File:Lower West Side, Chicago, Illinois (14024072567).jpg

Lower West Side is a Chicago community area located on the west side of the city, in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is three miles southwest of the Chicago Loop, and its main neighborhood is Pilsen. The Heart of Chicago is a neighborhood located within the southwest corner of the Lower West Side community area.

In the late 19th century, Pilsen was inhabited by Czech immigrants who named the district after Plzeň, the fourth largest city in what is now the Czech Republic. They replaced the Germans and Irish who had settled there first, in the mid-nineteenth century. Many of the immigrants worked in the stockyards and surrounding factories. Like many early 20th century American urban neighborhoods, however, Pilsen was home to both wealthy professionals and the working class, with the whole area knitted together based on the ethnicities, mostly of Slavic descent, who were not readily welcome in other areas of the city.

Although there was some increase in the Hispanic presence in the late 1950s, it was not until the early 1960s that there was a great spurt in the numbers of Latinos in Pilsen. This was due to the displacement of Latinos from the neighborhood UIC currently occupies. In 1970, Latinos became the majority population in Pilsen, surpassing the population of people of Eastern European descent.

The east side of the neighborhood along Halsted Street is one of Chicago's largest art districts, and the neighborhood is also home to the National Museum of Mexican Art. St Adalbert's dominates over the skyline with the opulence typical of churches in the Polish Cathedral style.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_West_Side,_Chicago