City Detail

West Town, located in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois, northwest of the Loop, on Chicago's West Side is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas. Much of this area was historically part of the city's Polish Downtown, and its name may refer to Western Avenue, which was the city's western boundary at the time of West Town's settlement, but more likely was a convenient abstraction by the creators of Chicago's community areas. Then, as now, West Town was a collection of several distinct neighborhoods. It was the most populous of the community areas from their creation until it was surpassed by Near West Side in the 1960s. The boundaries of the community area are the Chicago River to the east, the Union Pacific railroad tracks to the south, the former railroad tracks on Bloomingdale Avenue to the North, and an irregular western border to the west that includes the city park called Humboldt Park.