Six Corners is a

shopping district A shopping street or shopping district is a designated road or quarter of a city/town that is composed of individual retail establishments (such as stores, boutiques, restaurants, and shopping complexes). Such areas will typically be pedest ...

in the

Portage Park Portage Park is a park in the Portage Park community area of Chicago, Illinois on the National Register of Historic Places. The park stretches from Irving Park Road on the south to Berteau Avenue between Central and Long Avenues. The largest p ...

neighborhood of Chicago's Northwest Side.

History

The area's name is from the intersection of three streets—

Irving Park Road Illinois Route 19 (abbreviated IL-19, or simply Illinois 19) is a major east–west arterial road in northeastern Illinois, United States. It runs from Illinois Route 25 (Liberty St.) in Elgin, to Lake Shore Drive (U.S. Route 41) on the north ...

Cicero Avenue Cicero Avenue, also known as Skokie Boulevard in Skokie and Wilmette, is a major north-south street in Chicago and its suburbs in Cook and Will Counties. It carries Illinois Route 50 from its south end to Skokie, and U.S. Route 41 from Skokie ...

and Milwaukee Avenue. Its history as an urban center began in the 1840s, eventually becoming the largest commercial center in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, outside of the

Loop Loop or LOOP may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live * Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets * Loop Mobile, an ...

. There is evidence that Native Americans used a ridge along Milwaukee Avenue as a campsite, which would have been higher than the generally swampy surrounding land.

Architecture

The area is host to a number of examples of prominent architecture, including the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

and Klee Buildings, the

classical revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

Portage Theater Located at Six Corners in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago's Northwest Side, the Portage Theater is one of the oldest movie houses in Chicago. The Portage Theater opened on December 11, 1920 as the Portage Park Theatre (the former name ...

and the

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

Peoples Gas Irving Park Neighborhood Store.

Present

Although the shopping district has fallen on hard times in recent years, the area has been slated for redevelopment as an urban pedestrian shopping district with the recent reopening of the Portage Theater, the upcoming construction of several retail-condo buildings and a street beautification project. In recent years, the name "Six Corners" has also been applied to the intersection of Milwaukee,

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

, and Damen avenues in the Wicker Park neighborhood, though some believe that the name refers to the Portage Park intersection. Given Chicago's unique rectangular grid street system which is cut by a handful of diagonal streets, numerous intersections within the city contain six corners and therefore the term is sometimes applied in a general sense.

References

Shopping malls in Chicago Streets in Chicago {{Chicago-stub