Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near North Riverside Riverside, IL

Riverside is a village in Cook County, Illinois, about nine miles west of downtown Chicago on the Des Plaines River.

Riverside is arguably the first planned suburb in the United States, designed in 1869 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the landscape architects of New York's Central Park, for the Riverside Improvement Company.

Olmsted and Vaux laid out a 1,600-acre community of curving streets that follow the Des Plaines River and the land's natural contours, with more than a third of the village set aside as parks, commons and green space.

The village of Riverside was incorporated in 1875, and the Riverside Landscape Architecture District, covering most of the village, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Riverside has been called an architectural museum: Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan and William Le Baron Jenney all designed buildings there, and the F. F. Tomek House and the Coonley House are National Historic Landmarks in their own right.

Riverside's Swiss-Gothic water tower, designed by William Le Baron Jenney, remains a central landmark, and the village's historic gas street lighting survives as part of the landmark district.

Growth in Riverside was slowed by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which hit its developers hard, but the village matured into one of Chicago's most prestigious suburbs.

Riverside's population was 9,298 at the 2020 census, below its peak of 10,357 in 1970, and the village marked its 150th anniversary in 2025.

Census Bureau estimates count about 3,516 households in Riverside, where roughly 85 percent of homes are owner-occupied and the median owner-occupied home value was about $491,000 in 2020-2024 estimates.

Riverside students attend Riverside Brookfield High School in neighboring Brookfield, and commuters ride Metra's BNSF line from the village's historic station to downtown Chicago.