Nelson Algren said that nothing – not God, war nor the Ward super – could work any deep change on West Division Street, but he obviously never tried the tuna maki at Bob-San Sushi or had a hydro-therapy body masque at Vata Salon & Spa. The changes on Division Street and throughout Wicker Park have been profound during the last decade. This week YoChicago will explore what these days, might be Chicago’s best known neighborhood, at least for the 15 to 40 demographic.
We’ll start by opening the debate on what exactly constitutes the neighborhood boundaries of Wicker Park. The Wicker Park Committee defines the boundaries as Division, Bloomingdale, Ashland and Western. Wikipeida’s Wicker Park entry lists the same borders, but the Bucktown Community Organization claims the stretch between North and Bloomingdale avenues for Bucktown.
YoChicago’s Wicker Park journal and Big Stick, Inc.’s popular neighborhood map match the WPC boundaries, except that they name the northern boundary as North Avenue, not Bloomingdale. I would agree with this assessment, except that I’d put the southern boundary at Augusta (two blocks south of Division) and the eastern boundary at the expressway. The little slice between the highway and Ashland that some call the Patch or the Dog Patch or Noble Square is in my opinion a sub-neighborhood and still qualifies as Wicker Park.
I’d bet that if you asked people living in this section of the neighborhood, or a block south of Division, they would identify themselves as living in Wicker Park. The best way to verify this, of course, would be to hear from said people, so click on “Comments” below, or jump in on our Wicker Park forum to give us your neighborhood boundaries.