Edison Park & Norwood Park

Edison Park and Norwood Park are the far Northwest Side neighborhoods that feel like suburbs inside the city limits: single-family homes on quiet curving streets, a small downtown along Northwest Highway, and a population heavy with police officers, firefighters and teachers who must live in the city. Norwood Park has the older houses and the Norwood Park Historic District; Edison Park has the restaurants and bars along Northwest Highway and Oliphant Avenue near the Metra station. Both border Park Ridge and Niles, and the lines between city and suburb are hard to spot.

Where it is

The two neighborhoods sit at the city’s northwest corner, bounded by Devon Avenue on the north, the Kennedy and Harlem on the east and south, and the Park Ridge and Niles lines on the west. Metra’s Union Pacific Northwest line stops at Norwood Park and Edison Park, both about 25 minutes from Ogilvie. The Blue Line’s Harlem stop sits on the Kennedy at the south edge, and the 68 Northwest Highway and 90 Harlem buses run through. Drivers use the Kennedy at Harlem or Cumberland; O’Hare is ten minutes away.

What to know if you’re moving here

This is the city’s residency-requirement neighborhood, and the housing reflects it.

• Housing is single-family homes, from 1920s brick to 1960s ranches and newer teardown builds, with typical prices of roughly $350,000 to $800,000 as a broad editorial estimate as of September 2026.
• Almost every house has a driveway or garage, and street parking is never a problem.
• Public schools fall under Chicago Public Schools, with Taft as the neighborhood high school and Edison Park and Norwood Park elementary schools serving the area.
• The Norwood Park Historic District around the Noble-Seymour-Crippen House, the oldest house in Chicago, limits exterior changes on some blocks.
• Metra is the practical commute; the Blue Line at Harlem is a drive or a long walk for most residents.
• The drawback is that it is a long way from everything else in the city, and a car is assumed.

What to do if you’re visiting

Northwest Highway near the Edison Park Metra stop is the walkable strip, with a dozen restaurants and bars in three blocks, and the rest needs a car.

• A short drive east at Milwaukee and Devon, Superdawg Drive-In is the 1948 drive-in with carhops and the rooftop hot dog statues.
• Dinner on the strip means the French bistro Café Touché, open since 2009 with duck breast and brook trout, or the rooftop patio at Tavern on the Point at the wedge of Northwest Highway and Oliphant.
• Bands and free bingo run at Emerald Isle, an Irish bar on the strip for more than four decades, and Edison Park Inn on Olmsted has eight bowling lanes next to a wood-burning pizza oven.
• Since 1978 the Dalmazio family has run Tony’s Italian Deli & Subs, where the house-made giardiniera and spaghetti sauce go home in coolers along with Italian subs.
• Down in Norwood Park, Zia’s Social at 6158 N. Northwest Hwy. turns out wood-fired pizza and a $28 Nonna’s lasagna.
• The Noble-Seymour-Crippen House on Newark Avenue, built in 1833, is open for tours through the Norwood Park Historical Society, and Olympia Park and Brooks Park have the pools and field houses.