Posted August 22, 201212 yr Took my son to Chicago to see some friends and relatives before he flew back to college in Olympia. So I hung around to see some friends and relatives, too. We started off crashing with my niece and her boyfriend in their Lincoln Square apartment. I hadn't been in Lincoln Square in many years, and I was impressed. The heart of Lincoln Square The homey, independent bookstore my niece likes One of the little pocket parks that dot the Square Lincoln Square stop on the Ravenswood (Brown) Line -- the last elevated stop on the line Quintessentially Chicago I was walking along with my son and stopped in my tracks. "That's gotta be a Louis Sullivan building," I said. Yep. Indeed. More Sullivanesque detail The Old Town School of Folk Music -- greatly expanded, and spanning Lincoln Avenue, and no longer in Old Town Handsome building at Sunnyside and Lincoln, across from Welles Park Charming streets ... ... with new-builds The Western Avenue spine And the L stop above Western Infill on Western Residential Wilson, west of Western L tracks, sloping down to street level Sloping lower, in the back yards More residential on Wilson Apartments, too Infill three-flat Rockwell, looking south to the Brown Line (no longer L) stop RR Xing Buh-bye Cafe and mural Back to Lincoln Square the next day Meeting old friends for lunch at The Grafton Storm rolling in after lunch. The Davis theater, which the aforementioned friends introduced me to 30 years ago More quintessentially Chicago Yes, quintessentially Chicago again Residential, east of Lincoln This puts the Square in Lincoln Square Evening street scene on Lincoln Western Avenue looming above Lincoln before the storm Lincoln Square's "skyscraper" Now for a jaunt through Wicker Park Former post office on Division at Milwaukee Nelson Algren's old neighborhood. And Frankie Machines's More at Division, Milwaukee & Ashland Looking north to Milwaukee, Damen & North Same direction, wider shot Scenes along Milwaukee Ditto Looking west on North at Milwaukee & Damen Ditto Margie's Candies, Western & Armitage Heading south and outta town This appears to be all that's left of the great Maxwell Street marketplace, the Sunday morning flea market free-for-all that started over 100 years ago in the Jewish ghetto, which begat a polyglot ghetto, until the mid-90s when University of Illinois Circle Campus, supposedly renowned for its urban-affairs program, swept it away urban-removal-style and replaced it with sanitized urbanity. Jim's still serves a good breakfast hot dog, but it's not the same as an early-morning Polish dog smothered in onions amid the cacophonous chaos of the old market. A photo of the original Jim's on the side of the new Jim's Rival stand, which was across the street from Jim's also at the old marketplace Half-eaten breakfast Drexel, looking south from 47th 47th, from east of Drexel From Rt. 41, around 95th Southeast Side Whiting, Ind. Downtown Whiting
August 22, 201212 yr Lincoln Square really is a fantastic neighborhood. Thanks! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
September 11, 201212 yr i havent been there for a long stretch, nice to see and it looks like you had a fun time. reminds me of eastern queens a bit.
September 17, 201212 yr Lincoln Square is well known to me since back in the 1960s it was a German neighborhood, the "main street" of the big postwar German emigration to Chicago. Back then they didn't have those street trees. And the Davis movie theatre showed German B movies without subtitles. It was always a good basic neighborhood, back then, with that nice Wells Park as an amenity. But it was much more "German"...today it appears to have gentrified. This was the neighborhood my mother emigrated to when she came to the US in the late 1950s. So a personal connection to the place. The Brown Line (AKA) Ravenswood was what she used to go to work, in fact I think she got on at that Rockwell stop, or one nearby.
September 18, 201212 yr When I lived in Chicago 25 years ago, Lincoln Square still had a distinctly German feel, with some taverns, bakeries, etc., where the customers chatted auf Deutsch.
September 28, 201212 yr I hate how all the neighborhoods in Chicago look the same. There are some definite gems like that Sullivan Building, but there's also a heck of a lot of cheap garbage.
September 28, 201212 yr That's not exactly true. Pilsen and Little Village definitely look or feel nothing like Lakeview or Lincoln Park. Uptown and Bucktown feel completely different. Humboldt Park and Hyde Park are very very different with unique populations, hot spots, rough areas and momentum. Not to mention comparing the majority of neighborhoods in the Southside to the North/downtown West. And there are still places were mostly Spanish, Polish and Mandarin/Vietnamese are spoken. Different areas, different universes.
September 28, 201212 yr Socially, yes. Chicago is the second most segregated city in the country...of course the people and energies are different. But Architecturally the neighborhoods are all the same. It's a hodgepodge of 19th and 20th century urban commercial buildings that can be found in most cities in the US. Check out the streetview of 18th and Blue Island in Pilsen. Then look at Fullerton and Lincoln in Lincoln Park. There's really not much of a difference.
September 28, 201212 yr I see what you mean about that tiring sameness in the architecture of cities like Chicago and Paris. We should instead celebrate the distinctiveness and diversity of cities like Las Vegas.
October 1, 201212 yr Socially, yes. Chicago is the second most segregated city in the country...of course the people and energies are different. But Architecturally the neighborhoods are all the same. It's a hodgepodge of 19th and 20th century urban commercial buildings that can be found in most cities in the US. Check out the streetview of 18th and Blue Island in Pilsen. Then look at Fullerton and Lincoln in Lincoln Park. There's really not much of a difference. I would contest this, but I think people here already know better that there is quite a bit of architectural diversity across the city. If you go out on the West and southwest sides you'll find neighborhoods entirely different from the more common areas that tend to be featured on this forum. We haven't had a Brighton Park / BOTY or Garfield Park thread in awhile that always seems to surprise people. I think the issue is Chicago is so incredibly large with little geographical variation, these huge neighborhoods just run together and changes in building style are nuanced. There's also the fact that most who live in the nicer neighborhoods, or visit the city will only ever see 20% of the city. I was astounded heading up to Avondale this summer and seeing Los Angeles style art deco. Never would have expected it. I don't see the point of calling the residential stock "cheap garbage." I think your observation is pretty sophomoric. Chicago has always historically been blue collar and immigrant. You can definitely tell the neighborhoods where the wealthy lived in their brownstones and mansions from the simple...but slightly ornamental brick walkups, bungalows, or wood frames. These homes are built to last and have the finest of interiors that are considered a luxury in modern construction. Every city in America has neighborhoods where the level of architectural embellishment falls off toward generic, simple character. But that's inherent of anyplace where the majority of the populace was working class.
October 1, 201212 yr I think the sameness of architecture is true to an extent, but the monotony can also be attributed to pretty much no topographical features to distinguish most neighborhoods (hills and valleys). You have all this flat land, a city that burned down (and needed to be rebuilt quickly) and meticulous urban planning/land plotting that pretty much led to a very standardized city lot size across most of the city (with service alley in the back)...which in turn led to easy building of the pretty much the same building all over the older sections of the city (using plentiful Indiana Limestone). I have worked on typical first floor retail on commercial corridors and you can practically use the same floorplan from project to project. That said it does change mostly with the time bands of when it was built, or the wealthier areas closer to the lake, or if it started as a suburb and was annexed. As a tourist though, you would have to traverse miles to see a change. There is the newer (1940's) bungalow belt around the older neighborhoods. And as NorthAndre said, you'd be surprised at some of the areas like Avondale with California style deco, or even Sauganash which has tons of Mid-Century googie style architecture. Then there is Beverly Hills (yes there are actually hills) with its Shaker Heights style mansions, Edison Park, and Pullman Flats that look nothing like the rest of the city. My only gripe about the architecture is the abundance of four-plus-ones that seemed to be the only infill that was done in the 60's...those things are ugly. They are the boxy apartment buildings where the entrance usually below grade from the sidewalk, and there is parking on the lowest floor under four stories of apartments above. They usually have some form of cosmetic treatment to somewhat distinguish it from the others (stone work or a canopy entrance of some sort). Always the same sliding casement windows and in wall AC grill adorning the front. Give me rows of greystones anyday over (most) of those things. http://www.fourplusone.org/ http://achicagosojourn.blogspot.com/2010/11/4-plus-1-again.html
October 1, 201212 yr The two previous comments are excellent assessments of Chicago's architectural character. On a related matter, my niece has started a Lincoln Square blog and attendant Facebook page: http://60625news.com/ http://www.facebook.com/60625news
October 2, 201212 yr I apologize for my first comment. It was a personal reaction to Chicago. I've spent countless hours in that city and have never felt any shred of beauty from it. It feels cold, industrial, and weathered to me. Of course there are great things to celebrate in Chicago, and there is absolutely a rich architectural history there...but I have never stumbled on an area that feels intact by any stretch of the word. Many residential areas are distinguishable and many are quite beautiful, but the business districts across the city are littered with chains, parking lots, typical 19th century urban commercial buildings, and a severe drought of streetscaping. Chicago definitely has its merits... I guess I'm just tired of defending every other city in the Midwest against Chicago. It's not perfect.
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