Harlem: Norwood Park and Edison Park

Harlem is the Blue Line's last stop inside the city's residential Northwest Side, in the Kennedy median at Harlem Avenue in Norwood Park. It opened February 27, 1983 with the extension from Jefferson Park to River Road; the schedule puts the Loop about 30 minutes away and O'Hare 10. There is a small park-and-ride, 53 spaces, and CTA and Pace buses.

What it is like

Norwood Park is six neighborhoods in one community area: Old Norwood Park, Norwood Park East and West, Oriole Park, Union Ridge and Big Oaks. It was laid out in 1868 on curving streets, which is why it does not look like the rest of the city grid, and it holds the oldest building in Chicago, the Noble-Seymour-Crippen House of 1833. Old Norwood is a city historic district recognized in 1986. The housing is bungalows, Georgians and Cape Cods on deep lots, and in Oriole Park especially the residents are city workers who want a suburban feel inside the city limits. Edison Park, the next community north, is smaller and quieter still.

What it costs

Zillow does not publish a value for Norwood Park as a whole, so here are its pieces and its neighbor, Zillow Home Value Index for July 2026, the typical value of a middle-tier home: Oriole Park $434,639 (+8.9% in a year), Big Oaks $436,941 (+7.5% in a year), Union Ridge $418,861 (+9.6% in a year), Edison Park $483,782 (+7.8% in a year). Park Ridge, just across the city line, is $595,303 (+8.7% in a year) for the city as a whole.

Getting around

Blue Line, 24 hours a day. Metra's Union Pacific Northwest line has run through Norwood Park since the tracks were laid in 1853, and Edison Park has its own stop. The Kennedy is at the station; Harlem Avenue is the main north-south road.

Parks and schools

Norwood Park, the park, is 16.23 acres at 5801 N. Natoma with the Park District's only outdoor pool on the North Side with a water slide, a fitness center, a running track, tennis courts and a dog park. Oriole Park is 19.51 acres at 5430 N. Olcott with ball fields, tennis and a paved loop. Taft High School serves the whole community area plus Edison Park, Jefferson Park, Forest Glen and O'Hare; it has been a wall-to-wall International Baccalaureate school since 2014, and it is the school Grease was based on. Elementary schools named in the area include Onahan, Hitch, Oriole Park and Edison Park, with St. Thecla, St. Eugene, Immaculate Conception and Resurrection High School on the parochial side. Ask me for the boundary of any address.

Buying or selling near this stop? Tell me about your place and you get a real number, not an algorithm, within a day.

Where this comes from

• Wikipedia, Harlem station (CTA Blue Line O'Hare branch), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_station_(CTA_Blue_Line_O%27Hare_branch), retrieved 2026-09-03
• Wikipedia, Norwood Park, Chicago, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwood_Park,_Chicago, retrieved 2026-09-03
• Wikipedia, Edison Park, Chicago, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Park,_Chicago, retrieved 2026-09-03
• Wikipedia, William Howard Taft High School (Chicago), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Howard_Taft_High_School_(Chicago), retrieved 2026-09-03
• Chicago Park District, Norwood Park, https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/norwood-park, retrieved 2026-09-03
• Chicago Park District, Oriole Park, https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/oriole-park, retrieved 2026-09-03
• Zillow Research, ZHVI neighborhood file (all homes, middle tier, smoothed, seasonally adjusted), July 2026, https://www.zillow.com/research/data/, retrieved 2026-09-02
• Zillow Research, ZHVI city file (all homes, middle tier, smoothed, seasonally adjusted), July 2026, https://www.zillow.com/research/data/, retrieved 2026-09-03
• Wikipedia, Blue Line (CTA): station listing, 24-hour service, history, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Line_(CTA), retrieved 2026-09-02