District (2100–2144 N. Fremont St., even numbers, designated 2004): twenty Italianate row houses from 1875, among the largest surviving masonry groups built after the wood ban.

Main streets and landmarks: Oz Park, about 13 acres at Webster and Burling, has its Emerald Garden and John Kearney’s Oz statues. On the pocket’s western edge, the Armitage-Halsted District, designated in 2003, protects 1870–1930 storefront buildings along Armitage (Halsted to Racine) and Halsted (Armitage to Webster). It is one of Chicago’s best-kept 19th-century neighborhood shopping streets. Browse its boutiques in our shopping directory. For dinner nearby, Boka and Armitage Alehouse are local favorites.

West of Halsted, south of Fullerton: Sheffield, the DePaul area and RANCH Triangle

West of Halsted, Lincoln Park splits into Sheffield, which includes DePaul’s campus, from Fullerton to Armitage, and RANCH Triangle from Armitage down to North Avenue.

Sheffield Neighbors and the DePaul area

Boundaries: The 43rd Ward lists the Sheffield Neighborhood Association, founded in 1959, as Halsted Street on the east, the Chicago River on the west, Fullerton Avenue on the north and Armitage Avenue on the south. DePaul University’s 36-acre Lincoln Park campus fills much of the northern half, so locals often call that stretch “the DePaul area.” It is not a separate association.

Character and housing: Expect a mix of 19th-century frame and brick homes, two- and three-flats, vintage apartment buildings near campus, and many newer single-family homes on standard city lots. The Sheffield Historic District went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and grew through three extensions in the 1980s. That listing is honorary and does not stop demolition. Landmarks Illinois reports that more than 350 properties in the National Register district have been torn down. Only about 20 blocks, roughly 253 of its 1,000-plus buildings, have local protection through Chicago Landmark districts.

Landmark districts in or touching Sheffield:

McCormick Row House District (designated May 4, 1977): Queen Anne–style row houses built from 1882 to 1889 to bring in rental income for McCormick Theological Seminary. They line the 800 block of W. Chalmers, the 2300 block of N. Chalmers, 828–58 W. Belden and 831–931 W. Fullerton, around a private street and park. Read more in our McCormick Row House District article.
Bissell Street District (designated 2007): twenty three-, six- and nine-flat buildings in the 2100 block of N. Bissell, between Webster and Dickens. Architect Iver C. Zarbell designed them to read as a street of red-brick mansions.
The western part of the Armitage-Halsted District along Armitage toward Racine.

Main streets and landmarks: Fullerton Avenue and the Fullerton L station, Sheffield and Webster avenues, and DePaul’s campus. The DePaul Art Museum, at 935 W. Fullerton beside the Fullerton station, closed on June 30, 2026. The neighborhood’s long-running Sheffield Garden Walk is a free July weekend of open gardens and music. Its 53rd edition was in 2024.

RANCH Triangle

Boundaries: RANCH is an acronym for its borders: Racine Avenue, Armitage Avenue, North Avenue, the Chicago River and Halsted Street. The RANCH Triangle Community Conservation Association has been active since 1963.

Character and housing: This is a compact pocket of 19th-century cottages, two-flats and row houses on its residential blocks east of Clybourn, with newer townhomes, condos and big-box retail toward the river and North Avenue. The Armitage and North/Clybourn L stations are each a short walk from parts of the pocket.

Nearby: Up Clybourn, Dirk’s Fish & Gourmet Shop and Pequod’s Pizza are well-known stops for residents of the western pockets. For transit and parking details, see getting around Lincoln Park.

North of Fullerton: Park West and the lakefront high-rises

Park West covers everything from Halsted Street to the lake between Fullerton and Diversey, including the high-rise corridor along Lakeview Avenue and Lincoln Park West.

Boundaries: The 43rd Ward lists the Park West Neighborhood Association area as Halsted Street (west) to the lakefront (east) and Fullerton Avenue (south) to Diversey Parkway (north). The name has been in use since at least 1979. That year the Park District renamed the Wrightwood Playlot at 745 W. Wrightwood “Park West” at the request of the Park West Community Association.

Character and housing: Park West has the widest range of housing in Lincoln Park:

Lakefront high-rises along Lakeview Avenue, Lincoln Park West and Fullerton Parkway: condo and rental towers facing the park and the lake.
Vintage courtyard and corner buildings and apartment hotels, mostly from the 1900s through the late 1920s.
Greystones, row houses and mansions on blocks such as Deming Place, Arlington Place and Geneva Terrace.

Landmark districts:

Arlington-Deming District (designated 2007): parts of Arlington Place, Deming Place, Geneva Terrace and Orchard Street. Its buildings date from about 1872 to 1946 and include 1870s frame cottages, 1880s–1890s row houses and Deming Place mansions, and late-1920s apartment buildings and apartment hotels. Builders came here after the 1871 Fire partly because this land was then in Lake View Township, outside the city’s new building rules.
Arlington & Roslyn Place District (designated 1989): the 400 blocks of Arlington and Roslyn between Clark and Lakeview. It has 47 buildings, most from 1894 to 1910, with uniform setbacks.
Lakeview Avenue Row House District (designated 2016): four Georgian-style row houses at 2700–2710 N. Lakeview Ave., built 1915–1917 and designed by Henry Dangler and David Adler.
Individual landmarks include the Dewes houses at 503 and 509 W. Wrightwood and the Elks National Memorial Headquarters building.

Main streets and landmarks: Clark Street, Diversey, the lakefront and the park’s north end. Nearby are North Pond, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Theater on the Lake and the Lakefront Trail. Clark Street has late-night favorites like The Wieners Circle and Del Seoul. Kingston Mines is on Halsted. More in parks and the lakefront.

Northwest: Wrightwood Neighbors

Wrightwood Neighbors is the pocket west of Halsted between Fullerton and Diversey, a largely residential grid of side streets with a neighborhood feel.

Boundaries: The Wrightwood Neighbors Association, active since 1962, describes its area as bounded by Halsted, Fullerton, Ashland and Diversey. The 43rd Ward’s map lists Lakewood Avenue as the western line within that ward.

Character and housing: Expect brick and frame two-flats, workers’ cottages, greystones and vintage walk-ups on standard lots, mixed with newer single-family homes and condos. Extensions of the Sheffield National Register district reach north of Fullerton here, around Altgeld Street and Lakewood Avenue. Lincoln Avenue’s commercial strip crosses the pocket diagonally, and Southport Avenue runs through it, and Diversey is its northern edge. It is close to the Fullerton and Diversey L stations.

Compare: Read our side-by-side Mid-North vs. Wrightwood Neighbors comparison. For home prices by pocket, see the Lincoln Park real estate guide.

The Clybourn Corridor and North Branch

Along the river, Lincoln Park’s western edge is a changing commercial and former industrial corridor rather than a neighborhood association area.

Clybourn Avenue runs diagonally through the western pockets and is lined with larger-format shopping and grocery stores. Beyond it, the City’s North Branch Industrial Corridor covers about 760 acres along the river from Kinzie Street to Fullerton Avenue. The North Branch Framework, adopted by the Chicago Plan Commission in May 2017, rezoned large parts of the corridor so that mixed uses could replace manufacturing-only zoning.

Lincoln Yards: Sterling Bay bought the former A. Finkl & Sons steel site in 2016, and the City Council approved its Lincoln Yards plan in 2019. Only a small part was built before the developer gave the northern section to its lender in 2025.
Foundry Park: JDL and Kayne Anderson took over that northern site and won City Council approval in early 2026. The master plan calls for about 3,200 homes, retail, office space and new parkland. Its first phase is planned around Southport, Cortland and Kingsbury. Plans and timing can still change.

Comparing Lincoln Park’s pockets

The table below summarizes each pocket’s boundaries, housing and protected districts, using the associations’ and the City’s descriptions.

Pocket	Approximate boundaries	Typical housing	Chicago Landmark districts	Anchors
Old Town Triangle	North Ave, Clark St, former Ogden right-of-way	Post-Fire cottages, row houses, small flats	Old Town Triangle (1977)	St. Michael’s, Wells St, Old Town Art Fair
Mid-North	Park (east), Fullerton, Lincoln Ave, Ogden right-of-way	Cottages, row houses, 2–3 flats, vintage and park-view high-rises	Mid-North (1977, ext. 2004), Lincoln Ave Row House (2009)	Zoo, Conservatory, Green City Market
Lincoln Central	Lincoln Ave (NE), Halsted (W), North Ave (S)	Row houses, 2–3 flats, single-family homes, condos	Burling Row House (2000), Fremont Row House (2004), part of Armitage-Halsted (2003)	Oz Park, Armitage & Halsted shops
Sheffield / DePaul area	Halsted, Chicago River, Fullerton, Armitage	19th-century homes and flats, new single-family, student-area apartments	McCormick Row House (1977), Bissell Street (2007), part of Armitage-Halsted	DePaul, Fullerton L, Garden Walk
RANCH Triangle	Racine, Armitage, North Ave, river, Halsted	Cottages, 2-flats, row houses, newer townhomes	None of its own	Clybourn retail, Armitage L, Clybourn Metra
Park West	Halsted to the lake, Fullerton to Diversey	Lakefront high-rises, courtyard buildings, greystones, mansions	Arlington-Deming (2007), Arlington & Roslyn Place (1989), Lakeview Ave Row House (2016)	North Pond, Nature Museum, Clark St
Wrightwood Neighbors	Halsted, Fullerton, Ashland (association) or Lakewood (ward map), Diversey	2-flats, cottages, greystones, walk-ups, new single-family	None of its own (in Sheffield National Register area)	Lincoln Ave, Southport, Diversey

Landmark status affects what owners can change on a building’s exterior, so check the City’s landmark map before buying in or near a district. Our Lincoln Park FAQ and schools guide cover other questions that tend to vary by pocket, including parking zones (see our zoned parking guide) and school attendance boundaries.

Frequently asked questions

What are the neighborhoods within Lincoln Park, Chicago?

Lincoln Park is usually divided into seven neighborhood association areas: Old Town Triangle, Mid-North, RANCH Triangle, Lincoln Central, Park West, Sheffield and Wrightwood Neighbors. Locals also use informal names such as the DePaul area, Armitage-Halsted and the Clybourn Corridor.

What are the boundaries of Lincoln Park?

The Lincoln Park community area runs from North Avenue on the south to Diversey Parkway on the north, and from Lake Michigan on the east to the North Branch of the Chicago River on the west. It covers about 3.2 square miles.

Is Old Town part of Lincoln Park?

Partly. The Old Town Triangle, north of North Avenue and bounded by Clark Street and the former Ogden Avenue right-of-way, is inside the Lincoln Park community area. The rest of what people call Old Town, south of North Avenue along Wells Street, is in the Near North Side community area.

What does RANCH Triangle stand for?

RANCH comes from the initials of the pocket’s borders: Racine Avenue, Armitage Avenue, North Avenue, the Chicago River and Halsted Street. The RANCH Triangle Community Conservation Association has represented the area since 1963.

Which parts of Lincoln Park are Chicago Landmark districts?

Lincoln Park’s Chicago Landmark districts include Mid-North, Old Town Triangle, McCormick Row House, Arlington-Deming, Arlington and Roslyn Place, Armitage-Halsted, Bissell Street, Burling Row House, Fremont Row House, Lincoln Avenue Row House and Lakeview Avenue Row House. Exterior changes in these districts are reviewed by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

Is the Sheffield Historic District protected from demolition?

Mostly not. The Sheffield Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which is honorary. Only the blocks that are also inside Chicago Landmark districts, about 253 of more than 1,000 buildings according to Landmarks Illinois, have local protection.

Where are the high-rises in Lincoln Park?

Lincoln Park’s high-rise apartments and condos are concentrated on the lakefront side, along Lakeview Avenue, Lincoln Park West, Fullerton Parkway and Clark Street, mostly in the Park West and Mid-North areas. Newer mid- and high-rise buildings are also going up at Lincoln Common and along the North Branch.

Sources

Weighing which pocket fits your routine? Joe Bjorklund is happy to talk through the options with you. Get in touch.

Last updated October 2026 by Joe Bjorklund, Baird & Warner Lincoln Park.