The Walker Branch Library in Morgan Park (David Daruszka)

• Best Public Library in a Castle
• Best Mom & Pop Grocer
• Best Place to Find Something Fishy
• Best Pizza Not From a Pizza Parlor
• Best Anarchistic Arts Organization
• Best New Alternative Space

Beverly Hills (its proper full name, often shortened to Beverly) and Morgan Park are the Castor and Pollux of the South Side. Eternally joined as “The Village in the City,” they have earned a reputation as a place of good schools, gracious homes, and comfortable middle-class living—a bastion for city workers. An ancient glacial ridge runs along the length of the appropriately named Longwood Drive, topped by magnificent homes. Morgan Park, named after early estate holder Englishman Thomas Morgan, was a village in its own right until its annexation to the city in 1914. Beverly Hills, named not after the Los Angeles neighborhood but the town of Beverly in Massachusetts, became part of Chicago in 1890.