Streeterville

Streeterville is the wedge of land between Michigan Avenue and Lake Michigan, north of the river and south of Oak Street. Most of the ground was landfill, and most of what stands on the landfill is tall: residential towers along Lake Shore Drive, hotels off the Magnificent Mile, Northwestern University’s downtown campus and the Northwestern Memorial hospital complex. Navy Pier sits at the east end on Grand Avenue, and Ohio Street Beach is the neighborhood’s swimming spot. The people who live here skew older and wealthier than River North, with a lot of retirees, doctors and hospital staff on short commutes, and Northwestern law and medical students in the rentals. The lakefront path is the front yard.

Where it is

Streeterville is part of the Near North Side community area. Michigan Avenue is the western edge, the Chicago River the southern edge, the lake the eastern edge, and Oak Street or Chicago Avenue the northern line, depending on who is drawing the map. No L station is inside the neighborhood; the Grand and Chicago Red Line stops under State Street are a ten-minute walk west. Buses do the heavy lifting: the 66 Chicago, 65 Grand and 124 Navy Pier run east-west, and the 2, 3, 146, 147 and 151 run down Michigan Avenue. Drivers come off DuSable Lake Shore Drive at Grand or Ohio. Downtown is a fifteen-minute walk across the Michigan Avenue bridge or a five-minute bus ride.

What to know if you’re moving here

Streeterville is a high-rise neighborhood with doormen, lake views and hospital-district convenience. Anyone who wants a porch should look elsewhere.

• Housing is nearly all condo and rental towers from the 1920s co-ops on Lake Shore Drive to glass buildings finished in the 2020s; as a broad editorial estimate for September 2026, condos run from roughly $350,000 for a one-bedroom to $3 million and beyond for high-floor lakefront units.
• Street parking is metered and scarce, there are no residential permit zones, and a deeded garage space in a tower can cost as much as a car.
• Assessments run high in the older lakefront buildings because of full-time door staff, elevators and facade work, and some co-ops still restrict financing.
• Public schools fall under Chicago Public Schools, and the neighborhood has no elementary of its own, so families look to nearby Near North Side schools or private options.
• Navy Pier draws millions of visitors a year, which means summer weekends bring slow traffic on Grand and Illinois and fireworks noise twice a week.
• The drawback a local would mention is wind: the blocks between the towers and the lake funnel it hard enough in winter that residents plan walks around it.

What to do if you’re visiting

Visitors end up at Navy Pier and on the Magnificent Mile, and the walk between them along Grand Avenue or the Riverwalk is easy and flat.

• Take a river and lake tour from the Michigan Avenue bridge with Wendella Tours & Cruises or Shoreline Sightseeing, whose docks sit on either side of the Wrigley Building.
• Spend an afternoon at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago on Chicago Avenue, a block east of Michigan, and eat in the museum’s garden restaurant.
• Bring kids to the Chicago Children’s Museum inside Navy Pier, then ride the Centennial Wheel and walk the pier to the end for the skyline view.
• Eat deep dish at Gino’s East on Superior Street, the flagship of a chain that started here in 1966, or thin crust on the Ogden Slip patio at Robert’s Pizza & Dough Company.
• Swim or sit at Ohio Street Beach, which faces the skyline, and bike the lakefront path north toward Oak Street Beach.
• Book dinner at Shanghai Terrace inside the Peninsula hotel for Cantonese cooking in a room built to look like a 1930s Shanghai supper club.