Bon Voyage

This will be my last post until I get back from holiday at the very end of July. Two years ago I took a trip to Vienna which had some wonderful and surprisingly colorful buildings. This year I will be soaking up sun on the Adriatic and visiting family along the way. So do think of me when you longingly stare into Lake Michigan and just wish it was a tad brighter. See you the first week in August with much jet lag to deal with.

Twins On Both Ends of an Otherwise Bland Street

We are fast approaching July and the month of July is my first anniversary of this blog. Unfortunately, in a few days I will be off to visit family on another continent with limited internet access and won’t be around to post a nice post celebrating my own one year. Looking at my cornucopia of photos, however, I decided that celebrating it early was possible especially with photos of two wonderful apartment buildings I took just off the corner from Foster, Higgins and Harlem.

They are on opposite ends of a short block full of uninteresting two flats sandwiched between. One is colorful with green and brown schemes while the other is more subtle with black and light brown. Both have that odd shaped design with seemingly small apartments with a balcony overlooking the view of not that much out there. The details scream modern and 1960s all in one. The interesting way the doors are painted and the shape of the hallway’s window are good indicators this was built during a hipper, more trippier era. Whatever the case may be, it spells out happy birthday to me because it is definitely one of my favorites buildings that I have come across this year.

Excursion Down North Avenue

A couple of weeks ago I was in Humboldt Park hanging out with my significant other as Puerto Ricans celebrated their culture with singing, dancing and really good Puerto Rican food courtesy of a great restaurant on Fullerton and Kimball called Sabor Latino. The big parade was last week but tonight I feature snapshots of some great buildings down North Avenue, the last one of which was once owned by parents of my honey. They sold the building long ago but he remembers the area quite fondly including how there once was an old time drugstore in the very same building with a cute phonebooth with an old time telephone he wishes they had kept. A kick in his head is quite appropriate here.

The Windowless Wonder

Another interesting building down Milwaukee Avenue just before you reach Pulaski and Belmont. The terra cotta details are abosolutely stunning though I could do without that really ugly bricked over storefront. This one is located right across the street from Wally's grocery which is a great place to get lots of Polish and European favorites such as fresh baked bread and yummy sausage. I do not care what kind of sausage it is as long as it smells good, it is guranteed to taste really good.

I don't know what this building was used for in the past and to me it doesn't really matter since my point for posting it tonight was simply for the significance of the outside appearance. Now if only I cant get someone to restore some actual windows and we are good to go.

The Blue Building

Here is another shot of a different building down Milwaukee Avenue. It has a lovely and quite unusual facade that I have dubbed the Blue Building. I took these photos when little bits of white stuff were still on the ground and the temperature was not shorts and flip flop wearing weather so I do not recall exactly where on Milwaukee this was located. I know it had to be close to Lawrence maybe. It doesn't matter because it certainly is lovely to look at.

Bungalow Subdivisions

Now that I have run out of colorful Blackstone Hotel postcards we shall move on to something completely different but nonetheless inside the realm of living quarters. Who would have thought that Chicago’s bungalows in all its row by row, street by street corn rows type of glory were once considered to be apart of subdivisions? When one thinks of subdivisions today, one envisions rows and rows of blandness. However, if you look at the subdivisions in Chicago of the bungalow variety from the early twentieth century, you find craftsmanship type work with details rarely seen today all for the mere low price of twenty bucks a month.

Aside from the bungalows of Chicago, the subdivisions of yesterday straight after World War Two included close by suburban land such as Park Forest and Rolling Meadows. In the last couple of decades most of the Chicago area’s subdivisions are concentrated farther in farther away in such places as Wheaton, Naperville, Geneva, Plainfield, etc. Most on the outskirts have seen population growth and booms with subdivisions and the diminishing numbers of rural available land.

Growing up in Ohio, my friend lived in a subdivision in Brunswick. I never had anything against them being an urban girl and I always thought they were cool despite the fact that every house on her block looked alike. They were still awesome homes with homey atmospheres such as kitchens that overlooked family rooms and faux stone fireplaces. The character was there even in the mid 1980s just as the characters of bungalows had been there some sixty years beforehand in Chicago. My friend and her neighbors would ride their bikes to parks and places to shop. It was a community feel no matter where they were. That’s all that was important.

These ads are courtesy of the book The Chicago Bungalow. The first two are from 1923 while the last is from 1917. They are advertisements for the subdivisions of its day. If only bungalows in West Rogers Park were still in those price ranges.

The Exquisite Marble Room

What better way to end our postcard showcase of the Blackstone by ending it was such a gorgeous room? We started with the lovely and exquisite Barber Shop and now we will end the fiesta with the Marble Room. A room I certainly wish I has been alive to see in those days. Or maybe not. It was probably the place where criminals lurked waiting to spot their next victims.

Two wealthy businessman from New York were robbed as they slept one night in June, 1936. The Chicago Tribune article begins, "Two businessmen from New York learned to their chagrin yesterday that Chicago is a queer town, too. As they slept in a downtown hotel a thief-or perhaps a procession of thieves-marched in and out of their rooms.

"The thief-or thieves-made three visits. And on each trip something disappeared. When the victims awoke from their sleep they found they had lost $426 and two valuable timepieces, a platinum pocket watch that cost $1000 and a wristwatch valued at nearly $400."

The two men who were robbed insist they came to Chicago on business and to visit family but when one of them woke up and didn't find their watch on the nightstand where he had sworn he left it, that should have been their first clue that there was a couple of mighty big rats skulking around. I wonder what the thieves thought of the Marble Room.

The Bold French Room

For the past few days we have given the history and financial problems of Chicago's Blackstone Hotel. Tonight and tomorrow night we will be focusing on the juicy stuff of course: the daring thefts. One such galling theft involved $65,000 worth of stolen jewels. Not the kind cheesy soap operas usually have in which a well dressed woman always wearing a big hat that obscures half her face swaps a red plaid briefcase full of cash for the diamonds that end up stolen. Okay, so I half stole this plot from Friday's episode of One Life To Live and the plaid suitcase bit came from the awesome and hilarious 1972 Barbara Streisand movie What's Up, Doc?. This story involving the Blackstone wasn't nearly as interesting as the film version of What's Up Doc?. But it did involve a movie mogul's wife.

Shortly after re-opening for the Century of Progress in 1933, Mrs Adolph Zukor had her own jewels stolen in June of 1934. Mrs. Zukor was the wife of Adolph Zukor who founded Paramount Pictures for those with curious heads. Two married couples were involved with the thefts and no, I don't believe this played out like an episode of Swingtown.

I'm sure Mrs. Zukor enjoyed the lovely views inside the French Room. It's just like being in Paris. All you need is a fake photo of the Eiffel Tower outside one of the windows.

The Quaint English Room

Okay so instead of tomorrow night, it is actually two nights later or more simply put, the manana after manana. Unfortunately, last night I was held up by the fact that my car needed to pass an emmissions test badly so that I could get my plate renewed by the end of this month. Too much carbon inside and not enough expressway driving put myself halfway to Rockford last night and no where near a computer. Who knew the Starbucks at the Belvedere Oasis closes at 10 pm on the dot along with everything that isn't McDonald's or Subway? The good news was I passed the bad storms by a couple of hours. At least my car is pollutant free this morning! I passed the dang test and killed my right leg in the process.

Not to fear though, The Blackstone re-opened its doors in May of 1933, three months after it had closed. Some guy named A.H. Nevius out of Dayton, Ohio, was just dying to be the first to register a room at the brand new Blackstone which was really the old Blackstone. A grand celebration of the event took place on May 21, 1933 with a special Century of Progress dinner. I have no idea if this dinner was held in the quaint English Room but it is the card featured tonight nonetheless.

The Blackstone's Club Grill

From the time of its opening, the Blackstone was a very graceful hotel that did good business with all types of society folks from all walks of life including many famous folks. Celebrities and presidents aren't really all that interesting for me (unless they have scandalous pasts and not driving over a guy's foot while drunk and high off cocaine kind of scandalous either) so I am going to skip all that. Unfortunately, with such a huge and famous hotel as the Blackstone stories of murder and suicide seem to elude the ordinary people. Probably because most ordinary people couldn't afford the rooms.

By 1933, however, during the throes of the Great Depression, the hotel was facing some very tough times and in the midst of a foreclosure. By January of that year, the hotel was operating at a loss of $16,000 a month which is a serious chunk of change for 1933. All the boring business lingo aside, nothing could stop the fact that the hotel couldn't pay its mortgages. I'm guessing not too many guys wearing top hats and canes for fun and walking down Michigan Avenue were dying to stay at the hotel.

Would the Blackstone stay closed forever or would it eventually open up in time for the 1933 World's Fair? Stay tuned tomorrow night for the next episode. In the meantime, catch of glimpse of the neat Club Grill.

The Blackstone Hotel's Barber Shop

As you can see the outside of the gorgeous Blackstone Hotel located on Michigan and Balbo was one grand monster of a hotel once upon a time. Built from 1908 to 1910 by the firm of the famous architects Benjamin Henry Marshall and Charles Eli Fox, the Blackstone was the kind of place where society parties were hard to keep track of and president after president stayed, dined, feasted and danced the night away. In fact, in 1934 Franklin Roosevelt's granddaughter, Sisty, accompanied by her mother Anna Roosevelt Dall was interested in getting a hair cut in the lovely barber shop of the Blackstone because her braids interfered with her dinner in the sense that her hair always ended up as her meal.

Known as the "Hotel of The Presidents", The Blackstone was named for a businessman and politician Timothy Blackstone. As any hotel, the Blackstone has faced some hardships over the years, especially when the glory of the presidents' stays began diminishing and the life of the rich and glamorous found other posh, trendy places to stay in during the 1960s and 1970s. Eventually, the hotel was shuttered in 2000 after safety inspection violations in 1999. With the facade being torn into pieces, the hotel began renovation proceedings in 2005. It now has the added moniker The Blackstone: A Renaissance Hotel.

One of my favorite TV shows of the 1990s was actually filmed here. The main character from Early Edition lived in the building. How cool was that? I wish I lived in this building and got the Sun Times a day early just so I could be a hero.

A 1908 Chicago Tribune article details plans for the hotel. It reads, "....Much study has been given to the production of a facade which while meeting commercial requirements, will retain a large measure of the artistic-missing from many modern buildings.

"To the height of three stories the treatment will be in polished pink Millford granite, and for the balance of the facade in warm shades of pressed brick and terra cotta. The frieze cornice, dormers and balustrades will be of terra cotta, the whole crowned by a mansard surface with green tile."

Today we feature the barber shop and tomorrow we feature postcards of where to eat inside the hotel along with more interesting stories.

The Famous Chicago Stadium

Built in 1929, the Chicago Stadium housed the Blackhawks hockey team for the start of it's run, while later on adding the Chicago Bulls to the mix in the late 60s. Jordan, Pippen and the rest of the gang (whose names I've long forgotten) won three Championships before the poor old stadium was torn down in 1995 upon the completion of the United Center, now home to a hockey team I don't know much about and a lackluster basketball team. As you can tell I am not a huge sports fan and I think the only reason I was into basketball during the Golden Era of the Bulls was because they were a winning team, something that has seemed to elude the Chicago Cubs.

Here's a great postcard I got a while back. It is post-dated 1939 and the back reads:

"Hello, Gail, I just arrived in Chicago for a few days. I am in a charter for three weeks treading through the states of Ohio-Ind-Ill-and Mich. I am now working out of Wooster, Ohio. Whatever happened to you that you never write me? Drop me a few lines if you have time. Send my mail to Greyhound terminal Wooster, Ohio. Hope to hear from you soon.

PS: Write me. Rodney Poist"

Gee, Rodney, I wonder why Gail didn't write you often. Was it because you said "write me" like a thousand times? Maybe Gail found another guy because she found you too clingy. Or maybe she just didn't like hockey. Whatever the case may be, if Rodney is out there, do tell us whether Gail ever responded.

A Spanish Adventure! In A Jewel?

If you are in love with grocery stores like me, specifically Chicago based grocery stores such as the thriving Jewel chain, Pleasant Family Shopping is the place to visit if you have not already. Dave has been doing great work with his latest feature archiving the triumphs and growing collection of the Jewel chain as well as out of sight and rare opportunities to peek inside the past of this local homegrown corporation through awesome photos. He actually provided me with this October 1966 Chicago Tribune ad for the grand opening of a Jewel in the shopping center still known today as Plaza Del Lago. Once touted as the Spanish adventure, this shopping plaza bears a strong resemblance to the long gone remnants of Vista Del Lago.

As you’ll recall, I did a feature some time ago on the area where Plaza Del Lago is located in Wilmette which was once referred to as No Man’s Land with of course the fascinating, eerie sinful and seedy past that I just can’t get enough of. Apparently not too far from where the Jewel stands now there was once a picture show palace there called Teatro Del Lago which was once adored and loved and was torn down to make way for the rest of this shopping center. At least the Jewel is still there and having been there myself, it is a Jewel that is a throwback to the small Jewels that were once detached from their Oscos which were usually housed in a separate building. If you miss the kind of grocery experience where your produce section resembles a mere line, this is the location you must visit.

Oh and If you can’t live without Starbucks and shop at Chico’s than Plaza Del Lago is especially for you. But if history and great stories are more of your thing than overpriced coffee and clothing I personally wouldn't be caught dead in, taking a look at Digital Past and a 1926 photo of No Man's Land, I guess I can say Vista Del Lago is for you.

Correction: Hoyne Was Jefferson Park State Bank

BWChicago did some great detective work that I was unable to uncover. Yesterday's post on the Hoyne Savings Bank left my history on this building pretty sketchy because I was unsure of its former use. It looks like it was built as a bank from day one but it was also very hard to tell in the databases. Now we know that it was built in 1921 as Jefferson Park State Bank. How great is it that a bank building that was originally built to exchange and store monetary values is still used for this purpose today?

My thanks goes out to BW who also had this to add about the bank building's rich history, which isn't as corruption-free as I had hoped. I should have guessed.

"Here's the good story for this bank: The New York to Paris Derby of the Jefferson Park National Bank has ended and the winner is plane No. 4, piloted by Assistant Cashier John F. Iglewski and navigated by C. Milner Peters, which took the $100 cash prize for first reaching the French capital. The Derby was a contest for increased business, and every new customer and new dollar had a value in the mileage rating. Five planes, represented by as many teams, participated. The quota for the competition, set at $500,000, was exceeded by $186,000 8-19-28, Chicago Daily Tribune. It's not clear what happened to the building after it closed. Hoyne moved in sometime before 1955.

It was also connected to William Malone, a politician with a very long and juicy story related to many issues in 1930s Northwest Chicago and suburbs, particularly Park Ridge."

Hoyne Savings Bank

Finally a bank with seemingly no tales of thievery, murder or general woe. Nothing about bank vice presidents stealing or conning their own customers. It is just an ordinary bank and an ordinary bank building that oddly enough was first used as something called Roland Studios in the 1940s.

This branch of the Hoyne Savings Bank is located at 4786 N Milwaukee. On their official website, Hoyne lists all of their locations which also has a nifty little picture of that particular location's look. The Milwaukee branch is most certainly the best of the bunch having moved in sometime in the 1950s. Showcased here we have a slice of life of this place by the look of this nifty 70s bank ad. According to the ad Hoyne Savings has been around since 1877 having acquired Pioneer Bank which operated at the Milwaukee location as well.

The former Pioneer Bank building is certainly one breath of fresh on a fine late Spring day. If obnly those interest rates were still a breath of fresh air.