Park Ridge, Illinois
Encyclopedia
Climate
Demographics
As of the censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of 2000, there were 37,775 people, 14,219 households, and 10,465 families residing in the city. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 5,374.6 people per square mile (2,074.7/km²). There were 14,646 housing units at an average density of 2,083.8 per square mile (804.4/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 95.4% White, 0.2% African American, 0.06% Native American, 2.66% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.87% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, and 0.74% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.90% of the population.
There were 14,219 households out of which 32.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.4% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 8.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.4% were non-families. 24.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61 and the average family size was 3.13. The median cost of a house is $420,000.
The City's population consists of 24.5% persons under the age of 18, 5.5% aged 18 to 24, 24.5% aged 25 to 44, 25.8% aged 45 to 64, and 19.6% age 65 or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 90.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.2 males.
According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $91,674, and the median income for a family was $110,842. Males had a median income of $61,959 versus $39,794 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the city was $36,646. About 1.7% of families and 2.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.1% of those under age 18 and 3.1% of those age 65 or over.
Education
St. Paul of the Cross and Mary Seat of Wisdom are the two Catholic elementary schools. St. Andrews is a Lutheran elementary school.
The town is served by Maine Township High School District 207
Maine Township High School District 207
Maine Township High School District 207 is a school district based in Illinois.Composed of Des Plaines and Park Ridge as well as portions of Glenview, Harwood Heights, Morton Grove, Niles, Norridge, and Norwood Park Township, the district lies 30 minutes from downtown Chicago...
, which includes Maine South High School
Maine South High School
Maine South High School, or MSHS, is a public four-year high school located in Park Ridge, Illinois, a north-west suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Maine Township High School District 207, which also includes Maine East High School and Maine West High School.Maine...
, and Maine East High School
Maine East High School
Maine East High School, or Maine East, and officially Maine Township High School East, is a public four-year high school located at the corner of Dempster Street and Potter Road in Park Ridge, Illinois, a north-west suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States...
. Students who live in northern Park Ridge have the option of attending either Maine East or Maine South. Maine West High School
Maine West High School
Maine West High School, or MWHS, is a public four-year high school located in Des Plaines, Illinois, a north-west suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States...
is located to the west in Des Plaines
Des Plaines, Illinois
Des Plaines is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It has adopted the official nickname of "City of Destiny." As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 58,720. It is a suburb of Chicago, and is next to O'Hare International Airport...
.
Maine North High School was a school in unincorporated Maine Township, part of Maine Township High School District 207 which includes Maine East, Maine West, and Maine South High Schools. It closed in 1981.
As student population shrank, the decision came down to closing Maine East or Maine North. Maine East, the oldest school in the district, had been opened in 1929, but also had considerable numbers of alumni pushing to keep it open. In September 1980, the Board voted 4-3 to close Maine North by 1982, citing that it was not only the smallest school, but the least centrally located of the schools in the district. In October, the Board voted to close the school at the end of the 1980–81 school year. The school was subsequently sold along with the District's administrative building, which had its offices relocated to Maine South High School.
District 207 shares student run radio and television stations operating with the call letters WMTH-FM (W Maine Township High). Actor Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
mostly known as playing the lead role on Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
, went to Maine East, and has been credited as being the radio station's first sports announcer. Since 2007, WMTH Radio can be heard live on any of the district high school homepages.
The town is a part of the Oakton Community College
Oakton Community College
Oakton Community College is a two-year community college with campuses in Skokie, Illinois and Des Plaines, Illinois. District 535 serves 450,000 residents in northeast Cook County, Illinois...
district.
Park Ridge in film
The 1980 film The Blues BrothersThe Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedy actors Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live...
had some scenes filmed in Park Ridge. The scenes where the brothers were first pulled over by the state police and the beginning of the subsequent chase were filmed there. The Nelson Funeral Home and Shell gas station which the brothers drove past as the police pulled out to intercept them are still in business at the intersections of Talcott and Cumberland Avenues. The brothers were pulled over at the intersection of Cumberland and Gillick. As the chase progressed, a trooper radioed that the chase was "proceeding on Courtland Avenue". The scene where the Blues Brothers and the police spun out in a three-way intersection occurred at the intersection of Devon Avenue, Talcott Road, and Courtland Avenue.