Gold Coast

The Gold Coast is a prosperous neighborhood, mostly consisting of high-rise apartment buildings on Lake Shore Drive, facing Lake Michigan. This is the second-wealthiest urban neighborhood in the United States, after the Upper East Side in New York City.

The Gold Coast was an unexceptional neighborhood until 1885, when Potter Palmer, former dry goods merchant and owner of the Palmer House hotel, built a fanciful castle on Lake Shore Drive. Over the next few decades, Chicago's elite gradually migrated from Prairie Avenue to their new home north of the Loop.

It's a lovely neighborhood for a stroll among the graceful town houses and the several lavish mansions that remain, relics from a glitzier past. The hotels here tend to be upscale, but don't offer amenities as lavish as the top Michigan Avenue hotels.

Gold Coast