No one is quite sure when the first specimens made their way into Ravenswood. By the time they were discovered, a fine coat of telltale sawdust covered countless sidewalks and hundreds upon hundreds of them had bored their way into custom nests. Efforts to contain them, to stop the spread, began immediately, but for the infestation zone in the heart of tree-lined Ravenswood, it was too late.

"The neighborhood's going to hell," says architect Pat FitzGerald, who designed his Ravenswood home around six years ago. "All the yuppies are moving in."

The Asian longhorn beetle, which threatens Ravenswood's stock of beautiful decades-old trees is stoppable, though the solution – cutting down sick trees throughout the neighborhood – will not be painless. The yuppie invasion, however, appears to be irreversible, and the attendant sawdust of home construction and renovation is likely to keep mounting long after the beetles and their unfortunate habitat have been destroyed.

Bounded roughly by Montrose, Foster, Clark and the Chicago River, Ravenswood is a quiet neighborhood of two-and three-flats, large old single-family homes on oversized lots and some larger multi-unit buildings. Lincoln Square, the commercial hub of Ravenswood, along Lincoln between Montrose and Lawrence, has a number of fine ethnic restaurants and cafes in a quaint outdoor mall, but overall, there is not an abundance of places to eat. Unless you live off the Square, you're probably not walking distance from a good corner bar, and unless you like bargain-basement apparel from storefronts as dated as their merchandise, it's not the kind of place you would shop.

Still, Ravenswood has become wildly popular during the last few years. What it does offer is an uncongested, peaceful milieu and some of the most beautiful homes – and deals, though these are rapidly fading – on the North Side. Many residents are willing to trade the lack of trendy retail and restaurants for magnificent Victorians, wide lawns and calm, shady (so far) streets. Others see the lack of commercial as a boon that keeps the crowds away, and until recently, kept away the hordes of young professionals that drove prices through the roof in neighborhoods like Lincoln Park and Lakeview. The people most pleased about this last benefit, it should be noted, were themselves often of a young and professional nature, but guarded Ravenswood as their secret, loathing the day when it would be discovered.

That day, for better or worse, has clearly arrived.

According to the Chicago Association of Realtors, the median single-family home in Ravenswood sold for $215,000 during the first six months of 1998, an increase of more than 40 percent over the median price of $153,000 recorded in 1996, just two years earlier. The comparison is based on a small number of transactions, but that only highlights how coveted property in the neighborhood has become.

"When we do get a listing we have multiple offers on everything," says Mary Ellen Considine, a broker at Keller Williams Fox Realtors. "Anything here should be sold within 10 to 14 days."

For example, Considine says, a recent listing in the 2200 block of West Carmen, an older country cottage going for $184,900 had four offers within a week. Many homes in Ravenswood are selling above their list prices, which already are significantly higher than list prices of a year or two ago.

When Ronald Gan, president of the Homestar Group, a company that does home inspections, decided to move from Bucktown to the area around Welles Park, one of the city's nicest neighborhood parks, at Montrose and Lincoln, he had trouble finding anything for sale.

"The first day we looked in Ravenswood, the broker showed us a house and said, see you later; that's it, the one and only house," Gan says. "I sent letters to everyone in that two block area and didn't get a response."

Eventually, Gan paid around $230,000 for a single-family that included a rental unit and a sizable lot on the 4600 block of North Hermitage. Two years later, the home, which happens to have been the abode of poet Carl Sandburg when he penned his famous ode to Chicago, is worth $400,000, with virtually all of that value in the land beneath the house. Half a block north of Gan, a corner shack that had sat on a large piece of land was recently torn down and replaced with five single-families starting in the mid-$300s. Next door to these new homes, another old single-family on a large lot has been torn down to be replaced by two new homes. And condominium conversions as well as new construction condos are rampant throughout the neighborhood.

Sitting just north of gentrified Lakeview, Ravenswood was the obvious next choice for buyers priced out of lakefront neighborhoods to the south. The Ravenswood el provides solid transportation and though the expressway is distant, access to Lake Shore Drive is quick. Uptown, Ravenswood's neighbor to the east has been struggling with gentrification for years, but Ravenswood's lower density and family atmosphere have speeded the process, while a large stock of affordable and subsidized housing as well as a concentration of social service agencies have acted as breaks in Uptown.

"All of a sudden we have competition. When we started in '94 we were lonely, which was fine," says Marla Mason, of JMM Development, a company with several condo conversions west of Western Avenue. "But our rate of sales has gone up because people actually want to live there now. We get a lot of buyers now from between Ashland and Damen and Irving and Lawrence. They've already moved a little farther west for more space, and 90 percent are first-time buyers, which is interesting because our prices have gone up."

The surest sign of gentrification, equally dreaded and longed for in the neighborhood, depending on whom you talk to, may be on its way. Bill Platt of Access Realty Group, a company that has been part of the overnight explosion of restaurants and entertainment on Southport, is planning a 6,500-square-foot commercial development at Wilson and Lincoln and has been talking to Starbuck's, which he says is interested in becoming an anchor tenant. Michael Cullen, who owns the Mercury Theater and Cullen's Bar & Grill on Southport, is reportedly negotiating to build a new restaurant / bar next door, a project that Platt says he may act as developer for if it is approved. Cullen was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

The flavor of Lincoln between Montrose and Lawrence, and especially between Leland and Lawrence, is that of a quaint European market. Outdoor kiosks announce an upcoming Oktoberfest celebration, where lederhosen and oom-pa-pa accordion will be the main attractions. The Chicago Brauhaus, owned by brothers Harry and Gunther Kempf dishes up Schnitzel and sauerkraut, and the Huettenbar, a rich, woody tavern with an open-air facade and a jukebox that plays everything from the Banana Boat Song and Girl from Ipanema to German classics dispatches huge steins of DAB and BBK beer imported from Europe. The atmosphere of the community that began with Conrad Sulzer's truck farm at Clark and Montrose in 1836 is still in the air, while several excellent Greek restaurants and various Eastern European shops and coffee houses along the strip have altered it. The most creative of these must be Café Aloha, surely the only Bosnian café with a Hawaiian name.

The neighborhood does not have the large German population it once did, but many buildings have been passed down through generations of German families who may or may not still live in Ravenswood, and new immigrants, especially Latinos, Koreans and Eastern Europeans have added to the diversity. Along with the physical beauty of the neighborhood, this diversity and the charm encapsulated in the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce theme – a touch of Europe – are what give Ravenswood its character.

But long-time residents are concerned that the neighborhood is becoming more homogenous as prices rise, a trend well documented in Lakeview, to the south. A master plan for Lincoln Square by The Lakota Group, calls for new parking, streetscapes and other improvements to repackage the area. The southern stretch of Lincoln within Ravenswood is already anchored by Welles Park and the Sulzer Regional Library, one of the city's best libraries and a magnificent building. The Old Town School of Folk Music is moving to spectacular new quarters at 4544 N. Lincoln that will include expanded performance and classroom space as well as a music store and coffee shop. The Old Town School, which lets 200,000 people through its doors annually, according to Executive Director Jim Hirsch, will form the third leg of a cultural triumvirate with neighbors Welles Park and the Sulzer Library that is bound to spur even more development.

Maria Bappert, executive director of the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce, insists that the European charm of the Square can withstand the influence of a Starbuck's and other new businesses, which she welcomes. Of greater concern, however, is the familiar issue of displacement, which is becoming an acute problem in the area as homes prices skyrocket and condo conversions take hundreds of apartments out of the rental pool.

"In some ways it gets a little scary because you wonder how long people who found the place are going to be able to stay here," says Richard Hankett, executive director of the Ravenswood Community Council. "I'm especially concerned with seniors. We're finding people buying apartment buildings and raising the rents astronomically. People who have lived here all their lives are being forced out. I hope something can be done to preserve the variety that makes this neighborhood as desirable as it is."

Wolcott Village, a new condo conversion at 4901-57 N. Wolcott is emblematic of the neighborhood trend. An imposing block-long complex of 21 buildings with multiple courtyards, the development has provided relatively affordable apartments since it was built in 1939. Today, the residents are mainly families, many from Mexico. Alberto Valencia's two-bedroom apartment there is not especially large for himself, his wife and two children, but it's adequate. It has not been especially well maintained (the ancient windows on the building look like they were designed to catch drafts), but Valencia likes that the neighborhood is safe and clean, and he can afford the rent of $770. 

At some point, however – he says the developer, A&J Development Group, has given no indication of when this might be – he will have to move out, like all of the nearly 150 families in the complex, to make room for condo buyers.

"We are going to try to stay around here, but if not we'll have to move," says Valencia, who works for a company that installs and refinishes flooring. "The neighborhood is changing, so it's getting expensive. But the cheapest areas where you can go, there are gangs all over."

Arnulfo Ortiz, a 23-year-old who shares a two-bedroom apartment with his parents and two siblings at Wolcott Village, does not look forward to moving.

"We would like to stay, but I don't know how long we can stay here," says, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico City six years ago. "It's quiet and safe. We'll try to stay in the same neighborhood."

One-and two-bedroom condos at Wolcott are priced from about $90,000 to $130,000 – affordable by Lakeview standards but well out of the range of tenants, many of whom struggle with their current rent. Ravenswood's popularity meanwhile has made finding a two-bedroom apartment in the $700 range difficult if not impossible. Alex Vaisman, who started A&J Development Group with partner Jacob Bletnitsky and is overseeing construction at Wolcott Village, says the project will help the neighborhood by removing "a lower class of tenant.