Riverside in August: The Month the Village Was Actually Built For

Late summer here gets billed as the quiet stretch. Kids not yet back at RBHS, the July calendar spent, the Arts Weekend crowd long gone. That framing misses what August in Riverside actually is: the one month of the year when Olmsted's original argument for this village is easiest to read on foot, and when the calendar is quietly organized around that fact.

Riverside is a certified Level 2 arboretum and a National Historic Landmark of two square miles. In August, the tree canopy is at full weight, the tours run on the South Division, and the village is holding a small conversation with itself about how people move through it. That is the story worth clearing an afternoon for.

The Harlem Avenue closure is the frame, not the disruption

From August 6 through August 16, the Harlem Avenue grade crossing is closed. For a village where the BNSF line runs straight through the center and Harlem is the eastern spine, a ten-day rail-crossing shutdown reroutes half the routine errands in town. Ogden becomes the workaround. Longcommon fills in. Most residents will treat it as an inconvenience.

Treat it instead as an argument for the walk. The whole reason Riverside doesn't look like the grid on the other side of Harlem is that Olmsted, working with Calvert Vaux, refused to draw the streets that way. Curving roads, deep setbacks, small triangular parks at the odd intersections, parkways connecting to the Des Plaines River. Ten days of detour is a good moment to notice you don't actually need the car for most of what's inside the village boundary.

At the same time the crossing closes, the village is preparing to install a new gateway sign on Harlem at Longcommon. The flag-like sign will indicate to drivers on Harlem Avenue that they are passing by Riverside, and will feature the village's logo, call out the village as a National Historic Landmark, and note its year of establishment in 1869. That is a piece of civic self-presentation aimed at people driving past. What follows is aimed at the people who already live here.

The Olmsted Society tour schedule, decoded

Most residents know the Frederick Law Olmsted Society runs walking tours. Fewer know they alternate by division, month by month. It matters because you see different homes on different tours.

Regularly scheduled two-hour tours take place from May through October and depart from the main Riverside train station at 90 Bloomingbank Rd. Tours are $25 per person, $20 for seniors 62+ and Olmsted Society members. The South Tour explores homes by William Le Baron Jenney, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Calvert Vaux along the streets that curve with the river. The North Tour, saved for September, is where you actually see the historic water tower and a different cluster of Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Van Doren Shaw work.

If you have lived here five years and never taken one, the August 30 tour is the one to book. The tree cover is at its densest, which is when the setbacks and sight lines Olmsted engineered do their real work. Roads follow the river valley's natural shapes, and houses sit well back from the curb. Such setbacks create deep front lawns, long sight lines, and a feeling that buildings are nestled into the landscape rather than competing with it. You cannot read that from a car.

What to eat before or after

Downtown Riverside's restaurant row is small enough that residents fall into two or three places and stop looking. August is a good reset. A short list of what is currently drawing people, with the reasons:

• The Chew Chew. Celebrating 30 years of great food and hospitality in the heart of Riverside, with a seasonal menu, multi-level dining room, and a cozy outdoor patio. The patio is the reason to go in August.
• La Barra Riverside. Brought to you by Mary and Pat Leone, La Barra features shareable Italian small plates, award-winning pizza, wines, and hand-crafted cocktails. Chef Pepe's menu features modern takes on Italian classics as well as three types of pizza: Deep Dish, Chicago Thin, and Artisan.
• The Little Owl Social Pub. Thursday nights are open mic. If you have been waiting for a low-stakes local night out with actual live music, this is the one.
• Ofrenda Cantina and Catrina Tequila Bar. Two different rooms, both worth the walk from the train.
• Dulce Mami Café Riverside. The cafe that consistently anchors the downtown daytime crowd.

One anniversary worth crossing Harlem for. Chef Shangri-la at 7930 W. 26th St., known for its tiki decor and its litany of live performers, celebrated the 50th anniversary of when Paul and Suzie Fong opened its doors in July 1976, with Fong Fest running noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 26. The party is over, but a 50-year-old tiki-and-Cantonese room in an inner-ring suburb is a thing worth patronizing while it is still here.

The Brookfield board, if you're crossing the line

Riverside residents cross into Brookfield weekly without thinking about it. The August programming next door is unusually good, and worth putting on the fridge:

• Fridays through the end of August, Kiwanis Park. Weekly Friday night concerts from 7 to 8:30 p.m., with upcoming artists including pop band My Weekend Crush, rock band Midnight, and oldies band The Stingrays.
• Last Saturday of the month, Grand Boulevard. Music on Grand takes over Grand Boulevard in Downtown Brookfield on the last Saturday of June, July, August, and September.
• August 22, Brookfield Library. The library's annual STEAM fest, celebrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics, runs between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
• Pub 78 and The Little Owl. Open mic nights at Pub 78 on Wednesdays and the Little Owl Social Pub on Thursdays, with Singo, or musical bingo, at Pub 78 on Thursday nights.

These are Brookfield events, and that is the point. The village boundary is a legal line, not a lifestyle one. If your Friday-night default has been staying in, Kiwanis Park is a fifteen-minute walk from most Riverside addresses south of Longcommon.

Two rooms on Quincy Street that reward a slow visit

If the August 30 tour ends and you are not ready to go home, walk east on Quincy. Higgins Glass at 33 East Quincy Street shows a collection of intricately designed fused glass tableware, lamps, and candleholders, and the Riverside Art Center and Freeark Contemporary Art Gallery at 32 East Quincy Street shows contemporary art exhibits by local and up-and-coming artists. They are across the street from each other. Together they explain why Riverside's downtown feels different from every other near-west commercial strip: nobody was interested in filling the storefronts with chains.

The through-line

The reason to walk in August is not that there is nothing else to do. It is that the village is a designed argument, and the argument is easiest to hear when the trees are full, the tours are running, and the car is temporarily inconvenient. Founded in 1869, the entire Village of Riverside reflects Olmsted and Vaux's design and has been designated a National Historic Landmark and certified Level 2 arboretum. That is not marketing copy. It is a statement about what you own when you own a house here: not just a lot, but a share in a landscape that people travel from other states to walk through.

For a village that quietly holds one of the most important pieces of American landscape design, August is the month it stops being quiet if you know where to look. Book the South tour. Take the detour around the crossing on foot instead of by car. Try the room on Quincy you have walked past for a year.

When it comes time to talk about what your Riverside home is worth, or what a move within the village would actually look like, The Michelle Ward Group brings the same street-level attention to your address that a good walking tour brings to the next block. Get your instant home valuation and start the conversation.