I just today learned of an interesting collection now available through the University of Illinois at Chicago,
online here. Prior to 1959, Chicago’s boulevards were under the control of the park districts, which had been unified in 1934. Because the boulevards had smooth pavement, prohibited streetcars and teamsters, and had the right-of-way over side streets, they became the city’s preeminent automobile routes.
These photos appear to have been taken to illustrate traffic conditions and improvements, and somehow passed through the stewardship of the state DOT before coming to UIC. Many of them are rather prosaic views of fresh pavement, but some have great views of Chicago in the 1930s.
Looking north on Sheridan from Devon, Sept. 19, 1938. Look how sharply the southbound traffic is cutting the corner!
Looking south on Broadway from the same intersection (Devon/Sheridan). By 1943 the policeman’s box has been replaced by an electric signal. Why must the Broadway streetcar turn west onto Devon here? Because if it continued north it would be on a boulevard, where streetcars were not permitted.
Looking north on Sheridan from Lawrence, May 11, 1937. The Lincoln Park light standards tell us who has control of this roadway. Always a Chicago Motor Coach double-decker and a Walgreens in sight:
Looking east over the intersection of Diversey and Logan Blvd., April 3, 1936. On the site of the Diversey River Bowl is the Showboat
Dixiana, which was finally allowed to open here in 1934 after a two-year dispute with city officials about a downtown location. It presented melodramas (with rooftop dancing afterwards). After being dark for two years, the boat moved to Michigan City in 1937 to present “Tobacco Road,” banned in Chicago by Mayor Kelly. She half-sank upon arrival, and two months later the cast gave up when she was rammed by a Naval Reserve boat. Note the STOP BLVD sign at Logan Blvd. Boulevards generally had the right of way over other streets, which led to a movement in the 1910s to designate more crosstown boulevards and in the 1920s for the Plan Commission to make an extensive study of "through streets" that would work the same way.
Looking west on 47th at Lake Park Ave., Aug. 11, 1938. I don’t know what relevance this intersection had to the park district, which never controlled either street. Perhaps the connection is that the fresh tracks in the foreground are the last extension ever built by Chicago Surface Lines, which had opened under the IC viaduct to Burnham Park in Dec. 1937.
Randolph St. looking east toward Michigan Ave., at 5 pm, June 24, 1937. Cottage Grove streetcars looped via Garland Ct. to run back south on Wabash. Those round signs with the painted lines constituted a “safety island,” where patrons boarded streetcars in the middle of the street. Thus the old Chicago ditty "there's no geese on Goose Island and no safety on a safety island."
