nordsider Wrote:
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> My first home, from the late 30s, to the late 40s,
> was within a block in the Lincoln Park area
> bounded by the streets: Burling, Armitage, Orchard
> and Willow. The homes within it were not
> expensive, and the people who in them were not
> rich. The only notable buildings within it, or
> nearby, were: a public school at the south end of
> the block; a long-ago German school across the
> street; and another public school at the north
> end; the school I attended.
>
> The block, according to the Forbes magazine in
> 2007, rated it one the most expensive blocks in
> the U.S.
> Some of the homes within it, and across the these
> streets, were torn down and their lots combined --
> as many as seven lots, in one instance -- to build
> mansions worth multi-millions.
>
> As I now view these street's, via Google Street
> View, I wonder why these buildings now exist.


They liked the location, and had sufficient money to purchase, demolish, resubdivide. and build. It sadly happens everywhere, even in Chicago.

Even on a single 25'X 125' lot, with these new "big-box" houses, as I call them. Imagine a townhouse squeezed in about seven feet away from what would be party walls along the lot lines, and about 10 feet longer than a bungalow. Some have dexks on the garage, to compensate for the postage-stamp sized backyard. They try to sell them for $600K-700K, but one went for ~$250K a few months ago a few blocks north of us, on Laramie (Jefferson Park area). I first saw them amongst the older houses in Bucktown, when we were house-hunting.