GARFIELD RIDGE

Garfield Ridge is the 56th of the 77 Chicago neighborhood districts. The neighborhood gets its name from Garfield Boulevard and a neighboring glacier ridge. Garfield Ridge was previously known as Archer Limits. It occupies a total land area of 4.23 square miles (10.96 km2).

Garfield Park was used served as a transportation corridor before being converted into a residential area, which is why the area suffers from poor land quality. Nevertheless, the neighborhood offers a decent living environment to the residents. One may find many parks in the region, including the famous Normandy Park and Wentworth Park. 

The Garfield Ridge is considered an affluent society; the average household income of the Garfield Ridge residents is $72,962. This median average is considerably greater than the Chicago average of $58,247. Most of the houses in the neighborhood are craftsman-style bungalows with hip roofs. 

There are around 25 restaurants in the Garfield Ridge district and some great arts and entertainment sites. There are plenty of sidewalks in the region, and one can easily find a parking spot for their vehicles. The residents comment that restaurants, cafes, and grocery stores are within walking distance in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. 

Moreover, the Garfield Ridge neighborhood is suitable for commuting downtown. The neighborhood is very close to the I-55 and public transportation. It is only 12 miles (19 miles) from the downtown Chicago Loop. Traveling via bus takes 18 minutes to reach the city’s business hub. It is also located in close vicinity to the Chicago O’Hare Airport. The two locations have a distance of 14 miles (23 km) and a 31-minute drive. 

Map

Le Claire Courts, Sleepy Hollows, Vittum (Harriet Elizabeth) Park, and Archer Limits identify Garfield Ridge’s boundaries. The neighborhood lies in parts of 60629, 60632, and 60638 zip codes.

Population

Garfield Ridge has a total population of 35,439 people. Recent stats released by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning show that 77.6% of the individuals from this population are Native Americans, and 22.5% have a foreign nationality.

After being partly annexed to Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the neighborhood’s population exploded in the 1920s, following the construction of Midway International Airport. The fall in Midway’s use in favor of O’Hare International Airport resulted in a commensurate drop in population, which shifted from being predominantly Eastern European to have a significant Hispanic population. Hispanics made up about half of the population in the area by 2017.

Even today, the situation remains the same; Hispanics and Latinos constitute 50.9% of Garfield Ridge’s population. The second-largest racial sector is dedicated to whites at 41.9%, following blacks at 5.3%. Asians have a 1.2% share in the neighborhood’s population, and people of other non-Hispanic cultures occupy 0.7% of the total population. 

Real Estate

Garfield Ridge has around 12,236 households; the average household size is 2.9 persons. 95.4% of these households are occupied, out of which 83% are owner-occupied, and renters inhabit 17.2%.

Some major development projects are going full swing in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. The neighborhood’s first affordable housing project was the Le Claire’s Court Complex built-in 1950. Named after the Chicagoan pioneer Antoine Le Claire, The complex was primarily occupied by African Americans and consisted of low-rise structures. It had various support networks and became the first project in the state to be governed by its residents in 1987, making it one of the city’s most appealing projects.

Today, one can find various housing types in the Garfield Ridge locality. Single-family detached units are the most common building styles occupying 82.3% of the total households. Two-unit houses constitute 5.8%, and three to four-unit residential units occupy 5.2% of the Garfield Ridge real estate.

The Garfield Ridge housing units have an average selling price of $289,900. This amount raised by 7.6% compared to 2021. The Garfield Ridge real estate’s listing price is less than the Chicago average of $335K. 

Schools

The literacy rate in Garfield Ridge is quite satisfactory. 32.7% of the population has a high school diploma, while 21% attended some college but didn’t have a degree. Associate’s degree holders occupy 7.8% of the population, and Bachelor’s degree holders comprise 14.9% of Garfield Ridge’s total population. Moreover, 6.7% of Garfield Ridge residents have a graduate or professional degree.

There are various top-notch schools in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood, some of which are listed below:

1- Byrne Elementary School

Student population: 624 students in grades K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 15-to-1

2- Dore Elementary School

Student population: 747 students in grades PK, K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 16-to-1

3- Hale Elementary School

Student population: 877 students in grades K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 16-to-1

4- Kinzie Elementary School

Student population: 667 students in grades PK, K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 16-to-1

5- Mark Twain Elementary School

Student population: 1062 students in grades PK, K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 19-to-1

6- St. Jane de Chantal School

Student population: 281 students in grades PK, K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 22-to-1

7- Phoebe A. Hearst Fine Arts Magnet School

Student population: 335 students in grades PK, K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 11-to-1

8- A. Jackson Elementary Language Academy

Student population: 505 students in grades K-8

Teacher-student ratio: 14-to-1

9- Brother Rice High School Chicago

Student population: 732 students in grades 9 to 12

Teacher-student ratio: 18-to-1

Crime Ratings

Garfield Ridge is a Chicago police and fire department area. It’s fairly safe and a nice place to raise a family with little children. Because it is not a high-crime area, crime is reported moderately. It lies in District 08 of the Chicago Police Department. 

Zero murder cases were reported in the local police stations between February 21st and 27th, 2022. One criminal sexual case was filed, and 8 robbery cases were reported to the area’s police stations. Other than that, burglary cases were recorded to be 10, while the Garfield Ridge residents reported 17 theft and 17 motor vehicle theft cases.

History

Located on the city’s western border, Garfield Ridge was a well-ordered neighborhood comprising predominantly of single-family houses. 

The wet prairies had limited agricultural growth in the nineteenth century. After 1900, industrial development encouraged residential expansion, initially around the area and then within it. By 1950, residential development had surpassed industrial expansion, with block after block of the typical middle-class brick bungalows springing up. Garfield Ridge, located in the city’s outermost extremities on the Southwest Side, started to expand into its urban status over the previous century progressively.

Speculators and farmers bought the land from the 1830s until the 1850s, but few people remained. Whites, like Native Americans, sought to pass through and used Archer Road, the Illinois & Michigan Canal (finished 1848), and the Chicago & Alton Railroad to do so (the 1850s). In 1835, William B. Archer, I&M Canal commissioner, property investor, and originator of Archer Avenue, was one of the first land speculators, purchasing 240 acres adjacent to today’s Harlem and Archer Avenues. In 1853, John “Long John” Wentworth, a former mayor of Chicago, farmer, and land dealer, bought many parcels directly east of Archer’s holdings. Wentworth Park is named for him and is located on land he once owned. Chicago acquired the area in chunks in 1889, 1915, and 1921.

Dutch farmers specializing in growing cash crops were the first to establish permanently. The Archer Avenue Reformed Church, formerly of Summit, served 275 worshippers in 1899. In the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood, intensive housing development began in the northeast corner of the land. In the 1920s, the economy grew significantly. The population increased from 2,472 to 6,050 people during that decade, with Eastern European immigrants, particularly Poles, accounting for most of the growth.

The growing industrial infrastructure around Garfield Ridge, particularly in Clearing and Argo (Summit), provided jobs and encouraged people to settle in the area. With its transit line, Archer Avenue became the community’s primary business thoroughfare. The neighborhood’s fundamental economic architecture was put in place with the inauguration of the Chicago Municipal Airport (later Midway) in 1926. Nonetheless, the area’s rural nature remained. Residents commented in 1936 on the region west of Central Avenue’s remaining village-like aspect, with dirt roads, country houses, haystacks, and grazing animals covering the landscape.

During the Great Depression, the pace of development slowed, but the population nearly quadrupled from 6,813 to 12,900 between 1940 and 1950 and more than tripled to 40,449 the following decade. Residential growth, primarily single-family houses, followed industrial growth, which was aided in part by the activities at Midway Airport. During the 1940s, the western area of the town was filled with single-family houses.

The whites dominated the population of the Garfield Ridge neighborhood at the beginning of 1950. Garfield Ridge had a high rate (almost 40%) of foreign-born people in 1960, but it also had a substantial African-American population for the first time (6.6 percent). The Chicago Housing Authority developed LeClaire Courts, a low-rise public housing project along Cicero Avenue just south of the Stevenson Expressway, in 1950 and extended it in 1954. The population of Garfield Ridge peaked at 42,998 in 1970.

As airlines shifted to O’Hare Airport, Midway traffic declined, resulting in companies, jobs, and population loss. The majority of those who left were white, with fewer blacks and Hispanics, many of whom were out-migrants from Little Village and Pilsen, filling the void. In 2000, 77 percent of Garfield Ridge residents were white (more than one-third were of Polish descent), and 12 percent were black; roughly 4% were Hispanic, mostly of Mexican ancestry. Beyond LeClaire Courts, the African American community spread into middle-class neighborhoods.

The community continued on its journey to urban development in the 1990s, with renewed attention and investment in Midway Airport and the coming of rapid transportation to downtown.