Historic Chicago

[VivaLFuego]

Heading northward, have you ever walked down Dearborn and wondered what once stood on the site of the giant surface parking lot immediately north of the Chicago Avenue YMCA tower?



This, along with the one rowhouse immediately to the north/left, were demolished sometime between 1962-1973. The rowhouses to the north (one set of windows barely visible in the postcard), and those across the street, survive to this day.

[VivaLFuego]

Now moving northwest, the area near the Chicago/Blue Line station. Here is a photo looking N-NW from Milwaukee and Carpenter, to the irregular block bounded by those two streets to the south and east respectively, Ogden to the west, and Chicago Ave to the north.



As of 1962, this block was almost fully intact. By 1973, all but the corner buildings had been demolished and replaced with surface parking. By 1988, the entire block has been demolished and paved over, save for a small drive-thru bank facility along Carpenter in the eastern part of the block. Between 1988 and 1998, this facility too was torn down, and the block redeveloped with a suburban-style pharmacy on the northern half, and a one-story bank with drive-thru in the southern corner, where the buildings above once stood. The block remains in this condition today, housing a CVS & US Bank, each 1-story and taking up about 30-40% of the block's total area. The rest is asphalt parking with a tiny bit of peripheral landscaping.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...37.15,,0,-5.99

[lawfin]

^^^^ouch...what a shame


it's amazing and sad that so many of us are satisified with the crap that is often built today

[Thundertubs]

Those Woodlawn buildings are incredible, especially the flatiron one. Obviously 63rd has lost all of it's commercial street frontage, but I had no idea there were such substantial midrises down there. I wish Chicago neighborhoods were still as urban as they used to be. It's amazing how neutered, eradicated, and obliterated places like central Woodlawn, 63rd/Halsted, or Madison/Western are.

The sad thing is that this type of fine-grain street-level urban development will never come back. All we get is hideous suburban infill or drab superblock developments (a la B37).

Of all types of Chicago buildings, I think corner buildings are both the most important (for anchoring intersections) and the most vulnerable to demolition and redevelopment by suburban chains. When I see a major intersection like Lawrence/Ashland or Kedzie/Addison with four suburban parking lot/gas station corners, it breaks my heart.

This thread is as edifying as it is heartbreaking, keep up the great posts!

[LSyd]

those redevelopments are disgusting.

-

[lawfin]

Originally Posted by Thundertubs

Those Woodlawn buildings are incredible, especially the flatiron one. Obviously 63rd has lost all of it's commercial street frontage, but I had no idea there were such substantial midrises down there. I wish Chicago neighborhoods were still as urban as they used to be. It's amazing how neutered, eradicated, and obliterated places like central Woodlawn, 63rd/Halsted, or Madison/Western are.

The sad thing is that this type of fine-grain street-level urban development will never come back. All we get is hideous suburban infill or drab superblock developments (a la B37).

Of all types of Chicago buildings, I think corner buildings are both the most important (for anchoring intersections) and the most vulnerable to demolition and redevelopment by suburban chains. When I see a major intersection like Lawrence/Ashland or Kedzie/Addison with four suburban parking lot/gas station corners, it breaks my heart.

This thread is as edifying as it is heartbreaking, keep up the great posts!

100% agreed.

These intersections beg for a statment of place.....we should get a movement afoot that would ban gas stations / strip style development at major commericial intersections.

[VivaLFuego]

^ In general the 2003/2004 zoning reform will have successfully banned new ones, but getting rid of the existing ones is basically putting faith in property values recovering enough to make it economic to redevelop them like the former BP/Amoco at North/Clybourn.

[BVictor1]

This makes my heart ache.

[BVictor1]

Originally Posted by Rusty Staub

Masonic Temple 1901 via Shorpy...

Marshall Field's under construction in the bottom right.

[VivaLFuego]

^ Good thing they torn down that Slack Grocer & Eastman Kodak building to make way for the "award-winning" Lucien Lagrange parking garage that sits there now.

[Ryan81]

The Following Pictures are from Lindsaybridge at Flickr:

1971:





















The Following Pictures are from Roger4336 at Flickr:

1964:





1967:





1970:

















1972:





1974:



The Following Pictures are from Pagodagirl at Flickr:

1972:

[ChiSoxRox]

Wow, I love seeing those pics from the start of the 1970s and seeing how dominant the Big Three and First National were when they first came along. And there's CNA Plaza under construction. Does anyone know whether it's been red all along?

[ethereal_reality]

I love these highly scanned photos from the 1970s.
Thanks for posting them Ryan81.

[VivaLFuego]

Shows how strikingly the scale of the Magnificent Mile has changed in the past 40 years.

[aspiringArchitect]

I've always wanted to know what used to be where that horrendous parking garage is now on Congress Parkway, by the jail. Does anyone on here know?

(This one here)

[Ryan81]

I find a lot of my pictures at the Library of Congress website. There is a wealth of historic images among other items. Many of the images are high resolution archive files. I have added a couple 100% thumbs in the images to illustrate how great some of these scans are. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Great Northern Building - 1901



Michigan AVE - 1902

[Nowhereman1280]

Reliance Building sometime in the 60's when it was absolutely filthy. Note the awesome street lights!


greatbuildings.com

Old Marshall Field Warehouse. This is torn down correct?


greatbuildings.com

Monadnock Building, again picture of it when it was filthy:


greatbuildings.com

When it was first built, note the little building across the street that still stands is under construction here:


greatbuildings.com

Marina City:


greatbuildings.com


I suggest you all give greatbuildings.com a visit, they have a ton of floorplans and sections of these buildings online there. I don't know how many of them are originals, but some appear to be and lend some insight into the interior planning of these buildings. Check it out here:

http://www.greatbuildings.com/types/...s/chicago.html

[george]

Great finds, Ryan & Nowhereman. Thanks for sharing.^

Here's one to tie into the last pic on Ryan's set.



from "Lost Chicago" David Lowe

[VivaLFuego]

Video with scenes of Rush Street between Chestnut and Oak, 1966:

• Video Link

Between the righteous neighbor groups and former Alderman Burt "Sold!" Natarus, the entire area has been successfully condozed in the intervening decades. A couple old buildings survive near the intersection of Rush & Chicago, otherwise all that's left of the district is north of Oak Street, and of course those have been largely sanitized compared to what's shown above.

Be sure to check out flickr user davidwilson1949's sets as well. Here are some teasers.

Broadway north from Diversey, 1987 (everything on the left side is gone):


Halsted, looking south from Roosevelt, 1990:


Looking east along Superior, from Dearborn, 1967 (basically every foreground lowrise building is long gone:


NE corner of Chicago & State, 1967 (again, everything in the foreground is gone, replaced by a crappy McDonald's and bland Loyola University buildings):

[VivaLFuego]

To be fair, not every change has been negative. Look at what LaSalle station was like in 1987!