The former North Shore Line entrance at the Howard CTA station on Howard Street, photographed in 2009 Photo: Zol87 from Chicago, Illinois, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Most city lines are invisible. Howard Street is the exception. For a stretch on the north end of Chicago, the street itself is the boundary, with Evanston on one side and Chicago on the other. Shops, restaurants and a train station sit along both curbs.
A street that is also a boundary
Howard Street is a major east-west road in the Chicago area. Its east end is at Sheridan Road in Chicago and it continues west, intermittently, through several north and northwest suburbs near O’Hare International Airport. In Park Ridge it goes by Sibley Street. In Chicago’s address grid it sits at 7600 North.
Between Paulina Street and Kedzie Avenue, the street separates the City of Chicago from the City of Evanston. The Chicago side is made up of the Rogers Park and West Ridge community areas. A Daily Northwestern article from Nov. 18, 2022, put it plainly: the street acts as the border between Evanston and Rogers Park.
The Howard station
At Paulina Street, Howard Street meets the CTA’s Howard station, the northern terminus of the Red Line. A photograph on Wikimedia Commons shows the station’s former North Shore Line entrance at 305 Howard St., on the Evanston side.
What is on the strip
The City of Evanston lists Howard Street among its business districts and describes it as a commercial corridor connecting Evanston and Chicago. Its guide singles out international food, including Jamaican, Central American and Wisconsin-style fish fry, along with a collection of murals. It names Peckish Pig, Ward 8 and Theo Ubique Theatre among the venues. Unlike the other districts, the city’s page lists no website for Howard Street.
The Chicago side belongs to Rogers Park, where the Rogers Park Business Alliance serves as the neighborhood’s business organization. Because the two sides share a street, they share customers and many of the same problems.
A joint study
In 2022 the Rogers Park Business Alliance and the City of Evanston planned to use a grant of more than $99,000 for a joint study of the pandemic’s effects on Howard Street, according to the Daily Northwestern. Cooperation of that kind across a municipal line is a practical matter. Each city has its own zoning, licensing and tax rules, so two storefronts facing each other can be subject to different governments while serving the same foot traffic.
That split is the main commercial fact of the street. A business owner on Howard picks a side of the road and, with it, a city hall. Evanston’s side carries its own district identity in the city’s business guide, while the Chicago side is part of Rogers Park.
For shoppers the line matters little. The Red Line brings riders to the same corner and the same sidewalks. For anyone studying how local economies work, Howard Street offers an unusually clear view of what happens when a boundary runs through the middle of a shopping district.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
