Murray Hill was built primarily in the early  20th century, primarily bungalows, two-family duplexes, and larger apartment buildings. The area quickly became home to many Italian Immigrants and there is still some evidence of this influence.

Riverside is noted for its racial and ethnic diversity, including large numbers of African-Americans and Caucasians, as well as growing Iranian, Russian, Asian, and Hispanic populations. With the neighborhood’s proximity to the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, a sizable college student population also resides there. Both Murray Hill and Riverside Park have seen rises in housing value thanks to their solid walkable amenities, and access to Dwtn and UMW.

Both neighborhoods also excel at great access to park, retail, and cultural amenities, great public transit and bike access, great housing diversity including lots of moderately priced housing, good tree canopy, and solid architecture. There are several commercial nodes in the neighborhood including North Avenue, a couple blocks of Murray Avenue & Farwell Ave, and Downer Avenue. The biz districts of the Lower East Side around North Avenue and Oakland Ave in the Upper East Side are nearby as well.

Areas for improvement from an urban perspective include better ADA curb cuts, better schools and more families, and urban infill in the auto centric pockets of the neighborhood along parts of North Avenue and Farwell Avenue.

Click here for my Murray Hill Album and click here for my Riverside Park Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Great public transit and bike access.
* Very convenient access to Dwtn.
* Great economic diversity and solid racial diversity.
* Good # of apartments and generally moderately priced. 1-beds lease btwn 800K- 1.5K, 2-beds mostly line the low 1Ks but some luxury product leasing in the 2Ks, and lots of 3-beds available leasing btwn 1K to the mid 2Ks. Even an handful of 4 beds available. Vast majority of rentals are in Murray Hill.
* Great mix of for sale options. Decent # of 1-bed condos selling in the 100Ks and low 200Ks, -beds. Tons of 2-beds selling btwn 150K-450K. 3 & 4 beds selling btwn 250K- 550K
* Great access to parks and recreation here. The expansive Riverside park sides on the western edge of the Riverside neighborhood and Garden Park is just across the Milwaukee River. The expansive Lake park is just several blocks east of Murray Hill. Limited amount of parks in Murray Hill itself.
* Solid tree canopy here.
*Good cultural amenities including a decent # of restaurants, bars & cafes, a couple art galleries, several live music venues, a couple indie movie theaters, a bowling alley, and convenient access to all the cultural amenities of the Lower East Side near North Ave.
* Good retail amenities as well including 2 supermarkets, a couple drug stores,  a hardware store, several creative/unique stores, clothing stores mostly in nearby Lower East Side, a couple banks, several book stores, a bakery, a couple gyms, several dessert joints, a post office, several churches, and convenient access to Ascension Hospital.
* Overall these are very safe communities.
* Solid historic architecture especially in Murray Hill. Generally good modern in-fill but some auto centric stuff mixed in.
* Overall pretty good urban in-fill in the biz districts but some auto centric stretches.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Decent sidewalk and ADA infrastructure but more than 1/2 of the curb cuts are not up to modern standards and some don’t have curb cuts at all.
* Thanks to the large college population, generational diversity is pretty limited. But some families here.
* Only a handful of schools in the area and ratings are mixed.