Lincoln Square
You could go almost anywhere in Chicago and not chalk up anywhere near the non-corporate island haven-like status of Lincoln Square. Truly unique in the Rahm Emanuel business-friendly landscape of in-your-face commercial madness splashed across every rentable surface in the city, this neighborhood boasts not one but three (two of which are local) coffee shops within a two-block radius, hold-out record store Laurie’s Planet of Sound (a shocker in and of itself in the age of iTunes), and the neighborhood-owned Davis theater. “Locally owned” doesn’t just do the fight happening here against the tide of cheap, corporate replacement options service. This ‘hood is sexy as hell, and knows it.
Montrose Avenue on the south, Ravenswood Avenue on the east and the Chicago River on the west
Best of Chicago 2013