EVANSTON
OAK PARK
| Religion-tinged early nickname | |
| Heavenston, for its Methodist-influenced moral rigor (see Woman’s Christian Temperance Union headquarters) | Saints’ Rest, for all the churches built there in the late 19th century |
| Transit | |
| With three Metra stops and seven CTA stations, you can’t complain. Until you’re waiting 30 minutes at Howard to transfer to the Red Line. | The good news: You get not one but two CTA lines — Blue and Green — plus a Metra stop. The bad news: Have you taken the Blue Line recently?
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| Modern moniker, for better or worse | |
| E-Town | Woke Park |
| Architecture | |
 From Queen Anne to Tudor Revival, you’ll find every style in the Lakeshore Historic District. |
 The collection of Frank Lloyd Wright homes means you get to brag that your neighborhood is straight from the pages of an old-school Architectural Digest. |
| Hometown hero | |
Eddie Vedder. Was “Even Flow” actually about the North Shore Channel? | 
Ernest Hemingway grew up there before setting off for, well, pretty much everywhere. |
| Thing that gets the residents up in arms | |
| A new football stadium for a mediocre Big Ten team | Bike sharing. The town ditched Divvy six years ago, so buy your own bike.
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| Your annoying neighbors | |
| Northwestern undergrads aren’t the rowdiest bunch, but we’d suggest getting out of town on Dillo Day. | Remember Heather Mack, who helped kill her mom and stuff her in a suitcase? Yeah, she’s from here. |
| Water views | |
 More than three miles of Lake Michigan shoreline |
 The Scoville Park Fountain (designed by one Frank Lloyd Wright) |
| The big entertainment venue | |
| The new Ryan Field won’t be big enough for Taylor Swift, but it will hold 28,500 for concerts — more than the United Center. Someone call Eddie Vedder. | Bands you don’t know play songs you do on Sunday nights in Scoville Park. |
| The drive into town | |
| Imagine a windows-open cruise down Sheridan Road, then the wind whipping through your hair on DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Keep imagining, because in reality you’ll be dodging potholes and sitting in traffic. | It’s only 9.5 miles to the Loop — three miles closer than Evanston — but with traffic on the Eisenhower, you might as well be coming from Iowa. |
Photography: (Train, Evanston House) Chicago Tribune; (Oak Park house, Vedder, Hemingway, shoreline) Getty Images; (Bike) Divvy Bikes; (Fountain) Ivo Shandor