Sunday, September 27, 2009
Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Dead
Am I the only one who thinks that the name "Resurrection Health Care" is utterly hilarious?
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, west of the river
Devon Avenue
N. Broadway in Uptown
Lawrence Avenue, west of the Red Line
Devon Avenue, way out west by the Metra tracks
Cicero at 33rd Street
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, west of the river
Devon Avenue
N. Broadway in Uptown
Lawrence Avenue, west of the Red Line
Devon Avenue, way out west by the Metra tracks
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.
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.
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.
After the Skyway bridges, one passes the looming State Line Generating Station, which sits just yards away from the Indiana/Illinois border.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
After the Skyway bridges, one passes the looming State Line Generating Station, which sits just yards away from the Indiana/Illinois border.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Compare this breezeway apartment building on 95th Street with this trio of 3-flats on 79th Street.
They have nearly the same decorative elements, just used differently!
Meanwhile, here's a distant cousin, up north on 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
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.
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.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Reader roundup
Some great articles in last week's and this week's Reader.
Regarding Michael Reese Hospital and the Olympics:
* Michael Reese Hospital: The First Sacrificial Lamb
Regarding the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago:
* An Odd Way to Honor Burnham - Lynn Becker takes on the process by which the centennial pavilion architects were selected (and, incidentally, slaps down some gibberish from Colin Rowe and his followers about how "there was no Chicago School of architecture".)
* The Big Aluminum Hot Potato - will the centennial pavilions ever actually be finished?
* Go Ahead, Make Little Plans - a challenge to the Last Four Miles proposal (a plan which, by the by, I support wholeheartedly. It's ridiculous that one can't bike to Rogers Park via the lakefront.)
Regarding Michael Reese Hospital and the Olympics:
* Michael Reese Hospital: The First Sacrificial Lamb
Regarding the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago:
* An Odd Way to Honor Burnham - Lynn Becker takes on the process by which the centennial pavilion architects were selected (and, incidentally, slaps down some gibberish from Colin Rowe and his followers about how "there was no Chicago School of architecture".)
* The Big Aluminum Hot Potato - will the centennial pavilions ever actually be finished?
* Go Ahead, Make Little Plans - a challenge to the Last Four Miles proposal (a plan which, by the by, I support wholeheartedly. It's ridiculous that one can't bike to Rogers Park via the lakefront.)
Friday, June 26, 2009
MidCentury Suburbs Part 7: Modernize your garage door!
The garage door was yet another point of elaborate decoration for the MidCentury home. It provided a broad canvas for designers to decorate; in the 1950s and 1960s, the automobile was newly risen to its place of supreme importance, and its home was something to be celebrated -- as was the design innovation of the attached garage, a new luxury for most home buyers at the time.
Raynor Door, based not far from Chicago in Dixon, IL, was a major vendor of both doors and the patterns for them.
Two patterns were particularly prevalent, and can still be found by the dozens today:
But the designs ranged all over the place. Asymetrical patterns were common:
Another common theme involved a series of small, repeating patterns instead of one big one:
Such small patterns were often another reflection of the Old West influence on Chicago's MidCentury suburbia, as seen in this rope-like pattern:
Small patterns didn't have to cover the whole door; they could form a border pattern instead:
In the age of Kennedy's Camelot and the attendant New Formalism, you too can be a king!
With your very own caligraphy-styled monogram!
Or you can just be stunningly modern, classy, and geometrically smooth.
Or exuberantly modern...
You can shout your modernity to the world!
Or you can quietly wait for the world to notice it.
There is no end to the patterns. Still more may be seen at my Flickr account.
Raynor Door, based not far from Chicago in Dixon, IL, was a major vendor of both doors and the patterns for them.
Two patterns were particularly prevalent, and can still be found by the dozens today:
But the designs ranged all over the place. Asymetrical patterns were common:
Another common theme involved a series of small, repeating patterns instead of one big one:
Such small patterns were often another reflection of the Old West influence on Chicago's MidCentury suburbia, as seen in this rope-like pattern:
Small patterns didn't have to cover the whole door; they could form a border pattern instead:
In the age of Kennedy's Camelot and the attendant New Formalism, you too can be a king!
With your very own caligraphy-styled monogram!
Or you can just be stunningly modern, classy, and geometrically smooth.
Or exuberantly modern...
You can shout your modernity to the world!
Or you can quietly wait for the world to notice it.
There is no end to the patterns. Still more may be seen at my Flickr account.
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