View of the back of Mision Cristiana Elim

I'm continuing my series looking into some of the areas of the neighborhood that were never really meant to be on display.  You can't do much better than the church at Morse and Ashland.

This was originally the reform synagogue Temple Mizpah, and I've written about it a bit here.  There's a substantial parking lot on the east, which was intended to be the main sanctuary but was never built.  The result is that the building (and the block) remains forever unfinished.  

The property's unfinished nature allows for a glimpse across the parking lot and into the service areas. All of the loading and unloading spaces and mechanical accommodations are on full display. In many ways, it's more complex than the primary facade, constantly adapting to meet the owners' needs. How many more changes before it finds equilibrium? Or until the whole property converts to condos...

View from Goldberg Park

Looking up from Goldberg Pocket Park.

I'm interested in parts of buildings that were never meant to be displayed.  These are the spaces that most honestly respond to the needs of the structure and the limitations of the materials.  Sometimes these are visible when an adjacent building is demolished, but you can also walk down any alley in the city. I find pocket parks create some great viewing galleries, and sometimes even a bench.  This view from Goldberg Park is one of my favorites.  
It's really a streetscape in its own right, following a set of rules just as compelling as those which govern the finished facades. 

Backstage Spaces #4, Greenleaf Alley

Alley West of Clark between Greenleaf and Estes (2017)

I've been working periodically on some drawings of alleys and other service spaces in the neighborhood.  Sometimes it's a relief to go behind the geometry and ornament of a  facade to admire the more functional aspects of a building--  electrical connections, trash receptacles, parking, circulation... all of messy vitality that makes life in a dense city possible.  And then you see the real value of the alley.  It allows the illusion of order to step forward, no matter how much garbage might be stacked up in back.

Clark, Greeneaf, Ravenswood and Estes, Part 3

A few months ago I did a series of posts about "backstage spaces," including some views through alleys focusing on rear lot structures.  But if I wanted to crack open a city block to see what makes it tick I couldn't have done a better job than removing the Adelphi Theater at Estes and Clark, which had been on the site since 1912.

I was at home (a block away) when the Adelphi came down in February of 2006.  I remember walking over to watch.  They always demolish these buildings from the back.  There are probably structural and safety reasons for this, but it also means that once the demolition is noticeable it's almost complete.

Early modernists claimed to prefer the backs of buildings rather than the ornamental front facades, since that was supposedly where the true structure was expressed.  What you see here would likely please any number of architectural theorists from the 50s and 60s.
It is fascinating to see how these buildings developed over the years.  I've tried to make them visually intelligible, but it's a tricky job. 

If a building is only visible from a street the architect can focus the design (and dollars) on the front facade. Once something is demolished it reveals the areas intended to remain hidden.  If it happens enough it changes the entire feel of a block, making it look slapped together, run-down and ready for the bulldozer.  It may be all of those things, but usually what you're seeing is just the architectural vocabulary for functional spaces. 

In the foreground is the foundation of a new condo building which was intended to replace the Adelphi Theater.  The development stalled in the economic downturn and has remained vacant ever since.

Backstage Spaces #3 (6954 N. Clark)

Sometimes a vacant lot opens up a window into the interior of a block.  In this case the empty parcel at the northwest corner of Morse and Clark reveals a rear brick building with a gable roof attached to the flat-roofed building fronting on Clark.  This corner has been used as a parking lot for the bank across the street for at least 50 years, so the view is nothing new for Rogers Park residents.

It's not really blue.  I added that.

When I first noticed this building I assumed that it must have pre-dated the commercial building at the front of the lot by at least 10 years.  Its setback and design is consistent with early brick residences in the neighborhood. Unfortunately the Sanborn Maps didn't help me to figure out the exact gap in time between the two buildings.  In 1894 there's nothing on the lot, and in 1905 you see both buildings attached as they are today.  It's possible the rear building was built in 1895 and the front building in 1904.  This would give a maximum time spread of 9 years.

But even if we can assume the maximum spread that's not very long before a major addition was built.  It indicates a commercial district that was rapidly developing.  But this isn't a surprise. After its annexation to Chicago in 1893 Rogers Park could utilize metropolitan utilities and infrastructure.  The neighborhood began attracting more residents and new stores were needed to satisfy the demand.  If you can keep the older building on the lot while catering to that increase why wouldn't you?



Today the little building remains residential, as far as I can tell.  And judging by the attached satellite dishes there are at least 3 units in there.

Backstage Spaces #2 (1429-1431 W. Lunt)

I walk down a lot of alleys in Rogers Park.  I have yet to be mugged and/or murdered.  I suspect that even if you meet a mugger in an alley they might also assume that you're a mugger and leave you alone.  Anyway, in keeping with my series on overlooked conditions at the rear of properties I offer this peculiar situation on the alley between Lunt and Morse, just west of Glenwood.

I spotted this year ago, when my girlfriend (now wife) lived in the 4-flat next door.  Oddly, there was a 2-story single family home attached to the rear of a 3-story apartment building.  There's no gap between the two.  The front of the house actually abuts the larger building.  You can see the remains of the old sun-porch at the juncture between the two.  The front of the house was clad with a yellow face brick, which is visible on the side return. It retains it's half-timbered decorative treatment below the hip-on-gable roof, but a garage door opening was cut into the first floor facing the alley.

My first thought was that this building was probably on the front of the lot and was picked up and moved when the economics of the neighborhood made large apartments viable.  I've seen this a lot in older areas of the city where a more expensive house or apartment displaced the earlier home.  Surprisingly, it was fairly common to relocate buildings in Chicago.

So it's not hard to test this theory.  As I've mentioned, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps cover much of the neighborhood.  The 1937 map and the 1951 map shows the current conditions.  But the 1914 map shows that there was in fact a smaller building near the front of this lot.  But it wasn't shaped anything like the house now at the rear of the property.  So where did this building come from?  It doesn't seem likely it would have been moved a great distance.  I looked up the permit record (the apartment was built in 1927) but there were no notes relating to a relocated structure. A quick glance at the nearby blocks on the 1914 map doesn't show any footprints similar in size and shape. So this is a bit of a mystery that will have to remain for the time being.

The house itself appears to have been converted into a garage on the first floor while there's residential space on the second floor.  This likely connects to the interior corridor of the apartment building.  Perhaps this is where the building manager or custodian lives.  Not a bad way to create a unique living space attached to an income-producing property.

In general, alleys have become less active spaces over the years. Much of this is due to zoning, which limits accessory uses and prohibits detached living units.  This is unfortunate, since those odd spaces added a lot to the affordability and diversity of the neighborhood.  But there are enough of these uses left that the alleys remain an interesting place to explore.

Backstage Spaces #1 (Estes, Clark, Touhy and the Metra Tracks)

There's a lot to be said for alleys and the hidden spaces behind buildings.  Many times this is where you see the true character of a street and clues about how it's changed over time.  The west side of Clark Street in Rogers Park is especially interesting, maybe because of the trapezoidal blocks created by the viaduct for the Metra tracks and the angle of Clark Street. Nothing like a good diagonal (or two) to shake up the grid.



Above is a panoramic view of the interior of the block bounded by Touhy on the north, Clark on the east, Estes on the south, and the train tracks on the west.  I first noticed this area because of the old residential frame building incorporated into the light industrial buildings behind it (center of image, with gable roof). The windows are all boarded up and it's been covered in tar paper, but there's a certain lingering aura of old Rogers Park.

Since it's difficult to place yourself in the frame for this kind of space I put together a handy "cone of vision" graphic to the left.  The gigantic eye is where the viewer is standing.  Hopefully the viewer will not actually look like a gigantic eye.

If you look carefully you can see that the paving angles up towards Clark Street.  This makes sense, since Clark is located on one of the ancient shorelines of Lake Michigan.  It's easy to overlook this just driving down Clark, but the buildings on either side gain bonus height in the rear due to the slope.

So why is this area so desolate and underutilized?  And why is it paved with gravel?  That's unusual for Rogers Park, which is fairly dense and developed. 

Luckily Rogers Park is well-represented on the old Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, which I used for the graphic above.  The subdividers created an unusually complex alley for this block, probably because the large lot at the top of the block already had a home there and wouldn't agree to allowing the alley right-of-way to cut through to Touhy.   Eventually an alternate alley was inserted on the west edge of the lot.  The home itself was replaced by a filling station some time after 1914.  Up until at least 1905 the area developed residentially.  Most of the single family homes were located away from Clark Street, with its horse-drawn streetcars and later trolleys.

Several of these early residential buildings located on the small lots off the alley but facing Clark Street (shown in red to the right).  For a while  this must have given these small homes a real feeling of spaciousness.  But as Clark developed commercially they were locked away.  As late as 2008 all four of these homes were still there.  Suddenly they're demolished (apparently without a permit), leaving the one frame building which survived only through its earlier conversion into a machine shop.

So what's the next step for this area?  Were these buildings cleared in anticipation of some new development, or is a new parking lot just cheaper than fixing up the homes?  Maybe nothing is next. It seems like this area has been in an awkward transition for about 100 years...