<p>How long is the drive from Northwestern to Chicago?</p>
<p>Depends on where in Chicago and the traffic and what route you take. From Campus to downtown on a good day taking Lake Shore, about 30 minutes. During traffic, maybe an hour. In takes less than ten minutes to actually get into the borders of Chicago, though.</p>
<p>@ Lil<em>Wayne</em>Fan</p>
<p>Evanston borders the city of Chicago. It’s about an 8-10 mile drive from the municipal border to the Loop (downtown Chicago).</p>
<p>13 miles between the two downtowns. But there are many interesting places in Chicago (mostly along the lakefront and easily accessible by the subway) that are much closer</p>
<p>Remember that Chicago, like Northwestern’s campus, tends to follow Lake Michigan North/South.</p>
<p>From the north, approximate distances of some landmarks to campus:</p>
<p>Wrigley Field 7 miles
Lincoln Park 10 miles
Rush Street 11 miles
Gold Coast/Northwestern Law and Medical schools 11 miles
Art Institute/Streeterville 12 miles
Downtown business district 13 miles</p>
<p>New Chinatown 5 miles (my estimate)</p>
<p>what is new chinatown</p>
<p>[Argyle</a> Street: Chinatown’s troubled cousin - Chicago Methods Reporter](<a href=“methodsreporter.com”>methodsreporter.com)
<a href=“http://www.wildonions.org/LN-Argyle.htm[/url]”>http://www.wildonions.org/LN-Argyle.htm</a></p>
<p>[Community</a> areas of Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_areas_of_Chicago]Community”>Community areas in Chicago - Wikipedia)
Evanston is adjacent to #1 (to the north)
Downtown Chicago is in #32
Little Saigon is part of #3
Chinatown is in #34</p>
<h1>6, #7, #8 are pretty nice. I love #6 the best; it has large concentration of gays/lesbians but a lot of straight people like the bustling neigborhood too. The med/law school campus is in #8. #1, #77, #6 are going through gentrification.</h1>
<p>I live in Evanston. </p>
<p>You can easily see all the skyscrapers (Sears Tower, John Hancock) from campus. Pretty much anything you’d want to see in Chicago is within a 30-45 minute El ride.</p>
<p>If you take the Purple Express all the way to the loop, it’s more like 50 minutes, sometimes an hour. And a regular ride (transferring to the Red Line at Howard) can be an hour plus. </p>
<p>I recommend the Metra, it’s much nicer and so much faster!</p>
<p>Yeah, I think that the distance in miles is misleading, because, honestly, 8 miles is not the same to a Northwestern student as it is to a high school senior with a car. If you want to get downtown by el, first you gotta walk to an el-stop, which, depending on where you live, can take up to 15 minutes. Then you have to go south, which is awful because it stops literally every 1.5 minutes for 30 seconds at a time. You’ll have to transfer onto the red line on a weekend, which is annoying. And then if you’re going downtown to the loop, it will take another (literally) 1-1.25 hours. </p>
<p>Basically el is awful, and a theoretically 40 minute trip takes 2 hours in one direction. </p>
<p>Your alternatives are the metra, which is only one dollar more, extremely fast, but it doesn’t stop at necessarily the places you might be going. And it stops in the financially district of downtown, which isn’t that great for recreation. </p>
<p>Or you can take the northwestern intercampus shuttle, which I think is the best idea. Pretty much one ride, free with wildcard, takes you to NU law/medical school which is 2 blocks from the Loop, and is literally only 45 minutes. It also stops on Sheridan road, making it very accessible for all NU students. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.</p>