Saturday, August 29, 2009

Former Jewel Food Stores

In the 1930s, during the height of the Art Deco craze, Jewel Food Stores constructed a series of identical stores all across Chicagoland. Many of these buildings, with their distinct glazed white facades, survive today. I've found six to date, but I imagine there are many more.

I can't find the first word about these buildings online; it's only thanks to Jacob at Forgotten Chicago that I even know what they used to be. Even the exhaustive research at Pleasant Family Shopping barely mentions the 1930s style buildings. I can speculate that the white glazed tile appealed to the sense of modernity and hygiene, which was becoming a more common concern at the time.

The little storefront buildings are quite adaptable; they're serving all kinds of purposes today, from clothing and furniture to liquor sales. Several are home to independent ethnic grocers.

Bryn Mawr Fresh Market
Bryn Mawr, west of the river

Devon Avenue - Kamdar Plaza groceries
Devon Avenue

4315 N. Broadway
N. Broadway in Uptown

1952 W. Lawrence Avenue
Lawrence Avenue, west of the Red Line

5409 W. Devon
Devon Avenue, way out west by the Metra tracks

Foremost Liquors
Cicero at 33rd Street

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The industrial wonders of northwest Indiana

Whiting. Hammond. East Chicago. Calumet City. Pullman. Harvey. Dixmoor. Blue Island. Gary. As I slowly become more familiar with the southern reaches of Chicagoland, these names gain more and more resonance for me. Each speaks of strange contrasts, lands of tidy lawns and raw industry, urban decay and pastoral emptiness. It's a land slightly mythologized by the movie Blues Brothers, whose grungy titular characters rarely ventured north of the Loop. It is a region that has worked hard and sacrificed much over the decades, the city's blue collar underbelly, the engine that drove Chicago to its industrial peak, only to be abandoned and neglected when US industry began collapsing.

I could gaze at this forever.

Despite the hard times, a lot of heavy industry remains here. The Port of Chicago operates here, receiving a steady trickle of Great Lakes freighters. And from Whiting, all the way into Michigan, a line of industrial sites makes Highway 912 one of the most amazing places on the planet.

The industrial sprawl once started much further north, within the Chicago city limits, at the site of the US Steel South Works, once the largest steel mill complex on the planet. That facility closed nearly two decades ago, and was leveled to the ground. With the subsequent demolition of the mills and factories along S. Torrence Avenue to the west, large-scale industry has mostly vanished from the Chicago City limits.

Despite the decline, even the most cursory overview of the industrial regions is a big undertaking. The action today, then, begins at the Chicago Skyway bridges, which soar to incredible heights to cross the Grand Calumet River.

That endless skyway

Below the skyway bridges, a profusion of industrial sites loads ships and barges, as tugs and speedboats drift past. A trio of movable railroad bridges stands abandoned, their tracks long since torn up, too big and cumbersome to demolish.

The Chicago Skyway

Gunfighters...

After the Skyway bridges, one passes the looming State Line Generating Station, which sits just yards away from the Indiana/Illinois border.

State Line Generating Station

State Line Generating Station

Rolling on southward, you'll pass a profusion of casinos, gas stations, medium industrial sites (including the sometimes overpowering smell of Lever soap being manufactured). This land is essentially one continuous urban development, but the "town" of Whiting is one of several here that has its own distinct main street and central business district. Whiting also abuts an enormous refining complex owned by British Petroleum.

Tank car army

BP Refinery at Whiting

Bladerunner

The BP plant sprawls all the way up to the first of the steel mills, the huge facility of Ispat Inland Steel, built on a peninsula made of landfill. Crushed between the two complexes is the tiny planned workers' village of Marktown, one of the most incredibly isolated residential neighborhoods you're ever likely to find, and well worth a post of its own.

Inland Steel

Awesome industrial hell

If there's a center to all this insanity, it's the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, which runs right through the center of the Ispat Inland complex, and is crossed by a dizzying array of bridges and overpasses.

Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal

Highway 912, aka Cline Avenue, provides an elevated view of the Inland Ispat complex, bringing you nose-to-nose with some of their gargantuan buildings and flying high above their grounds.

Inland Steel

Cline Avenue turns away from the lake as it continues south, but the industrial sprawl continues. As soon as Ispat Inland's reign ends, US Steel begins. US Steel is the reason Gary exists; they constructed the city as their own company town. Their mini-empire runs for miles along the lake, and consumes the vast majority of Gary's lakefront.

US Steel's Gary Works is frustratingly inaccessible. Multiple entry points are steadfastly guarded against such wayward rouges as photographers, explorers, and curiosity seekers.

I think there was a fire.

Once you finally get past US Steel, the lakeshore of Gary is quite lovely, marking the beginning of the Indiana Dunes lakeshore park. Due to some Machiavellian bargaining back in the 1950s, part of the dunes was carved away to provide room for still more industry, another steel mill (likewise inaccessible) and a power plant at Michigan City that looms over some of the beaches.

Indiana Dunes

Michigan City power plant

It can be a shock to look back from east Gary's waterfront and suddenly realize how far you've come from Chicago, whose skyline is 30 miles distant and barely visible across the lake. And it's a bigger shock to realize the amount of industry you've passed along the way.

I expect prize money for this shot.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Reese and Gropius - tomorrow at CAF

"Gropius in Chicago: A Legacy on the Brink"

Come down to the Chicago Architecture Foundation tomorrow (Wednesday, August 26 at noon, free) for a lecture on the role that Walter Gropius had in shaping Chicago's endangered Michael Reese Hospital complex. Grahm Balkany of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition presents.

Separated at birth?

Ugly on the whole, yet made of awesome pieces.

Compare this breezeway apartment building on 95th Street with this trio of 3-flats on 79th Street.

79th Street lightning bolt

3-flats, 79th Street

They have nearly the same decorative elements, just used differently!

Meanwhile, here's a distant cousin, up north on Western Avenue:

Auto sales store, Western Avenue

If you're like me, you've passed by it many times without being able to stop and appreciate its lovely geometry. The angled concrete panels work to conceal a joint in the building, where it changes roof heights. The curved entry and the angled edges both dive playfully into the ground.

Friday, August 7, 2009

LATE Ride 2009

Scenes from the 2009 Chicago L.A.T.E. Ride:

Underpass

Waiting for the red to change

That's a DUCK, man, that's a DUCK!

The big curve

After crossing the marina bridge

Taking a break

Many more at my Flickr account.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Be warned... this link may make you sick

SASAKI AND COLLINS PARKS AND LANDSCAPES DESTROYED

The City of Chicago has destroyed countless trees, shrubs, and landscapes within the Michael Reese complex. The pictures are stunning. The City should be ashamed.