The commercial triangle at the intersection of Damen, Milwaukee, and North Avenues is Wicker Park's retail and social centre: a concentration of independent boutiques, coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants that has been the neighbourhood's commercial anchor since the early 1990s. The scale is walkable and the architecture — mostly three-storey mixed-use buildings from the 1890s — is some of the most intact 19th-century commercial streetscape on Chicago's North Side.
Myopic Books, one of the largest used bookstores in Chicago, is on Milwaukee; Reckless Records (new and used) is a few doors north. The coffee shop density is high — Intelligentsia Coffee's original location was here before the brand expanded nationally. Good for an afternoon of browsing without a specific agenda.