Shopping with Your Kids - Chicago with Kids - page 225

LINCOLN PARK
I highly recommend shopping for kids in Lincoln Park. Sidewalks are crowded
with parents and strollers on a weekend afternoon. This North Side neighbor-
hood has a variety of unique specialty shops that make it easy to browse through
this leafy, picturesque community. Many of the shops on Michigan Avenue are
branches of national chains and offer few surprises, but the shops and boutiques
in Lincoln Park tend to be locally owned and offer unique and interesting wares.
Shops are located on the primary commercial arteries running through the area,
including Armitage Avenue, Webster Avenue, Halsted Street, Clark Street, and
Lincoln Avenue.
For kids, the highest concentration of stores is found on Armitage Avenue
and Halsted Street, which form one of the finest 19th-century neighborhood
commercial streetscapes remaining in Chicago. The district contains an excellent
cross section of residential and commercial building types significant in the
development of such streets, including small residential buildings and larger,
multistory mixed-use buildings, and is especially noteworthy for the profusion
of pressed-metal decoration, including bays, cornices, and corner turrets, on
many of the buildings. Together, the district's buildings form an important
streetscape that exemplifies the importance of neighborhood shopping streets to
the history of Chicago.
Armitage Avenue has emerged as a shopping destination in its own right,
thanks to an influx of wealthy young professionals who have settled into historic
townhomes on the neighboring tree-lined streets. The shops and boutiques here,
which sell everything from artisan-made apparel to interesting, offbeat gifts, are
geared toward a sophisticated, well-heeled shopper, and make for great brows-
ing. As you stroll the area, you'll get some sense of its strong community spirit,
with neighbors greeting each other and catching up on street corners. Most of
the shops are concentrated between Halsted Street and Clybourn Avenue. To
give you a sampling of the number of children's boutiques in this area, clothing
stores alone include The Second Child, Active Kids, GapKids, and LMNOP.
All are covered in detail under “Fashion,” later in this chapter.
LAKEVIEW
Shoppers will find elements of both prosperous Lincoln Park and alternative-ish
Wicker Park when they're wandering along Lakeview's principal commercial
avenues. One strip worth a stroll—and one that's popular with the stroller set—
is the gentrifying retail row along Southport Avenue, a few blocks west of
Wrigley Field. With the Music Box Theater at 3733 N. Southport Ave., north
of Addison Street, as its anchor, the area has an interesting mix of quirky and
artsy merchants and restaurateurs. Start at Southport and Roscoe streets and
walk north to find a string of hip kids' clothing and toy boutiques, including
Sweet Pea, 3447 N. Southport ( & 773/281-4426 ), and Elizabeth Marie,
3453 N. Southport ( & 773/525-4100 ). Nearby, on Ashland Avenue, you'll find
Bebe Elegante, 3338 N. Ashland ( & 773/477-2323 ), and on Lincoln Avenue,
Building Blocks Toy Store, 3306 N. Lincoln ( & 773/525-6200 ).
BELMONT AVENUE & CLARK STREET Radiating from the intersection
of Belmont Avenue and Clark Street is a string of shops catering to rebellious
kids on tour from their homes in the 'burbs. (The Dunkin' Donuts on the cor-
ner is often referred to as “Punkin' Donuts” in their honor.) If you have preteens
or young teens, they will be fascinated by the youth culture, the street life—and
the shops.