
Ukrainian Village is a
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
neighborhood located on the near west side of Chicago. Its boundaries are
Division Street to the north,
Grand Avenue to the south,
Western Avenue to the west (although some maps extend to Campbell Street to the west), and Damen Avenue to the east. It is one of the neighborhoods in the
West Town community area, and has one of the largest concentrations of
Ukrainian Americans
Ukrainian Americans are Americans who are of full or partial Ukrainian ancestry. According to U.S. census estimates, in 2021 there were 1,017,586 Americans of Ukrainian descent representing 0.3% of the American population. The Ukrainian popu ...
in the United States, as the commercial and spiritual hub for nearly 70,000 Ukrainians in the greater Chicago region.
History
Ukrainian Village, like neighboring
East Village, began as farmland. Originally,
German Americans
German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry.
According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...
, who came mostly as immigrants in the mid-19th century, formed the largest ethnic group in the vicinity. With new waves of immigration starting in the late 19th century, by the turn of the century, the neighborhood was largely
Slavic. Similar to Chicago's ''
Lithuanian Downtown'' in
Bridgeport
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Is ...
, Ukrainians settled in the district because of their familiarity with
Poles
Pole or poles may refer to:
People
*Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland
* Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist
...
who lived in the surrounding
Polish Downtown
Polish Downtown was Chicago's oldest and most prominent Polish settlement. Polish Downtown was the political, cultural and social capital of Poles in Chicago and of other Polish Americans throughout North America. Centered on Polonia Triangle ...
. Dense settlement of the neighborhood was largely spurred by the 1895 construction of an
elevated train
An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks). The rai ...
line along Paulina Ave (1700 W), which provided access to workplaces. It was decommissioned in 1964.

The Ukrainian community in the
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also referred to as Chicagoland, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the Midwest, containing the City of Chicago along with its surrounding suburbs and satellite cities. ...
is not localized, but there was a concentration of immigrants and their descendants in what is now known as Ukrainian Village. It has three major Ukrainian churches, Ukrainian-owned financial institutions, a Ukrainian-language grammar school, the
Ukrainian National Museum, a Ukrainian Cultural Center, the
Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, two Ukrainian youth organizations, and many Ukrainian-owned restaurants, stores and businesses.
Over the past half century, Ukrainian Village has remained a middle-class neighborhood, populated largely by older citizens of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
an ancestry. It is bordered (and affected) on many sides by areas suffering more poverty and crime. There are also significant ethnic cultural institutions in the area. Although Ukrainian Village continues to be the center of Chicago's large
Ukrainian community, the gentrification of
West Town, Chicago
West Town, northwest of the Loop on Chicago's West Side, is one of the city's officially designated community areas. Much of this area was historically part of Polish Downtown, along Western Avenue, which was then the city's western boundar ...
community area is rapidly changing the demographic. Ukrainian Village is home to approximately 15,000 Ukrainians Americans.
Other notable local landmarks include
Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church,
St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral,
Roberto Clemente High School, St Mary's Hospital, and
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The latter was commissioned by
St. John Kochurov and designed by
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago school (architecture), Chicago ...
.
Churches
There are several churches within Ukrainian Village, with three located on one street, and most being within a block of each other.
St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral was the first of the two Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches in the village.
Ss. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church formed in the 1970s after St. Nicholas' parish split in disagreement. St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral represents the
Eastern European Ukrainian Orthodox Church and primarily serves the fourth wave of Ukrainian immigrants from the 1990s.
Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral was the first Eastern European Russian Orthodox church to be built in what was then called the "Slavic Village." It was commissioned by
St. John Kochurov and designed by
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago school (architecture), Chicago ...
.
St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral

Chicago's Ukrainian history begins on the north side with the arrival of immigrants from western and Carpathian Ukraine in the late 1890s. At the time, they called themselves Rusyns (Ruthenians), an anachronistic national appellation associated with Ukraine's role within the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Chicago

Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Chicago was founded in 1968 by Patriarch Josyf Slipyj and the bishop of the Eparchy of Chicago, Yaroslav Gabro. They and congregation members wanted to preserve and nurture the traditions of the Ukrainian Church. This church adheres to the
Julian Calendar
The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used as a religious calendar in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts ...
.
St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral

St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral represents
Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...
, the dominant religion in Ukraine. It has served new immigrants who have left Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union. Although Orthodox in faith, the cathedral is under the UOCUSA, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and has no affiliation with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
The church was originally built for a German parish. It was sold twice before it was finally bought and converted by the current Ukrainian parish.
Ukrainian Village District
On December 4, 2002, the
Ukrainian Village District, centering on Haddon Avenue, Thomas Street, and Cortez Street between Damen and Leavitt Avenues, including portions of Damen, Hoyne and Leavitt Avenues, was designated as a
Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark is a designation by the Mayor and the City Council of Chicago for historic sites in Chicago, Illinois. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artist ...
District. Extensions to the district were designated in 2005 and on April 11, 2007.
Gallery
Ukrainian National Museum.JPG, The Ukrainian National Museum
Josyf Slipyj street.JPG, Street sign marking a street named after a famous Ukrainian religious leader
Ukrainian Village Selfreliance Bank (Chicago).JPG, Selfreliance Credit Union (in Ukrainian Village, Chicago)
See also
*
Slavic Village
Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to:
Peoples
* Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia
** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples
** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples
** West Sla ...
in Cleveland, Ohio
References
External links
Official City of Chicago West Town Community map as pdf
{{Coord, 41.895989, -87.683734, display=title
Ethnic enclaves in Illinois
Chicago Landmarks
Neighborhoods in Chicago
Ukrainian-American culture in Chicago
Ukrainian communities in the United States
Rusyn-American culture in Illinois