Frame Homes at Ashland and Greenleaf, 1903

Looking Northeast from Greenleaf and Ashland. 

There are many examples in Rogers Park of nearly identical homes clustered together on the same block.  These small-scale developments define the character of Chicago's neighborhoods but, due to their modest appearance, are often overlooked.  Developments like these were financed by local banks or investors and constructed by small builders.  Rather than relying on an architect's services, these designs originated in popular pattern books or employed vernacular construction styles. Although they haven't attracted the same scholarly attention as more pedigreed styles, they continue to have a big impact on the architectural character of our community. And, once you start to pay attention to these small-scale developments, you will see them everywhere.

Varying configurations. 

These particular frame homes are on the Northeast corner of Greenleaf and Ashland.  When the original owner, William H. Matthews, contracted with A. Christiansen to construct these four homes, they had a few options.  The easiest (and cheapest) was to build a series of identical homes.  They could have also chosen to vary the roofline and massing using a regular pattern (hip, gable, hip, gable, etc.).  This provides a bit more variety to the street and may support a higher asking price.  Builders may also draw upon an established vocabulary of structural details, a design toolbox, if you will, and choose specific structural elements based on the size and configuration of the lot.  This seems to be how these four homes on Ashland were designed.  Each home was constructed at a cost of $2,500, according to the old permit ledgers.

Frame construction has an advantage over masonry for affordable modifications.  Need to bump out some space?  Add a bay.  Need another bedroom in the attic? Drop in a dormer.  Another window?  Knock out a hole and put it in. Want to use the big house on the corner as your impressive "model home?" Give it the works! Even though the basic structures are nearly identical, this customization gives each home its own style.

The design toolbox as an exploded diagram.

In this case the four lots have have some size variation.  The two central parcels have 42' in frontage while the north lot has 50' frontage.  But the corner lot has 50' of frontage on Ashland and 100' of frontage on Greenleaf.  It was common for corner lots to be larger than standard lots.  While these properties lack the same rear yard privacy found mid-block, the additional size allows more square footage and a more expansive exterior treatment.  All the homes have front porches, dormers and bays, but the corner home also has an engaged octagonal turret and a wrap-around porch.

The years between 1897 and 1907 were a period of economic growth between two downturns. (Does anyone remember the Panic of 1893 and the Knickerbocker Crisis of 1907?)  Rogers Park was an attractive area for middle-class families seeking easy access to downtown and affordability. The 10-minute walk to the lake didn't hurt either.  Developers may have anticipated that the extension of the elevated train, which ran all the way from the Loop to Evanston Central Street by 1908, would spur even greater development.

Next time you're walking around the neighborhood, ruminating about the Panic of 1893, see if you can spot similar developments.

Metra's 1965 Ravenswood Corridor (Repost from 6/5/14)

Metra Overpass at Greenleaf, looking North

I take the UP-N Metra train to work every morning and home every evening.  It may possibly be the best and easiest commute in the universe.  While I'm waiting for the train sometimes I notice things from the platform, like these standard 1960s apartment buildings flanking the west side of the embankment.

Ravenswood is split by the train line, so there's a Ravenwood Avenue on either side south of Lunt.  But at Lunt the west side of Ravenswood ends abruptly.  At that point a series of condo buildings occur between Lunt and Touhy, located in the same strip where Ravenswood would have continued through.

These brick buildings (shown in red above) are nearly identical, with low pitched roofs and simple geometric ornament. Some of them are bigger than others, which basically means that a few more units have been tacked on.   A quick check of the Cook County Assessor's website shows that all of them are dated to 1965. 

I'm guessing it's not a coincidence.  That strip of land had been owned by the railroad (at that time the Illinois Parallel Railroad Company) since its incorporation by the Illinois Legislature in 1851.  Passenger service to Waukegan began in 1854, with service to the North Shore beginning in 1856.  By 1869 there were seven trains each way daily.  In 1896 work began to elevate the tracks above grade in an effort to eliminate crossing accidents.

Sanborn Map above and Chicago Zoning Map below

Public rights-of-way have enormous value, even just from a standpoint of square footage.  Railroad rights-of-way were granted to private industry because they had the capital to develop them for public (and private) benefit.  But what happens when the railroad doesn't have a need for as much land as it was given? Does it return that land to the government?  In this case it appears to have been sold off for residential development.

To the right is a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1937, showing the previous ownership structure for the area.  The train platform on the west side of the tracks is clearly outlined.  At first I thought that perhaps the railroad bought this land, but if that were the case the alley would extend through.  Instead, I believe this area was part of the granted right-of-way, and was used to provide access to the Rogers Park station.  It also provided a buffer between the trains and the nearby single family homes.

But sometime after 1937 it was determined that this land no longer served the interests of the railroad.  Perhaps the train platform was reconstructed to take up less space. Or perhaps the railroad needed to raise funds.  Regardless, the areas adjacent to the tracks were developed into multi-unit buildings.  North of Touhy the railroad has retained ownership, possibly because the slightly westward angle of the route made the lots less viable for development. 

To me the front facades look a bit like drunken robots.  The developments also created an uncomfortable relationship between the train embankment and the new buildings.  The area in between is a dark, overgrown strip which frequently fills up with trash.  Perhaps not the best land planning, but a good example of how developers maximum the value of undesirable lots.   As if we needed more of those examples...

Metra posts some history about their train lines here, which provided some of the detail and dates above.

West Ridge Architecture, #1

This series is vaguely labeled but will focus on the architecture of the West Ridge neighborhood that developed during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.  And not all of it.  As usual, I'll be guided by my own interests and curiosity.  That's the great thing about being self-directed-- nobody is pointing out your gaps in methodology.  The drawback is that nobody is helping you to shape your analysis either.  If you screw up it's entirely on you.

There have been a few posts on West Ridge already, and here they are:

Farwell and Oakley, 1928
Some Chicago Bungalows in West Ridge
Veteran's Housing in West Ridge, 1946-1947
Howard and Washtenaw, c. 1958
Townhouses at Greenleaf and Oakley, 1968

The new series will take a more extensive look at some issues touched upon in previous posts.  These will include:

1. Subdivisions
2. Developers
3. Mid-century site planning 
4. Mid-century styles
5. Single and multi-family buildings
6. Commercial development
7. Whatever else I decide is worth writing about.

There has been some writing on the remarkable commercial buildings on Lincoln Avenue, but there are other neighborhood buildings in commercial areas that also deserve some attention.

Howard and Washtenaw, 1958

While early development in West Ridge clustered in the center and east side of the neighborhood, significant undeveloped portions were available to accommodate the post-war building boom, especially to the northwest.  In 1956 and 1957 West Ridge surpassed all other Chicago communities in home construction (according to "Chicago's Far North Side", p.126).

West Ridge Boundaries and Building Footprint Data (Available free online!)

The map above is adapted from City of Chicago GIS data, showing older buildings in yellow and more recent buildings in maroon.  I don't have much confidence in the accuracy of the individual buildings (and there are huge gaps in this data), but it does provide a qualitative illustration of the sequence of development, with mid-century buildings primarily west of California. Which seems like a good place to start.

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...