Post #43796 by tikibars on Mon, Jul 21, 2003 12:10 PM

For those of you driving, this might help:

Getting around Chicago by car.

Chicago is a perfect grid, with a major intersection every four blocks, and three residential streets between them.
There are exactly eight blocks to a mile.

Madison Street is the border between the north and south sides; State St. is the border between the east and west sides. The central business district is called The Loop, the corner of State and Madison is at approximately the center of the Loop. This is ground zero from which all Chicago addresses branch out.

Therefore, Madison (which moves east-west) is said to be located at 'zero north', and the street numbers for each block heading north from there increase by 100 (this is a rule of thumb inside the Loop, and is a strict rule once you are outside of the Loop). So, for the streets moving east-west, on the north side of town, Chicago Ave. (for example) is located at 800 N., and is exactly 8 blocks, or 1 mile, from Madison. Similarly, Division St. is at 1200 N., or 12 blocks from Madison.

Belmont is at 3200 N., or 32 blocks (and exactly 4 miles) from Madison. Therefore, if you are travelling on ANY north-south bound street, and you see an adress of 3100 to 3199, you know Belmont is the next street you will cross, heading north, or you have just passed it, heading south.

Looking at east-west streets on the south side, the numbers increase similarly, but get larger as you head south, rather than as you head north. So it is a mirror-image. The streets moving east-west are numbered rather than named, for the most part, after you pass Cermak (1200 S.). So 26th St., is 2600 south, or a little over 3 miles south of Madison.

For streets that travel north-south, the grid and numbering system are identical to the east-west system. Due to the curve of Lake Michigan, however, there is no east side of Chicago once you get north of the Loop. So ALL Chicago addresses on east-west bound streets above 800 N or so are considered to be on the west side of the city.

So if you're looking for Kitsch'n on Roscoe, and someone tells you that Roscoe St. is at 3400 N., then you know that Roscoe St. is 2 blocks north of Belmont (3200 N).

Or, if you are looking for Polynesian Village in the 6800 block of Addison (which is 3600 N), and Paradise Club at 7068 Belmont, you know that Polynesian Village is four blocks north and two blocks east of Paradise Club. Easy!

Even numbered addresses are always on the north and west sides of the street, odd numbers are on the east and south sides of any given street.

Many of the city streets continue on into the suburbs with the same street names; in some cases the numbering sysem continues as well.

The exceptions to all of this are a handful of diagonal streets which will either be shortcuts or will get you lost, depending on your sense of direction and familiarity with the city. These streets are:
Milwaukee, Clark, Lincoln, Clyborn, Elston, and Broadway.

Also, moving north-south in the city, north of the Loop, the fastest streets are Western (2400W) and Ashland (1600 W), and Lake Shore Drive (just head east on any major road to the lake, and you’ll be there; it’s northern end is at Hollywood St., 5700N, and it moves south most of the way to Indiana).