Dentist Near Washington Heights, Chicago

About Washington Heights

Washington Heights is community area 73, twelve miles from the Loop on the far south side. It runs from the railroad tracks at 89th Street down to 107th, with Eggleston and Halsted marking much of the eastern edge and Beverly Avenue — shifting to Vincennes below 103rd — the western. It contains three distinct neighborhoods: Washington Heights itself, Brainerd and Fernwood. Our office at 2036 West 95th Street sits just across the western boundary.

A history built on rail lines

The area's history has been described as being fundamentally about transit, and that is fair. The Panhandle and Rock Island lines were both built through here in 1852, and railroad workers began settling in 1864 and 1865. The Blue Island Land and Building Company subdivided land here in 1869. A post office was established in 1869 and gave the area its name, honouring George Washington; the heights the name referred to eventually split off and became Beverly.

Brainerd took its name from E. L. Brainerd, who built a train station at 89th and Loomis in 1887. Fernwood was established in 1883 and grew quickly, passing 185 houses within two years. Washington Heights incorporated as a village in 1874 and was annexed by Chicago in 1890, with Brainerd annexed at the same time and Fernwood following in 1891.

Interstate 57 opened through the area in 1967, forcing many residents to move. It is the only expressway in the city without a nickname; a portion of it was named for the Tuskegee Airmen in 2012.

Bungalows, and a historic district

About three-quarters of the housing here is single-family detached, and well over half of it was built between 1940 and 1969. The Brainerd Bungalow Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016, is roughly bounded by 89th and 95th Streets and Loomis and May. Its bungalows went up between 1915 and 1931, with construction peaking in 1927. Forty-two architects are known to have worked in the district, though almost half the buildings have no recorded architect and were built from pre-existing plans.

Fort Dearborn School, which opened in 1928, was designed by the Board of Education architect John C. Christensen and is a contributing property to the district.

The Woodson Library

The Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, which opened in 1975 and reopened in February 2018 after a fourteen-month renovation, holds the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature — the largest collection of African-American history in the Midwest. Richard Hunt's sculpture Jacob's Ladder is installed there. It is a genuinely significant institution and one that a lot of people outside the South Side do not know exists.

Work and health

Health care is the leading employer of Washington Heights residents, accounting for close to nineteen percent, followed by administration, education, retail and public administration. The Chicago Bridge & Iron Company was founded here at 105th and Throop in 1889 before eventually relocating to Texas.

We mention the health care figure for a reason. A meaningful share of our patients from this neighborhood work in medicine or allied health, which usually means two things: they ask better questions than average, and they are working hours that make weekday appointments hard. Both are fine by us. Ask whatever you want, and take the Saturday slot.

Transit and parks

Metra runs three Rock Island stations serving the area — Brainerd at 89th between Loomis and Bishop, the rush-hour-only 95th Street–Longwood at Vincennes, and 103rd Street–Washington Heights. The 91st Street station sits just over the Beverly line. CTA routes 95, 103 and 112 run full-time, with the 108 part-time and Pace routes 352 and 381 adding connections. The Red Line terminal at 95th/Dan Ryan is in adjacent Roseland.

The neighborhood's parks include Brainerd, Euclid, Oakdale, Joseph Robichaux and Jackie Robinson Park on 107th Street, renamed in his honour in 1999. The Major Taylor Trail, a six-mile bikeway converted from abandoned railroad in the late 1990s, runs between the Dan Ryan Woods and Whistler Woods in Riverdale; a mural of Major Taylor was painted alongside it in 2018 by the Chicago artist Bernard Williams.

Neighborhood history, demographic and transit details on this page are drawn from the Wikipedia article on Washington Heights, available under CC BY-SA.