Broadway and E. 20th Street, Lorain, OH

This strip of buildings is on Broadway in my hometown, Lorain, Ohio. These were constructed in the 1880s and 1890s, and although they've been altered they still retain distinctive features.   The  parapets of the red brick buidings are ornamented with elaborate corbelled brick, and the sills and lintels are a golden sandstone quarried from nearby Amherst, OH.

What especially caught my eye is the great mid-century slip-cover applied to a portion of the corner building.  These façade treatments were meant to update and revive old commercial buildings but they've become historic artifacts in their own right.

The design of these slipcovers had more in common with the graphic design popular in the 1950s and 60s, often with a nod to the high-style modernist towers going up. And because they weren't doing much structural work they could look like anything. A covered building could instantly transform from a pedestrian scale to an auto-oriented scale, and this was one way historic downtowns competed with the postwar suburban expansion.  It didn't really work, so now these architectural treatments are often reversed to reveal the original character of a building.

Clear aluminum mullions and turquoise spandrels were applied to the façade, along with new windows and storefronts. There was enough flexibility in the system to adapt it to the size and configuration of the original facade, although it wasn't unusual to have to chip off projecting masonry that interfered with the new system.   Finally, a wide band of stainless steel framed the entire composition.  I believe those three stubs above the storefront supported a large vertical sign which has since been removed.

This is a great example for its pure geometric design, but also because it serves as a clear visual lesson in how buildings change over time.
 

A few blocks north at Broadway and 16th Street.

Bars along 28th Street in South Lorain

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.

Rogers Park Station

One of the best things about my work day is the ease of the commute.  I walk one block east to the Metra station and ride south to the terminus at Ogilvie Station, which takes about 20 minutes.  Then I walk a few blocks east to City Hall.  In the evening I usually doze on the way home, waking up just before Rogers Park (a skill I perfected in graduate school on the Red Line).  With a few changes in technology my route is pretty much the same one used by commuters when the neighborhood began as an independent suburb in the 1870s.  Back then the commercial development clustered around the station Ravenswood between Lunt and Greenleaf.  The early frame homes were just far enough away from the tracks to avoid the noise and smoke. But despite the similarities there have been a number of changes in the experience of commuting.

Rogers Park Station At-Grade, looking Northeast.

This rail line began passenger service in 1854, when it was extended to Waukegan.  By 1869 there were seven trains each way daily.  But because the tracks were at-grade crossings were dangerous and frequently interrupted city traffic.  In 1896 work began to elevate the tracks in compliance with a Chicago ordinance. (The information above is taken from the Metra website, which has some history on each of their lines.)

Photos of the station show that it was elevated after 1905. This wasn't a moment too soon according to these Chicago Tribune articles (accessed through the Chicago Public Library):

At-Grade Station

August 20, 1885 -  Frank Zwiener apparently commits suicide between the Rogers Park and Calvary station.  His lower limbs were found at some distance from the rest of his body. 

December 15, 1887 - Charles Hemmings and his wife were struck and by the train while crossing the tracks in a heavy lumber wagon. Mr. Hemmings survived but his wife was killed.  Their horses were also killed.

May 8, 1896 - Six occupants of a surrey hurled as far as 75 feet when stuck by the Milwaukee train at Touhy.  No one was killed,  miraculously.

January 23, 1897 - Arthur Steen injured at Rogers Park crossing by the Milwaukee train.  His companion, Frederick Buhr, was uninjured although their wagon was destroyed.

June 11, 1903 - Patrick McLaughlin, a flagman for the railroad, loses his life trying to save 16 year old George Brackle, who was driving a laundry wagon across the tracks.

Anyway, I don't want to get too morbid.  Let's just say that at-grade crossings could be hazardous.   Pressure was brought to bear on the Chicago Northwestern Railway to expedite the elevation of the tracks at Rogers Park.

View looking southeast , c. 1913.  Did I mention these were steam trains?

By 1910 the tracks had been elevated, but what about the station?  It wasn't unusual to reconstruct a train station at the new grade, but I believe the entire station was raised to align with the new track level.  I'm basing this on the design of the building (as shown in historic photos in the collection of the Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society) and the identical footprints found in the consecutive Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. The combination of open bays and enclosed areas for ticket sales was common, and can still be seen in stations along the North Shore.  In particular I'm thinking of the 1891 station in Glencoe, which has a slightly more elaborate massing but the same brick and stone trim combinations.

View from West of the Embankment Looking South

Moving buildings in Chicago has a long tradition.  In the 1850s and 1860s water and sewer lines were constructed under a new raised street system.  Many buildings, large and small, were lifted and placed atop new foundations to align with the new street level. And commonly property owners would move old homes to the rear of their lot to allow construction of a new residence along the street.  You can find this pattern in many of the older neighborhoods and the skilled labor to do this safely would have been readily available.

After Elevation with West Depot

With the elevation of the tracks the railroad also built a depot on the west side of the line.   It appears to have had a concrete foundation and a frame second floor.  I'm not sure if this functioned as a storage building or a shelter.  Or perhaps both.  But the primary station remained on the east (inbound) which is still the case on the Union Pacific North line.   Folks waiting to go downtown were always accorded the more elaborate facilities.

Note the access lane on the west side of the embankment.  This was within the railroad right-of-way and provided easy pickup and loading for passengers and goods.  This lane was later vacated by the railroad and sold off for condo development in the 1960s.

By the 1950s the commuter lines has become less profitable, perhaps because of decreasing density in the neighborhoods.  In 1958 twenty-two stations were closed, both in Chicago and outlying areas.  At this time Edgewater (directly south) lost all three of their commuter stations.  Based on dated photos provided by generous readers of the blog I can confirm that the Rogers Park Station existed at least until 1965, and it's demolition is estimated to have occurred in 1966 or 1967..

View looking North from Lunt down Ravenswood

The current Rogers Park Metra stop has a small at-grade waiting room and open canopies on the narrow train platforms.  Where the old station once stood there are a few awkward parking spaces.  The hefty limestone foundation is still visible from Ravenswood.





This post is an adaptation of a project I put together for the "Property" exhibit at the Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society, curated by the Roman Susan Artspace.   Although that has a few more maps and some snarky comments... And there's still time to see the exhibit exhibit at the society's storefront at 7363 N. Greenview!.

My exhibit at the RP/WRHS "Property"

7022-7036 N. Clark

Here's a diverse group of buildings on the west side of Clark Street south of Greenleaf.  As random as these look they document the variety of forms that contribute to a traditional neighborhood commercial strip.

L. Shure, 2015

Clark and Greenleaf intersection

The wood-frame building in the center represents a type of commercial construction which has nearly disappeared in Chicago. Let's just say fire and wood is not a great match.  The first floor has been oddly clad with a red brick veneer.  Originally this would have had cast iron columns framing large glass and wood storefronts.  I'm really not sure how this got on the block.  Fire codes would have prevented this type of construction and I doubt this building pre-dates the 1893 annexation of Rogers Park.  As you can see from the 1958 photo below it originally had a projecting bay on the second floor and a false front. 

1958 Photo from the Images of Change collection at UIC

The red brick building on the right was built around 1913 with white terra cotta cornice and window surrounds.  It still retains a good amount of character, although the huge red awning (fiberglass?) makes it look dated.  This is a traditional mixed-use building with storefronts below and apartments above. The south storefront has been infilled and covered with a red and white pebble finish. This was a bar when I first moved to the neighborhood.

The yellow and blue 1-story building dates from at least 1958...  The storefront angles back slightly from the sidewalk  to create a shallow entrance.  I'm guessing there are roughly a thousand coats of paint on this one. The sign dominates the building, which became common as new buildings focused only on retail or commercial use.

The gray building to the left is constructed of split-face concrete block (CMU).  This may be the most unattractive masonry material ever produced.  I can date this building to around 1986, but I'm a little surprised by the huge sign above the roofline.  Current sign codes prohibit new signs taller than the building.  This could be older building that kept its signage.  Or maybe they just never bothered to get a sign permit...

Despite their varying vintages and forms all of these buildings come right up to the sidewalk and observe a similar scale and relationship to the street.  And even with their mix of materials they somehow seem to harmonize with each other.

2324 W. Devon, 1926

L. Shure, 2015

Every time I pass this building on Devon I'm amazed by its ornamental quality and originality.  Where else can you find a 1-story building draped with owls, lions, shields, and weird geometric insignias?  And why would so much detail be lavished on such a small building?

According to the Chicago Historic Resources Survey (CHRS) this was designed by architect Edward Perry Steinberg.  Steinberg designed several of these medieval-inspired commercial buildings, complete with half-timber details and herringbone brick infill.  Or at least those were some of his buildings picked up by the survey. (See below.)

Edward Steinberg was one of many unsung Chicago architects who had a long and productive career but never really came into the public eye.   Even so, his work continues to contribute to neighborhood character throughout the city.   According to his 1975 Tribune obituary he designed movie theaters for the Lubliner & Trinz chain (including the former Belpark Theater), as well as the W.F. Hall Printing Corporation at 4600 W. Diversey (now demolished).  He was also a founding member and architect for the former B'Nai Zion Synagogue at 1445 W. Pratt.

2324 W. Devon

This illustration restores some of the integrity of the building.  It hasn't been maintained very carefully and is starting to deteriorate.  Some of the slate tiles have been replaced by asphalt, and signage attachments have taken a toll on the ornamental features.  When I see buildings like this, they're often on their way out.  Any extensive restoration would far exceed the market value of the property, so the common solution is to keep things going as long as possible with as little cost as possible. But you can only depend on the underlying quality of the materials and workmanship for so long.  When the maintenance issues catch up I expect to see a wholesale removal of the ornament.

Photo on the left by the author, and the two on the right from the CHRS.

Some More Lorain, Ohio Stuff

E. 21st and Access Rd.

Whenever I return to my hometown I find an infinite number of things that I would like to draw.  I left Lorain before I really became aware of its architecture and history, so everything looks both familiar and strange.


I believe the building to the right is a facility management office for the local school district.  In the background is a recycling plant.

NE Corner of Grove and E. 30th

This building in South Lorain used to be El Patio.  And probably many other businesses, judging by its age and the layers of architectural accretions.  I remember coming here to pick up goat dinners bought by my dad as part of some church fund-raiser.   Looks like it's been vacant for years.

E. 28th Street and Seneca

Thanks to the comment below that calls out these buildings as former trolley barns. The corbelled brick and classical details remain, but are deteriorating.  


Many of the buildings on 28th Street have converted into garages and car services.  But many are simply gone.

1905 and 1911 W. Morse, c.1890

These large Queen Anne-style homes represent some of the early suburban development of Rogers Park. By the 1890s Rogers Park had a thriving commercial district near the train stop, its own police and fire station, and even a water treatment plant.  The area east of Clark was being developed gradually (it was pretty swampy), but large picturesque homes were being constructed on land between Clark and Ridge.  This stretch is the highest point of the neighborhood, and a good option to avoid a flooded basement.

The Queen Anne style typically has large wrap-around porches.  These would have been important for surviving the sweltering Chicago summers.  The cross-gable design opened up the floor plan to light and air from all directions.

1762-1766 W. Morse, c. 1905

1762 and 1766 W. Morse

I'm beginning a project to document the current character of Morse Avenue in Rogers Park. For now I'm picking out some areas and buildings that appeal to me and seeing which direction I feel like heading.  The more I focus on specific buildings the more it seems like this is a project that could be done on any street in any neighborhood to reveal some of the same patterns.

After annexation of Rogers Park to Chicago in 1893 there was almost immediately an economic depression connected to the Panic of 1893.  The country didn't begin recover until 1897, at which time a 10 year period of growth occurred. These frame houses were built around 1905, in the middle of this boom period.   This was cut short by the Panic of 1907.  The next building boom wasn't until after WWI, and it lead to greater urbanization and denser development in the neighborhood.

Parking lots now bracket these buildings on the east and west, but originally the block consisted of modest single family homes with an easy downtown commute.  The Dutch Colonial-style building on the west retains many of its features, while the home on the east has enclosed the front porch and looks to be divided into several units.

West Ridge Architecture #5, Split-Level Homes

When looking at common homes it's sometimes tricky to separate the form and the style.  The buildings I've focused on in my previous West Ridge posts could probably be described as cubical 2-story single family homes with colonial-revival detailing.   A split-level homes is a major shift in the structure of the home, even thought it may incorporate traditional or modern stylistic details.  The other houses were drawn in elevation, but these homes have to be shown in perspective to convey their more complex massing.


Split-level homes typically have three levels-- a finished basement for recreation and relaxation, a first floor for family activities (meals), and a second floor for bedrooms.  The privacy levels of the home are directly related to the height above grade.

The second floor is a half-story above the main living area.  By shifting this floor towards the street the architect could achieve a grander look.  Shifting it to the rear screens the space, resulting in a more modest appearance.

There's an interesting group of these split-level homes on Morse, just west of California.  The entire block was subdivided in 1953, and the generous 42' frontages lend themselves to the wider housing type.

Some of these have gently sloping hipped roofs with deep eaves for a more traditional appearance.  A few have modern looking combinations of shed and flat roofs and large areas of glass.

The entire block has alley access, but several of the homes have attached front garages accessed by a sloping driveway.  Because these are single-car garages they don't completely dominate the front of the home, but their prime location makes a strong statement about the importance of the car to the household.

Locating the garage in the front yard also prioritizes the private space of the backyard, which can only be accessed through the home.  But the alleys remain as a constant reminder of the older urban pattern surrounding the new type of home.

P & S Restaurant at Touhy and Western

Originally posted August 11, 2010.  New updated sign graphic added 9/30/22!
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In general, there's always been a lot of interest in old neon signs.  But writers and photographers tend to treat them as if they're works of art, picking and choosing the most interesting and intact examples.  But for some reason, I'm always drawn to the crummiest, most deteriorated signs.  In that vein, I'd like to focus on just one.

Western and Touhy is a busy intersection in West Ridge.  As a pedestrian, you feel distinctly second-rate to the cars whizzing past.  On the southeast corner is Baker's Square, on the northwest is Lakeshore Surgery, and on the southwest corner is a Marathon gas station.  All three have their own attached parking and auto-oriented circulation.

But on the northeast corner is a sad-looking 2-story yellow-brick building with apartments above and commercial spaces below.  The assessor dates it to 1928.  It has a vaguely English look, castellated, with few gothic stone ornaments.  Many of the storefronts along Western have been infilled with artificial stucco.  The commercial tenants are typical storefront businesses-- a cell phone store, grocery, computer service, hair salon, etc.

In the 1920s, a burst of optimism flung buildings like this to cheap land at the edge of the city and beyond, with the expectation that more development would fill the gaps in between.  Of course, it didn't work out that way due to an inconvenience known as The Great Depression.  Most of the nearby lots didn't develop until the 50s and 60s.  And even then, Western never achieved the density common to older commercial corridors in Chicago.

The sign for the P&S Restaurant has seen better days.  Most of the neon has cracked off and the letters haven't been repainted in decades.  Rusting chains keep it from swaying in the wind.  It's only a matter of time until the steel supports fail and the sign will have to come down.  I would like to say that it might be repaired, but I'm guessing that won't be likely. [The sign came down just a few years after this post.]

It's a relatively simple combination of oval, trapezoid, and scalloped bands.  It wouldn't surprise me if there had been an arrow at the termination of the band pointing to the restaurant.  The organization of the information is fairly typical-- name, function, and amenities.  If I had to date the sign, I would guess early 1950s.  The signs in the 40s were generally simple boxes, and the signs in the late 50s became progressively more exuberant.  But this is not an exuberant sign.

In general, signs like this are evidence of the growing car culture.  On the highway, it makes sense to have a large, illuminated sign.  The speed of the experience and the viewing angles require a sign large enough to interest the driver and give them time to pull over and park.  However, this format is not particularly functional for a corner building with zero setback to the street and no associated parking. 

Initially I thought that this sign may be a relic of a time when the surrounding development allowed this building to operate as an auto-oriented strip.  A glance at the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of the area (1937, 1941, 1950, and 1951), showing mostly greenhouses and gas stations, seems to support this.  Only as the surrounding areas became built-up with apartments and businesses did the 1920s typology of the building limit the effectiveness of the sign to attract drivers who could actually take advantage of a quick stop at a diner. 

But that can't be the entire story since so many of these signs can be found in areas that have always been densely urban.  Auto-oriented development and advertising permeated the commercial landscape after WWII, and there are many good examples of this in Chicago.  For my purposes, it's not much of a jump to suspect that the old main street businesses would have attempted to present a more modern image to the customers they were afraid of losing.  When it came time to modernize, they didn't choose to paste up gold leaf letters on glass.

While the stand-alone auto-oriented businesses could place their sign on a pole out front and go as crazy as they wanted, the traditional buildings were stuck with slapping these signs onto aging structures with a variety of steel connections.  Some of these attachments are reminiscent of a torture chamber and aren't particularly sensitive to existing ornament.  As much as I like these signs, they typically contrast with the original scale of the building.  That said, I would still be sad to see it removed.  As fewer remain, they've become kind of precious.

I don't normally reference books in this blog, but I have to nod to Lisa Mahar's fantastic book, "American Signs:  Form and Meaning on Route 66."  This is a brilliant graphic manual for understanding, categorizing, and dating this type of signage.

West Ridge Architecture #2 - Asymmetrical Georgians

These boxy Georgian-styled homes are found in West Ridge, but also throughout the city and  The ones from the 1940s are solid brick, while later versions are concrete block with a face brick veneer. Most have stone trim or details.  Unlike the original Georgians, they are asymmetrical, with the front entrance to one side and the projecting bay with standing seam metal roof on the other. You can sometimes find identical versions on the same block with left- or right-handed orientations.
suburbs. 

Typically they have a raised entrance with an ornamental surround, a decorative bay on the first floor, colonial windows with shutters, and a hipped or pyramidal roof with minimal eaves.  The examples to the right are not drawn from an exhaustive survey of the type, but represent many of the typical characteristics. They're collected here to show some of the variations found throughout the neighborhood. 

The Georgian Revival style, which can be categorized as a subset of the Colonial Revival, had long been advertised in home catalogs and pattern books as the perfect combination of hominess and sophistication.  It could also be simplified easily while maintaining its basic characteristics. It lent itself to a variety of materials and expressions, from wood to stone and brick.  And it clearly appealed to the families who began to move to West Ridge following WWII.

Versions sometimes appear which bend the mold, like the example at 6813 N. Ridge.  The main entrance is at-grade, and casement windows replace the typical double-hung colonial windows. A portion of the building has been extruded forward, resulting in a more vertical orientation and a more complex roof configuration.

It's common to find these homes with entrances canopies resembling the roof over the projecting bay.  The more efficient version of these extends the roof bay over the entrance, hitting two birds with one stone.  This is especially common on the examples built later in the 1950s, when they begin to take on a more modern cast.

I can't emphasize enough how important the shutters are for this style. In some cases my illustrations restore those which have been removed.  Sure, they're non-functional and kind of silly, but the homes just don't look right without them.

When I started to look at these I was hoping there would be a clear progression from more historically-styled versions of the 1940s to modern types with minimal ornamentation from the 1950s.  Some of that can be seen, but not as much as I expected.  But as I pile up some more examples from the neighborhood perhaps some  new models for facade evolution will be suggested.

What I did begin to notice was how much the multifamily buildings from the 1950s and 60s borrowed from the architectural expressions of these single family homes.  But that will wait for a future post.

Frame Houses on Estes, 1907

So I'm continuing to document some of the more common frame homes in an area of Rogers Park bounded by Touhy, Clark, Pratt and Ridge.  One of the best ways to do this is to spot a rows of homes clearly related in their massing, materials, characteristics, and then go draw them.

Gable front cottages are the classic workers' housing in Chicago.  You may have seen the gold-plated versions of these from the 1870s and 1880s in Old Town and Lincoln Park, where they've often been elaborately restored with eave brackets and complex window and door moldings. What you see above are simplified versions, with minimal ornamentation and generous front porches.  All four were permitted in 1907 for owner John M. Carlson.  The first two cost $2,500 each, but the next two cost only $2,000 each.  This is the advantage of building identical homes- each time you find ways to estimate the building materials more accurately and make the process more efficient.  And of course this translates into a greater profit.

Less than a block to the east there's another cluster of homes.  These were developed by Jacob Meirel, and four of the six were permitted in October of 1907.  Two alternating models were built.  The gable design provides for greater attic volume, while the hipped roof includes a front-facing dormer to introduce more light.  Both designs have partial-length front porches and projecting bays on the first floor.  These were built for $4,000 each, a substantial step-up from the basic cottages down the street, but still affordable to a middle-class household.

So there's nothing revolutionary going on here.  Developers are moving into a neighborhood and cautiously building a few homes.  If they sell and a profit is made they build a few more.  Variations in size and price occur to tailor the homes to different budgets, often on the same block.  This is the heyday for this type of frame construction in Rogers Park.  Lots which don't develop in this period will be developed later at a greater density due to the increases in the cost of land, labor, and materials. But for now let's enjoy Rogers Park in its suburban phase...

You can see previous postings about other frame houses in this area here and here.

Combining Styles, #2 - 6741 N. Clark and 2125 W. Devon

Last year I wrote about some buildings which expanded their first floors into adjacent lots, resulting in a facade reflecting two different eras of development and design.  You can read that post here.    But what kind of expansion happens when a developed street changes from residential to commercial?  Every now and again it results in a front yard addition, creating an odd hybrid building.

6741-6743 N. Clark

This one is near the intersection of Clark and Pratt in Rogers Park.  Behind it you can see the c.1905 frame house. Before 1927 this home had a generous, green front yard (I'm assuming it was green).  Clark Street was changing, and the area was no longer as idyllic as it had been 20 years previous.  But there was still value in the home as well as potential to take advantage of the commercial character of the street.   So the owners extended it forward into a simple 1-story brick and stone commercial structure.  The storefronts have been infilled with vertical siding and the windows reduced to be practically non-existent, but there it remains. 

2125 W. Devon

In West Ridge there's a more jolting combination on Devon near Hamilton.  The assessor dates the rear structure  as 1896, which seems correct to me.  At that time it would have been surrounded by greenhouses to the south, east and west.  It's unusual to see a flat-roofed frame building with classical ornament.  In fact, it's the only one that I know of in the area.  It's been covered with brick-patterned asphalt siding, which makes me wonder if there's more detail hidden beneath it.

The commercial extension is concrete block, which I date to the 1980s.  The preservationist  in me recognizes this as an era when extreme disinterest in the public realm combined with a desire to make money quickly, leaving Chicago with many similar "improvements".   But the other part of me takes a deep breath and recognizes that both buildings provide useful information about the changing character of the area and the shifting values of the residents.

Frame Houses at 1926-1938 W. Touhy, 1907

A few months ago I wrote about some nearly identical frame homes on Chase.  In that entry I remarked that once you noticed these "runs" of homes you would start to see them everywhere.  At the time I didn't know how true that was.  Within a week, I'd spotted five groupings within three blocks of each other.

These small-scale developments represent a point in Rogers Park history after the 1893 annexation to Chicago but prior to the multifamily development of the 1920s.  This was a period when architects often took a back seat to local builders when it came to developing affordable single family homes.  Since architects were more focused on commercial projects and more prestigious commissions, an entire industry developed that offered pre-designed homes with no architect required.  Some, like Sears, sold kits including all wood, hardware, and fixtures.  Others sold permit-ready architectural plans, like this Radford American Homes catalog from 1903.

These five frame homes were permitted in 1907. They all have double-pitched hipped roofs, two-story projecting bays, and (originally) a full-width front porch on the first floor  Over the years they've been modified in all the ways you might expect- artificial siding, rear additions, and porch alterations.  I chose the middle image at 1938 W. Touhy as the most unaltered example.  These five homes were each built on 30' x 160' lots, which are somewhat larger than a standard 25'x 100' Chicago lot.  At the time Rogers Park had more of a suburban character.  But in 1907 "suburban character" still meant narrow side yards and a detached garage with alley access.

According to a rule of thumb proposed by Stewart Brand in "How Buildings Learn" you can expect homes to go through major renovations about every 20 years and to update their interiors and mechanical systems every 7 to 15 years.  If the construction of the home makes it difficult to update these mechanical systems, it's likely that the home will be demolished.  By 1907 the struggle between gas and electricity in Chicago was largely over.  Electricity had become the standard for lighting and appliances while gas remained in place for cooking and heating.  So these five frame homes already had an advantage over others that were constructed just a few years earlier.  I would estimate that 80 percent of the remaining single family homes in this area (between Touhy, Clark, Pratt and Ridge) were constructed between 1900 and 1910.

To be continued with some nearby homes on Estes...

Townhouses at Greenleaf and Oakley, 1968

Not long ago I came across a 1968 Chicago Tribune article about a West Ridge development coming on the market.  It included double houses, courtyard buildings, and townhouses on the north and south sides of Greenleaf, between Oakley and Western.  All of them duplexed, with small private rear yards in addition to communal front yards or interior courts.  All have accomodations for parking, ranging from garages with direct street access to parking spaces along the alleys.   Their design and detailing is consistent, but they have a variety of form you don't often see in multi-building developments.

I  think of 1968 as a turning point in Chicago history.  In one year you have the race riots following the assassination of Martin Luthur King, Jr. and the disastrous Democratic National Convention.    This signaled a period of public and private disinvestment in the city which continued for decades.  It was also the year my parents, lifelong Chicagoans, left for Columbus, Ohio.   So clearly things were pretty bad.  So what kind of housing might still attract city residents in 1968?

Looking southwest from the corner of Greenleaf and Oakley.

 A weird version of French Provincial!   With mansard roofs and arched dormers!  The buildings are an odd blend of traditional and modernistic elements.  According to the article there are three and four bedroom units in two-story or tri-level designs.  The model unit had a family room with a 16 foot high ceiling merging with the breakfast room.  They featured central air, wall-to-wall carpeting, and plastic laminated counter tops.  I wonder if they've changed much in the past 45 years.

So to summarize, large informal living space, tiny private outdoor areas, accomodation for parking, and weird semi-traditional architectural styling. Not sure this really tells me much about 1968.  In other parts of the city they were building walls topped with broken glass, so maybe West Ridge wasn't doing too badly.

Howard and Washtenaw, c.1958

I've driven by these buildings on Howard for years, and they always catch my attention.  At this point Howard Street is the dividing line between Chicago and Evanston, and represents the north boundary of the West Ridge neighborhood.  In the 1940s this area was sparsely developed.  In 1958 the former site of the Chicago Fresh Air Hospital at Howard and Western was developed as a shopping center, and a large residential development was built to the east.  It wasn't long before nearby portions of Howard began to develop, and the buildings reflect this time period.

On the corner is a 2-story building clad with a stacked-bond turquoise brick veneer.  A two-story glass atrium encloses a staircase and adds a certain drama to the building.  The ground floor glass block windows were probably later installations for  privacy and security.  The projecting eave of the building contains down-lighting for nighttime illumination. Next door is a taller two-story  office building.  It's framed by stacked-bond piers, and capped by concrete sun-screens, which are kind of a nod to a Corbusian brise-soleil. Next to that is a 1-story storefront also framed by stacked-bond brick piers connected with a sign panel.  A soffit below angles down to the aluminum storefronts.  All in all, an almost perfect  composition of a style I think of as mid-century developer vernacular. 

While the high-style modernists whittled their conception of architecture down to the most honest expression of materials and form (arguably), the neighborhood buildings that were going up took their cues from the graphic design and popular art of the time.  The buiding on the left looks like two separate geometries fighting it out in a kind of Mondrianesque battle.  The center building is mostly flat and featureless, but the vertical piers and mullions and the curved  concrete canopy impose order and scale.  The small storefront to the right is modest, but also makes use of the stacked masonry frame to focus attention on the large plate-glass windows.  It's most distinctive feature is the angled soffit, which doubles to provide exterior lighting.  I'm a fan of the stacked-bond brick work.  It's non-structual and decorative, kind of like a durable wallpaper.  All three of these buidings are concrete block construction with face brick veneers.

In 1956 there was an account in the Chicago Tribune of a successful attempt to derail a rezoning proposal changing the block from a residential to a retail district.  The neighbors were concerned that taverns would instantly locate on the block.  At this time Evanston was dry, so it wasn't totally unreasonable.  But the victory must have been short-lived, since these buildings were built soon after. 

There's no need to include this drawing, but I was so thrilled to have a completely rectilinear building that I tried to sketch it out in Inkscape.  Doesn't really add anything new, but I can show the stacked bricks a whole lot faster.

Some Chicago Bungalows in West Ridge

Bungalows are one of the most recognizable types of housing in Chicago.  Out of some perverse desire to focus on overlooked buildings I've avoided writing about them.  But it only takes a walk through West Ridge to find that the bungalow is a richer and more varied type of building than I expected.

These are what I think of when I hear "bungalow".  Basically, 1 1/2 stories with hipped roofs, offset entrances, polygonal projecting bays, and art-glass windows.  Developers would often build a string of these together.  They're recognizably related, but with varying details and treatments-- like siblings.  These three were built between 1926 and 1928 and cost between $8,000 and $10,000.  The National Register Nomination for Rogers Park Manor lists Dewey & Pavlich as the architects for 2542 W. Coyle, which leads me to believe they probably provided designs for all three.

But just  one street over there are examles of bungalows with completely different types of styling.  These two were designed by W. B. Wright and completed in 1926.    The architect experimented with the form of the bungalow to create more eclectic, somewhat Mediterranean, versions. 

These two are my favorite examples of atypical bungalow styles.  They're basically small cottages with boxes on the front dividing the main entrance from a small patio area.  I especially like the battered walls on the front facade. These were built in 1925 for $7,500. The one on the right lost its French doors, but at least it still has the tile roof.

If you're looking for an interesting walk through West Ridge I'm inserting the district map.  There's another bungalow district to the south, but that will have to wait for a future post.

Rogers Park Manor National Register Historic District