A Chicago Sojourn

Chicago’s Rail Bascule Bridges

repowers2 — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:59:01 +0000

Swing bridges are quiet curiosities – if it seems odd that a bridge should move, at least it’s only moving sideways.

Bascule bridges, by contrast, are utterly bizarre. If bridges aren’t supposed to move in the first place, then they really are not supposed to upend themselves into the air. That a flat sidewalk or roadway should become a vertical surface defies all logic and expectation.

Chicago’s roadway bascule bridges – including all the ones downtown – are elegantly slender, partly by necessity – crowded downtown streets don’t have a lot of room to spare. By contrast, the area’s numerous rail bascule bridges sport gigantic superstructures and enormous hanging counterweights, visually spelling out the defiant nature of their function – the titanic forces required to span a waterway, support a train, and occasionally turn the whole affair on its side.

Pennsylvania Railroad Western Avenue Bridge

Variously known as the 8-track bridge or the scissor lift bridges, this complex conglomeration of steel is one of Chicago’s most unique sights. Just south of Western Avenue, the “bridge” is actually four bridges standing side by side, supported by common foundations. Each originally carryied two sets of railroad tracks. The western two bridges – seen above, rusty brown from lack of maintenance – are now abandoned, with tracks removed. The eastern two, however, still see many freight trains a day.

The bridge type is known as a Scherzer rolling lift bridge – to open up, the entire span would literally roll back on the rounded arcs visible, pulled down by the massive counterweights hanging from the structure. Each bridge is a single-leaf structure, though the close spacing, alternating opening directions, and shared foundations have lead some sources to refer to them as double-leaf.

The 8-track bridges are no longer operable, and their motors have been removed. Curiously, there are no images online of the bridges in the open position, nor any indication of when the bridges last opened. Fixed in their closed position, they constitute the lowest bridge on the canal, with only 17 feet of clearance – a landmark by which boat clearances are measured by pleasure cruisers doing the various waterway circuits that pass through Chicagoland. Boats unable to pass below them must instead take the Cal-Sag canal to reach Lake Michigan.

The nearby Western Avenue road bridge was itself a lift bridge, with an impressively massive superstructure that has since been removed – see images here.

Swing Bridges of the Sanitary and Ship Canal

repowers2 — Tue, 07 May 2013 01:16:30 +0000

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal has the least appealing name imaginable, but it draws interest for its remarkable history – as a feat of engineering, as a center of industry, and as a major geographic feature for southwestern Chicago. It is one of those rare elements that truly disrupts the marching grid of Chicago’s streets.

The Sanitary and Ship Canal from the air, with railroads, industry and the Stevenson Expressway alongside.

Railroads, of course, are fewer in number than roads, and also heavier and less agile. The result is that a large number of remarkable railroad bridges cross the Sanitary and Ship Canal – all of them originally designed to move for ship traffic when needed.

With one major exception, movable bridges over the Chicago river and its associated canals fall into two groups: lift bridges, where the bridge raises into the air, and swing bridges, where the bridge rotates out of the way. Today, we’ll visit a few of the swing bridges.

Almost none of the canal’s movable bridges remain operable today; many have had their machinery removed. This raises a curious question: when was each bridge last opened, and which one was shut down first? Deactivating a single bridge would essentially restrict boat height for the entire canal to the maximum clearance of that bridge. At what point was the canal judged no longer important enough to require maintenance of the bridges?

Santa Fe Railroad Bridge – near Harlem Avenue

Now owned by the Santa Fe’s successor BNSF Railroad, this swing bridge sits perhaps a quarter mile northeast of Harlem Avenue and still sees frequent traffic. The Historic American Buildings Survey Engineering Record dates it to 1899, when the first segment of the canal was constructed.

This bridge appears as the opening image of Wikipedia’s page for the canal – standing high and dry, before the canal had been opened and filled.

Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad Bridge – northwest of Cicero Avenue

The least accessible of these bridges, the Cicero rail bridge is another swing-span bridge with a mid-stream pivot, built in 1899 as part of the canal’s construction. In the view above, the Ciero Avenue road bridge is visible beyond the rail bridge.

Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad Bridge

Sitting north of Pulaski Avenue, this is another original 1899 bridge that dates to the canal’s original construction. It is a two track bridge; only one track remains, and that one sees only occasional use.

Kedzie Avenue BNSF Railroad Bridge

Originally built for the Chicago, Madison & Northern Railroad, this bridge stands just north of Kedzie Avenue and crosses the canal at a sharp angle; in fact, the tracks cross over Kedzie itself just a hundred yards or so later. The Kedzie bridge is another swing-span bridge with a center pivot point; it has a more substantial central framework than its neighbors to the south.

This two track bridge remains in heavy use today.

The Trail of Churches, Part 4 – St. Mary of the Angels Church

repowers2 — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 03:39:07 +0000

It’s one of Chicago’s most mind-blowing sights – a huge, ornate church with a mighty dome, looking over the freeway, half-glimpsed as one battles through inbound traffic on the Kennedy Expressway.

Pity the poor traveler who has never sought out this imposing religious edifice! This is St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, and it is among Chicago’s greatest architectural glories.

Among the Polish churches in this sector of the city, it stands out as the most monumental, the most elaborate in form, and the most fully realized as a work of architecture.

The Beaux Arts influence on the front portico is clear – with its grand staircase, massive twinned Corinthian columns, huge doorways, balustraded roof and central terra cotta heraldic ornament, it could easily be a snippet of Pennsylvania Station transported to Bucktown.

Moving around, however, the influences become less singular. The dome is clearly influenced by St. Peter’s in Rome, but what of those outsize porthole windows? Second Empire, or some Edwardian era flight of fancy? Certainly the square vaults capping the side aisles are not like anything in the Vatican.

Regardless, these components make St. Mary of the Angels much more of a building in the round than its predecessors to the south. The other churches we’ve seen feature a highly decorative facade, but are essentially brick warehouses in the back – unelaborated in form or material. St. Mary, by contrast, doesn’t have a bad side – a fact driven perhaps by its double-corner location, which guaranteed that three sides would always be exposed to full view.

Inside, the church also marks a departure from the earlier Polish churches. It still draws on the same influences, with abundant Roman arches and Greek capitals, painted and stencilled and muraled to glorious excess.

To the casual fan – myself included at times – the architecture of pre-war churches can all start to seem the same after a while. But they are not – some are fundamentally different than others, and St. Mary of the Angels is a fine case in point.

While churches like St. John Cantius and Holy Trinity focused on ever-larger open spaces, with thinner and thinner supports, St. Mary of the Angels seems to take an intentional step back. The enclosed space under its roof is enormous, but it is divided in a way that our other three subjects were not.

The primary spaces of the sanctuary seem less concerned with pushing the limits of architectural technology; the arched columns and smaller side aisles create layers to the sanctuary space. They also allow more room for mystery and shadow than the gargantuan spaces of the earlier churches. Brightly illuminated above, the ground level of St. Mary still allows for intrigue and beautiful solitude.

Behind the main arches are smaller arches that define the side aisles; centered in each smaller arch, a window. Those curious square vaults cover parts of the side aisles, illuminating them from above with round porthole windows.

St. Mary of the Angels can seem somewhat conventional in its decoration. In this sense, it pushes no boundaries, and has none of the calculated awkwardness that makes Victorian churches so endearing. But by the same token, it is the most unified, its decoration seeming all of a piece, a complete entity.

By way of history – St. Mary of the Angels was designed by the architecture firm of Worthmann & Steinbach, with ground broken in 1914 and dedication in 1920. The paintings and stencils were done in 1948.

Like its brethren, St. Mary suffered heavy losses as neighborhoods were destroyed to make way for the Kennedy. Closed in 1988, it was officially marked for demolition – an announcement that came only a week after Holy Name was similarly marked for razing – until its own parishioners rose up in opposition. Two years of grassroots fundraising followed, gathering the money needed for restoration of the building, which occurred from 1991 to 1999. Since then, the number of families in the parish has increased, and the church’s future seems brighter.

A more recent restoration of the dome was completed in 2011, following another fundraising campaign.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of its congregation, St. Mary of the Angels continues to be one of Chicago’s greatest neighborhood landmarks.

The Trail of Churches, Part 3 – St. Stanislaus Kostka Church

repowers2 — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:07:32 +0000

Exuberantly ornamented, overloaded with articulation, the gangly, delightful facade of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church has loomed over its stretch of Noble Street for over 140 years – predating even Pulaski Park across the street.

St. Stanislaus is the Polish mother church of Chicago, the one from which all others sprang. Designed by prolific Catholic architect Patrick Keeley (also responsible for Holy Name and the endangered St. James), the building was begun in 1876 and dedicated five years later.

The towers were completed in 1892 and were originally identical. In June of 1964, a massive storm roared through Chicagoland; lightning hit the southern tower and started a fire which destroyed the cupola. The surviving northern cupola has also been “modernized”, losing a slathering of decorative trim, to detrimental effect.

But on the facade, a blizzard of stone and brick ornament remains, a festively overwrought assemblage repeatedly referred to as “Renaissance style” in the press, though the name – like “Victorian” – refers to a time period rather than a style. St. Stanislaus is such an individualistic creation that it’s difficult to pin a single name on its style. The stair-step facade, however, is a distinctly Flemish element.

The exuberant facade conceals a more disciplined space within.

Different styles of church sanctuaries create different effects for their inhabitants. The round and square plan designs of the 1880s were meant to bring the congregation more closely together, enhancing spirituality by building community – Lake View Presbyterian is a fine example. Post-Victorian efforts like Holy Trinity are intended to overawe – to glorify God through size, ornament and decoration. And the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe brought a sense of mystery and wonder to the worship space, through their towering height, the mystical light filtered through their vast stained glass windows, and the contrast of light and shadow. Large but not enormous, tall but not overpowering, St. Stanislaus lies somewhere between the Gothics and the Holy Trinities of the world.

Not as soaring as St. John Cantius, nor as gigantic and open as Holy Trinity, St. Stanislaus instead offers a refined and measured space. The rows of columns elegantly define the side aisles. The lighting fixtures appear to be original, and much about the church seems unchanged since days of yore.

The pews are the most characteristic of the church’s Victorian roots, with piston-like carvings on their sides reflecting the rising machine age.

The altar table and reredos are certainly modern innovations.

St. Stanislaus was endangered by the construction of the Kennedy Expressway in the 1950s, but a tide of protest – and an alternate route of the freeway that proved to be cheaper – spared it. Today the Interstate actually curves around the building’s back.

Today the church offers mass in Polish, Spanish and English. As a home for Eucharistic adoration, it is open for much of the week – making it one of the most accessible of Chicago’s grand churches.

St. Stanislaus Kostka at Wikipedia

The Trail of Churches, Part 2 – Holy Trinity Polish Catholic Church

repowers2 — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:23:01 +0000

Every member of the Trail of Churches is big. But the biggest of all is Holy Trinity Church, 1118 N Noble Street.

Behind that elaborate facade lies a vast sanctuary, clear of any interior columns but over loaded with ornament.

Despite its many glories, it is sheer size that must be counted as Holy Trinity’s crowning attribute. Free of interior columns, a hundred feet wide and almost twice as long, the sanctuary seems incredibly vast. The architecture acknowledges this break with the traditional cathedral form, with a wink and a nudge – truncated column heads and arches drop down from the ceiling, placed about where a row of columns would normally be… but they end in the air, supported by nothing but the hidden iron vaulting above.

Murals cover all the major ceiling sections:

The two largest side chapels are architecturally integrated into the building – they sit above the sanctuary’s side entrances, and must be reached by stairs.

No one style dominates. The arch above the altar is Romanesque. The guilding is Baroque. The reredos features pointed Gothic arches. The column heads are Greek Ionic.

Wikipedia gives a far more complete history than I could hope to, but the essentials are thus: the parish began as an offshoot of St. Stanislaus Kostka, just up the street. Originally considered an overflow component of that parish, it was finally recognized as a separate parish in 1892 after a protracted feud with the mother parish. Over thirty years after splitting off, they began a new church building, designed by architects Herman Olszewski and William Krieg, and opened in 1906. Decorations, murals, and stained glass were added one at a time over the following decades.

The spat with St. Stanislaus Kostka – relating to property ownership, assignment of priests, and various other issues – was well documented in papers of the time. With its resolution, the 1905 cornerstone laying was a grand affair, keynoted by the Pope’s delegate to Polish American churches and attended by a reported 50,000 Poles. The dedication of the finished building a year later was met with equal ceremony, with about 90 different Polish societies and organizations joining in a massive parade leading up to the new church.

In the modern era, the church followed the same arc of decay and renewal as St. John Cantius as congregants moved away and the Kennedy bashed its destructive path through the neighborhood. The parish faced closure in the mid-1980s but was granted a reprieve, to focus on operating as a “mission church” to new Polish immigrants. The comeback culminated in a 2005 restoration. Today, Holy Trinity Church remains true to its roots – signs and services are mostly in Polish, as is the church’s official website.

The Trail of Churches, Part 1 – St. John Cantius

repowers2 — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:21:18 +0000

One of my earliest impressions of Chicago, driving in from the north, was the string of grand churches visible from the Kennedy Expressway. I visited a few of them in my early explorations of the city. Then my attention wandered away, further afield to the mid-century suburbs and south side, and I never really got back to these near west side neighborhoods… until recently. Lately I’ve been on a mission to visit all these landmark houses of worship, a loose grouping that I have dubbed the Trail of Churches. A glimpse from the Sears Tower should show why the name fits.

At top-center, the domed roofline of St. Mary of the Angels. Below it, St. Stanislaus Kostka, with the highway swerving to avoid it. At far left, the low twin towers of Holy Trinity Polish. (Not visible, but close to Holy Trinity are the abandoned St. Boniface, and the very much active Holy Innocents.) And at bottom-center, just peeking into the frame, is the taller tower of St. John Cantius.

These four are among the city’s most spectacular religious buildings. Stick around and we’ll go on a tour of each one in turn. Today: St. John Cantius Catholic Church.

St. John Cantius (1893, architect Adolphus Druiding) was raised by the huge community of Polish immigrants that populated the near west side. Petitioning the nearby mother church of St. Stanislaus Kostka, they were granted their own parish in 1892. The work of raising a church building began at once; the final product was dedicated in 1898, flanked by a contemporary school and rectory. (Ref)

After its booming early years, the parish followed an arc of decline and revival. The downturn began in the 1920s with Ogden Avenue’s construction through the area, and bottomed out in the 1960s after the Kennedy was rammed through the neighborhood and innumerable residents fled. Decline began to reverse in the 1980s with the reintroduction of more traditional Mass attracting new congregants; the church’s fortunes have reached a magnificent new peak today as the building was renovated and restored in 2012. Today the church offers the traditional (pre-Vatican II) Mass in Latin, and has a strong emphasis on sacred music and art.

Architecturally, St. John Cantius Church is a hybrid of styles. The massive, dour exterior combines Classical elements – such as a flattened Greek temple front with quasi-Corinthian columns – with heavy, blocky stone that gives it some kinship with the Romanesque. At the entryway, “squashed” columns call out a lineage that includes ancient Greeks, Renaissance Italians, and contemporary Victorians. They emphasize the sheer massiveness of the building – as if at any moment they might snap and bring the whole thing tumbling down. Their smooth shafts are a moment of machine-like precision bursting out of a mass of roughly split rock. This sort of perversity was common among Victorian architects, who delighted in twisting expectations.

The interior lives up to the church’s official desigation of its style as “Baroque”. The modestly proportioned columms support pediments and seem a touch too large, intentionally “off” for dramatic effect. Huge arches spring from these dainty supports, a dazzling display of engineering.

Nearly every surface is gilded, sculpted, or painted. In a lesser setting it might be gaudy – but here, the glory of the decoration simply matches the grandness of the space.

The sanctuary is enormous. Soaring columns support vast round arches. The crossing is of tremendous proportions. The overall effect is of a open, lofty, airy space – a welcome respite during Chicago winters, which can leave a city resident feeling perpetually imprisoned in the small rooms of their house or apartment.

St. John Cantius is a golden space – it shimmers with browns and yellows, and blues and greens punctuate its murals and stenciling, but it is the golds which leave the deepest impression. The 2012 restoration has left the space in immaculate condition. Column heads and brackets are gilded in gold, and thanks to recent renovation efforts they gleam spectacularly. Even the stain glass reinforces the golden hued tones.

The reredos behind the high altar is a Mannerist confection, with clustered columns supporting a split pediment with a rounded arch pediment in the middle. A small round skylight brings light down onto it from above.

At the time of this writing, the old organ is being replaced by a new one; blue sheeting covers the balcony space where the new instrument will be installed.

The church is heavily laden with statues of saints and apostles; they are tucked away in the various side chapels and even in the stairwells.

The pulpit is a fine example of the church’s Baroque Revival style – its wooden stairs snake sensuously around a column, to an intricately carved wood speaker’s stand with an even more elaborate sounding board overhead.

Together with its school (1903) and rectory (1901), St. John Cantius Catholic forms a grand and amazingly intact group of turn of the century architecture.

St. James Catholic Church – endangered on the south side

repowers2 — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 05:05:04 +0000

Since 1875, St. James Catholic Church has stood watch over this section of the city on the prairie. But the remaining time of its vigil may be measured in mere months.

The towering church stands at 2942 S. Wabash Avenue, housing a congregation founded in 1846. St. James was designed by prolific Catholic architect Patrick Charles Keely, whose designed hundreds of Catholic churches during a time of vast Catholic expansion in America, including Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral downtown. St. James was built for an Irish congregation, replacing an 1853 building lost in the great fire, and was touted as the most expensive religious building in the city to that time. The October 10, 1875 cornerstone laying was preceded by a parade of Irish societies that stretched out over 2 miles and eventually brought an unruly crowd of 20,000 to the site. (Tribune Oct 11, 1875). Services were begun and the building was formally dedicated on May 23, 1880.

Designed in the French Gothic Revival architectural style, the exterior is suffused with beautiful stone carved details:

St. James was badly damaged in a fire on December 21st, 1972. Many of the original stained glass windows were lost due to the firefighting efforts required to save the building itself. After the fire, parishioners rallied and funded the considerable repairs themselves, with no help from the Archdiocese.

The intervening 40 years have taken their toll on the venerable structure; electrical, heating and plumbing systems are outdated, and there is concern over the roof structure and the stone facade. After citations were issued by the city, the parish erected protective scaffolding around the church, closed it off, and began holding services in a secondary building next door. As Lee Bey recently reported, the Archdiocese wants to demolish the church this year. More recently, Gazette Chicago reports that a 90-day reprieve has been granted, as supporters try to rally interest in the building and possibly find a buyer. (With IIT within spitting distance, I can’t help wondering if they could become partners of some kind.)

Lynn Becker puts all of this into a larger context, citing with his usual eloquence and insight the role of churches like St. James on the city landscape and the difficulties they face as congregations change and move away. His post also shares some of the grand churches that Chicago has already lost over the years, in a heartbreaking series of photographs.

The Archdiocese cites a cost of $12 million to get the building back into functional condition, vs. $5-7 million for a new building. But as I often tell people who complain about high costs of living in Chicago – you get what you pay for. Will a $5 million building look like this? Will it even come anywhere close?

$12 million is nothing to sniff at, to be sure. But what will the legacy be if that money is not spent? In ten, twenty, fifty years, what will matter more?

Lost Warehouse on Ashland Boulevard

repowers2 — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:00:23 +0000

You’d be hard-pressed to miss the news – a massive warehouse on south Ashland caught fire Monday night and erupted into a massive conflagration, closing several blocks of the street. The building’s interior was completely consumed in a glowing inferno that flared up again Friday and continues to smolder as of Sunday evening, even as the building is being demolished.

With its wood timber interior ravaged, and its brick walls coated with layers of ice from the firefighting efforts, the building was considered a total loss. What remained of the exterior walls was pulled down Friday and Saturday; by the time I found time to visit Sunday afternoon, there wasn’t much left to see.

But amid the clamor of this disaster, and the relief that it comes with no loss of life or adjacent properties, relatively little attention has been paid to the building itself. What history lay behind that beautiful Prairie-influenced facade?

The demolition revealed a major hint: when the sign over the front door came down, terra cotta letters spelling out “Pullman Couch Company” could be seen.

An offshoot of the well-known rail car manufacturer, the Pullman Couch Company was a large furniture-manufacturing concern, one of the largest in the country, turning out bed davenports with chairs to match, living room suites, and other pieces. A 1914 ad for the Rothchild and Company department store proclaimed that the Pullman Revolving Seat Bed Davenports were “known all over the United States”.

The Pullman Couch stake on the Ashland manufacturing district began at 38th and Ashland, where a five-bay factory in unornamented brick at 3759 S. Ashland was erected in 1911, with an additional story tacked on two years later, both by district architect R.S. Lindstrom (ref).

In 1917, Pullman Couch purchased the empty lot to the north from the Union Bag & Paper Company (December 14, 1917 Tribune), whose 1915 building still stands at 3737 Ashland (S. Scott Joy, district architect – May 22 & 23, 1915 Tribune). In 1919, Pullman Couch filled in the lot with an expansion that doubled the size of their plant, and reskinned the front facade to present a unified building to the street, again to the designs of Joy.

The resultant building was a powerful Chicago School statement with Prairie School influences, with red brick piers separating broad expanses of windows. The piers are “pinned” to the roofline by ornamental cartouches, a visual technique used by Louis Sullivan in several famous commercial buildings, including Chicago’s Gage Building. Pullman Couch’s initials (PCCo) were integrated into the building’s ornament. Lumber and Veneer Consumer waxes ecstatic about the plant’s use of new and innovative machinery in its manufacturing processes (ref).

Pullman Couch also built the similarly-styled building at 3711 S. Ashland, with its prominent water tank tower, in 1915.

Pullman Couch remained at this address through the 1950s.

By 1969, 3757 S. Ashland was occupied by the Howard Parlor Furniture Company, makers of upholstered furniture, founded in 1934 by husband-and-wife founders Peter and Rose Niederman. Ms. Niederman died in 1977; two years later, the company’s assets were liquidated at auction (Tribune June 10, 1979).

The final occupant was the Harris Marcus Group, a high-end lamp manufacturer, which remained from the 1980s until around 2003. The old factory had stood empty ever since. It was threatened with demolition in 2010, boarded up, and still occasionally infiltrated by squatters.

The loss of 3757 Ashland is made all the more keen by its place in the Central Manufacturing District. The area has dozens of vintage manufacturing buildings, many spectacularly ornamented in a unified style. This is truly a district, not just in name or property boundaries, but in style. The gap left by this loss diminishes the whole.

Lynn Becker hits the same topic, including vintage photos

Castle Apartments

repowers2 — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:41:48 +0000

It’s not terribly uncommon. Get a bunch of apartments together, and there’s enough money left over to decorate them in a royal fashion, a kingly style. Yes, truly, you can make these men’s homes… their castles.

Park Castle Apartments – 2416-2458 W. Greenleaf Avenue, at Indian Boundary Park, West Ridge. 1925, architect Jens J. Jensen; developers Gubbins, McDonnell and Blietz. The Park Castle, along with the neighboring Park Gables, is famed for its elaborate design and its wonderfully designed swimming pool.

Manor House apartments – 1021 Bryn Mawr Avenue, 1907 – architect John E.O Pidemore

2548 -2458 W. Fitch at Rockwell – just northwest of Indian Boundary Park, West Ridge.

Castellated architecture has its roots in the Gothic Revival and its Romantic views of the middle ages. In the eclectic 1920s, when a tidal wave of revival styles swept across America, a variety of castellated styles were used on large apartment buildings around Chicagoland. The implications of luxurious living – worthy of a monarch – would make a powerful advertising statement for the developers trying to fill their newly constructed buildings, as well as pleasing neighbors concerned about the aesthetics of a large new building in their neighborhood.

The most common castle architectural elements include massive turrets with small “arrow slit” windows, rough limestone bases, and crenelated rooflines. Of course, the need to supply the basics of a modern home, such as windows, mean that the castle motif can only run so far. On most examples, it is combined with a Tudor Revival style, which uses faux half-timbering for some surfaces for a more domestic effect which also happens to be more amenable to larger windows.

The castle craze was part of the period revival craze of the 1920s, when practically every style associated with pre-industrial society came into vogue.

901-927 Wesley Avenue, Oak Park, IL – the Paulina Mansions Apartments. 1926 – with particularly strong Tudor Revival components – along with a cloister screen across the courtyard entrance.

4205 N Kedvale Ave in Old Irving Park

5700-5702 N. Kimball Avenue, Chicago – 1929 – billed as “Old English towers” with features including “canvased walls” and rollaway beds.

2722-2730 W. Lunt, West Ridge – was gutted circa 2008 and remains under renovation in early 2013.

5651-5659 N. Spaulding at Hollywood, 1929, architect R.H. Johnson, builders Magnuson Brothers (Tribune July 21, 1929) – a particularly fine example, with ample detailing and architecturally decorated lobbies.

Church View Apartments – 1450-56 Oak Avenue / 1101-11 Lake Street, Evanston – 1926, architect Samuel N. Crowen – Crowen was notable as the designer of Michigan Avenue’s Willoughby Tower and the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue.

Cable & Spitz – the combined firm of Max Lowell Cable and Alexander H. Spitz, both 1916 graduates of the Armour Institute – had a successful practice in the pre-Depression era, turning out a number of castellated Tudor Revival buildings.

Castle Tower Apartments – 2212-2226 Sherman Ave., Evanston, 1928 – architects Cable & Spitz

2100 – 2110 W Fargo Ave, 1927 – architects Cable & Spitz. The entire block behind this building is lined on both sides with medieval-styled apartment buildings.

5711-5717 N. Kimball Avenue, Chicago – architects Cable & Spitz

And here is a design so nice, they built it twice:

3339-3345 W. Hollywood at Christiana, 1928, architects Cable and Spitz (Tribune July 28, 1928) – the Christwood Apartment Building, North Park

6101 N. Talman (also 2612-2618 W. Glenlake), West Ridge – 1929, architects Cable and Spitz

Castle elements could even be used on the classic Chicago 3-flat plan, as with these two apartment buildings which have a giant tower form as a bay window occupying most of the front facade. Other castle elements include the crenelated roofline of the tower; also of note is the sloping stone facade over the entryway – an element common on the English Cottage revival houses popular around the same time.

6705 N. Washtenaw – West Ridge

6041 N. Talman, across from Green Briar Park

The buildings above, with only one exception, went up in the late 1920s. The Great Depression, of course, put the kibosh on any further such flights of fancy. By the time construction resumed in the 1950s, both style and economics demanded the simplicity of Modernism. Castle apartments were a quaint curiosity – a last hoorah for historicist revivalism.

Green on White, Chapter 2 – More Bakery Brick Facades

repowers2 — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 06:10:12 +0000

Back in April I posted a collection of buildings facades made with white glazed brick and olive green accent brick. At the time, I put up every one I was aware of. But as often happens when you have 65,000 digital photographs of a city, sometimes things get lost. I’ve since found and tagged more such buildings – a LOT more.

Sadly, what I have not found is further information on the architectural style or its manufacturers and designers. As usual, though, I’ve included some of the anecdotal histories I’ve found among the Chicago-Tribune archives and elsewhere.

3760 Fullerton Avenue at Hamlin – west of Logan Square

3740-46 Fullerton Avenue – west of Logan Square

1111 W Wilson Avenue - Uptown – most recently home to Rokito’s Mexican Streetside Kitchen.

The Greenleaf Building, Wilmette – home to 9 separate storefronts. The building appears to have gone up in two parts, with the eastern portion replacing a house in 1912. The 1137 Greenleaf storefront housed a Western Union telegraph office from the 1930s into the 1960s, then the Butt’ry Tea Room & Pastry Shop from 1979 until circa 2010. At 1141 Greenleaf, the storefront housed a tire shop in 1920, Bob’s Radio Shop in 1925, a belly dance studio in 1973, and a coffee soup & sandwich shop today.

2906 Central Street, Evanston. This curious case appears to be a 1910s storefront with a later second-story addition. On top of that, a 1960s storefront renovation added a flagstone base under the display window, and an angled entryway.

741-743 W. 79th Street at Halsted – built by 1917.

3650-52 W. Chicago Avenue – Near West Side. Built by 1917, when it was home to J. Faust, dealer of Emerson records. (Records as in 78 rpm singles, with such famous tunes as “He’s Had No Loving for a Long Long Time”, “Some Day I’ll Make You Glad”, and “How Are You Goin’ to Wet Your Whistle?”)

3814 W. 26th Street – Little Village. Now the 26th Street Medical Center. Built by 1915, this was a family-owned building and business from its construction until the end of the 1970s. The first name associated with it is Vaclav M. Urbanek, in 1915; V.M. Urbanek & Son were listed as one of the many undertakers called upon to serve the victims of the steamship Eastland disaster that year. His son Edward Urbanek became an undertaker and seems to have opened a full-fledged funeral home around 1930 – possibly when the anomalous first floor facade was added. A snazzy mid-century side entrance came later still. Funerals were held here in the Urbanek Funeral Home until 1970; by 1981 it was a doctor’s office.

3916 W. 26th Street – Little Village – Taquerias Atotonilco has occupied the space since the 1980s.

3519 W. 26th Street – Little Village

4226 W. 26th Street / 4222 W. 26th Street – Little Village

1011 N. Western Avenue

949 N. Western Avenue – Ricky’s Deli

1730 W. 18th Street (orig. 756); 1726 W. 18th Street (orig. 754) - Pilsen. The left-hand building was built by 1912.

1623 N. Milwaukee Avenue – Wicker Park – Red Hen Bread. A 1912 ad shows the National Bedding Company at this address. In 1923, Sigman’s Music Store, a short-lived piano dealer, is advertised. Only 2 years later, ads show the Western Brass and Iron Bed Company at the address. Today, fragments of a demolished neighbor cling to the party wall.

1657 W. 47th Street, Back of the Yards – La Baguette Bakery

4601 South Marshfield Avenue, Back of the Yards – a curious brick upgrade to a much older building otherwise sheathed in wood siding.

5048 S. Indiana Ave. Occupied by 1918 – when some inhabitants were arrested for gambling.

1467 E. 53rd Street at Harper, Hyde Park. The corner retail store was originally home to a branch of Mesirow & Jacobson Pharmacy, who in 1921 were proud distributors of “Yeast Foam Tablets – A Tonic Food”, and four years later were selling “Vapo Chlorine” as a surefire protection against influenza. By 1940 a grocer occupied the space.

4200 W. Madison

2149 W. Division Avenue – Nabi Cleaners. Real estate ads show that the upstairs apartments retain some rather lovely woodwork.

11021 S. Michigan Avenue, Roseland. In the 1920s, the Peoples Store, a general store. In the 1940s and 1950s, a Firestone tire dealer. In the 1970s, a TV store. From the early 80s, Major Motor Auto Supply, whose signs still adorn the party wall, along with a painted over sign in front that remains faintly visible today.