Thousands of Chicagoans are living in O’Hare — the community, not the airport

About six minutes from O’Hare Airport, nearly 14,000 Chicagoans live in a community area between North East River Road and North Cumberland Avenue.

But hardly anyone knows what it’s called.

“People often think that we’re on the Norridge side of the city,” said Anthony Rubino, co-owner of Sicilian Bakery, one of a few businesses in the area.

“Most people think about it as the Rosemont area,” said Olga Prohny, a staffer at St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church down the street. “I hate to say this, but they do.”

Even a 20-year employee of nearby Everett McKinley Dirksen Elementary School was mistaken about its location until five years ago.

“You’re going to laugh at this,” said Principal Timothy Griffin. “I thought we were in Dunning!”

But they all agree that they never hear it called what it actually is: O’Hare.

Named after the airport, the Northwest Side locality is one of Chicago’s officially recognized 77 community areas, most of which were designated in the 1920s by University of Chicago sociologists to collect population data. The residential part of O’Hare is bounded by West Higgins Road to the north, West Montrose Avenue to the south, North Cumberland Avenue to the east and North East River Road to the west. The community’s boundaries also include the Schiller Woods forest preserves, as well as the airport and a stretch of Foster Avenue connecting it to the rest of the area.

The O’Hare community includes towering apartment buildings, rows of bungalows and leafy trees. Sometimes deer come out to greet its residents. Overshadowed by the airport and more suburban than urban, some people who live and work in the area describe it as a “forgotten” part of Chicago.

But it has several distinctive characteristics, including a population that is about 60% foreign-born, with about 70% of its residents over 5 years old speaking a language other than English, according to the Chicago Metropolitan Area for Planning. (Comparatively, the entire city of Chicago is about 20% foreign-born and about 35% speak a language other than English.)

People visit O’Hare to see the ornate, gold-domed Ukrainian Catholic church, which has drawn Ukrainians to the area in recent years. And residents of O’Hare’s tight-knit Schorsch Forest View community, built by the Schorsch Brothers real estate company, take pride in the nestled-in neighborhood.

Still, some residents say there is an opportunity to strengthen O’Hare’s presence and unify its inhabitants by creating a neighborhood association, adding a park or community center, hosting more community events and adding more shops and restaurants within its boundaries. It’s just a matter of getting city institutions, locals and businesses on board.

“We have a lot to offer and a lot of beauty,” said 36-year-old Starr De Los Santos, who moved to a condo in the area to live closer to her mother and escape busier parts of the city. “I just think there’s so much potential.”

How O’Hare became Chicago’s 76th community area

After World War II, O’Hare became Chicago’s second international airport, named in honor of U.S. Navy pilot Edward “Butch” O’Hare. In 1956, the city officially annexed the airport and additional land on the Northwest Side, which became the 76th community area. Edgewater became the final community area in 1980. The city’s more than 200 neighborhoods are encompassed in the community areas.

“I would bet [O’Hare] is one of the 77 communities that has the least identity,” said 38th Ward Ald. Nicholas Sposato, who shares jurisdiction of the area with 41st Ward Ald. Anthony Napolitano.

Sposato lives in O’Hare’s Schorsch Forest View, which is along North Cumberland Avenue between Lawrence and Montrose avenues. The neighborhood’s ranch homes were built in the 1950s by the Schorsch Brothers, who garnered a reputation for quality. They also built homes in Schorsch Village on the Northwest Side and other residential and commercial properties in Illinois.

They would advertise, ‘This is a Schorsch-built house,’ and you didn’t have to say anything else,” said Donald Schorsch, who worked on the homes with his father, Theodore Schorsch, and his uncles. The 86-year-old lived in the neighborhood before moving to Arizona.

“I think Forest View was the best of what they built,” he said.

Later, developers erected a number of multiunit dwellings, including Catherine Court Apartments on West Catherine Avenue and the Pavilion Apartments, which include more than 1,100 units in five big buildings on North East River Road.

Residents say O’Hare is safe, friendly and quiet — once you get used to airplanes flying overhead every few minutes. A residential sound insulation program led by the Chicago Department of Aviation and the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission aims to minimize noise for residents. About 11,500 city residents have benefited from the program, which provides acoustically rated windows and doors and other methods of minimizing noise, according to the commission’s website. But some homes in the O’Hare community area are not eligible for the service, according to program guidelines.

“Young people are moving in, and I’m energized by seeing that,” said 88-year-old Arlene Heilingoetter, who has lived in Schorsch Forest View since 1957. “Families riding on their bicycles up and down the street, walking their dogs, walking their babies in strollers.”

40 languages and cultures represented at Dirksen Elementary School

Pilots, flight attendants, police officers, firefighters and government officials have historically lived in O’Hare, and the trend continues today, according to residents. Racial and ethnic demographics, on the other hand, have shifted. Many Italian families who once populated Schorsch Forest View have moved on, residents said.

In general, O’Hare has seen an increase in Black and Asian residents over the last several years, but a decrease in the white population, according to city reports. The Latino population has remained relatively unchanged. Additionally, the area has received a large influx of immigrants from Ukraine, Poland and other Eastern European countries. Slavic languages are the most-spoken in the area.

That diversity is illustrated at Dirksen elementary , where more than 40 languages and cultures are represented among its 1,300 students. Principal Timothy Griffin invested thousands of dollars in pocket travel translators to help staff communicate with the kids, most of whom live in O’Hare’s apartments and town homes. Griffin also hired more than a dozen parents in the area to run the recess program.

“For a forgotten neighborhood, the people that live here know each other and respect each other,” Griffin said. “And we take care of each other.”

O’Hare is an overlooked community, residents say

Griffin said he believes O’Hare is overlooked in a number of ways, including what he’s observed as slow response times from police and Chicago Public Schools administrators not realizing the school was in the city.

Given the absence of a major city park or community center in O’Hare, he allows students to play in the school parking lot outside of school hours.

“There’s nothing else for these kids to do,” he said. “I’ve even found out about unauthorized birthday parties on the property. I said, ‘Whatever.’ People don’t have anywhere to go.”

Napolitano, who lives in Edison Park, said having a park in the area would be a “dream come true.”

“I just don’t know if the Chicago Park District would invest that type of money into buying the land,” he said.

Beyond a Jewel-Osco and a handful of stores and restaurants, O’Hare is home to a small number of businesses compared to other parts of town.

“I shop in Harwood Heights, I eat in Park Ridge, and I have fun in Rosemont,” De Los Santos said. “There could be more in this specific area that brings people in instead of having the people who live here branching out into these neighboring suburbs.”

Napolitano said he is in favor of new businesses coming to the area.

“There’s plenty of open space over there. We’ve reached out to everybody and anybody to fill some vacancies.”

O’Hare: Community area or neighborhood?

Community areas are a strong part of Chicago’s identity, according to Emily Talen, a University of Chicago professor who studies neighborhoods and cities as the director of the school’s Urbanism Lab.

“The city uses them, Realtors use them, and they’re a part of our language,” she said. “They function for locating yourself in the city, and they’re useful as a means of data collection.”

But they weren’t originally created to delineate neighborhoods, which have a strong identity, means of governance and sense of community engagement, she said.

“I don’t think the community areas are particularly well-suited for that kind of social connection,” she said.

However, there are exceptions. Rogers Park, Edgewater and Lake View are all examples of community areas that are also considered to be neighborhoods.

If O’Hare were to function as more of a neighborhood, it would need to have some form of representation, such as a neighborhood association or block club, Talen said. It would also need to have a designated center, such as a park or plaza. And it needs a name that actually resonates with its residents.

The Schorsch Forest View pocket of O’Hare is arguably already operating in this way. Community members voice their concerns to their ward leader, Sposato, who is attempting to get a park built on property owned by Our Lady Mother of the Church on Lawrence Avenue. One resident, Diane Morris, runs the area’s Facebook group. She also organizes garage sales and trunk-or-treat events.

So, using the name O’Hare is not a priority for her.

“It’s not that important,” said Morris, 47, who lives in the area with her husband and two kids. “We have our own community here.”

The remaining portion of O’Hare is socially detached from Schorsch Forest View. While some residents say the area doesn’t have its own neighborhood name, Napolitano said it has long been referred to as Cumberland, after the main street.

“Even when I was a kid, the areas weren’t really integrated,” said 59-year-old Allison Schorsch, who grew up in Schorsch Forest View and later returned for a time to live in the home previously owned by her father, Dr. Thomas Schorsch, son of Theodore Schorsch.

While Schorsch attended Dirksen elementary , most of the present-day Schorsch Forest View residents send their kids to Arthur E. Canty Elementary , Sposato said.

Napolitano oversees the section of O’Hare that is north of Lawrence Avenue. But De Los Santos said she doesn’t feel the community is organized. It is difficult to unify the different cultural groups, as well as airport workers who are always on the go, she said.

“I don’t feel a sense of connection. I don’t think there’s a really strong organizing arm here,” she said.

Napolitano sais he would welcome new neighborhood associations, but it’s up to residents to take the initiative.

“You create not only community groups for kids, parents, block parties and festivals, but you’re also creating security networks for each other as well,” he said.

O’Hare residents have come out to St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church’s annual Uketoberfest event in August. But more frequent gatherings could help bring the community together, residents said.

Allison Schorsch suggested Schiller Woods as a meeting place.

“If someone had the wherewithal and the motivation to create a group, they could create events like hikes in the forest,” she said.

But getting the name “O’Hare” to stick among ambivalent or uncertain residents may prove to be an uphill battle.

“That’s a tough one,” Olga Prohny said of adopting the name, “because really, when you think of O’Hare, you think of an airport. And we’re not on the tarmac.”

Contributing: Alden Loury