Most Expensive Block


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Most Expensive Block
Posted by: nordsider (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: October 31, 2013 07:18PM

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.

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: Jeff_Weiner (---.sub-75-205-174.myvzw.com)
Date: October 31, 2013 11:41PM

nordsider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 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.

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: nordsider (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: November 01, 2013 09:34AM

Maybe the mansion owners along the Burling block liked the ambience of a street named after Edward J. Burling; architect of the first Tribune Building, The Samuel M. Nickerson mansion; and -- three blocks north on Burling -- of the Burling Row Houses . . . and also, the fact that Charles H. Wacker -- namesake, Wacker Drive -- attended the Newberry school, at the south end of the block.

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: davey7 (---.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net)
Date: November 01, 2013 12:04PM

This is when we need to call upon Ashley of the LPTS to explain it all.

*LPTS, Lincoln Park Trixie Society

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: WayOutWardell (63.226.79.---)
Date: November 01, 2013 01:40PM

^ ^ ^ Ha ha ha!!!

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: nordsider (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: November 01, 2013 02:28PM

I imagine that if Edward J. Burling, Architect, were alive today, he would certainly study this architectural style, of one of the new mansions, shown here:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=1941+North+Burling+Street,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.917751,-87.645257&spn=0.006977,0.013046&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=7.380937,13.359375&oq=1941+north+bu&hnear=1941+N+Burling+St,+Chicago,+Illinois+60614&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.917163,-87.647267&panoid=kCkNOvHM-dxncdGUdgQpCw&cbp=13,260.16,,0,0

It is built on the site of the Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum; built in 1871, across the Burling Street from my old home, also torn down.


Also, my long-ago friend's old home -- it was still standing when this photo was taken -- and the new white stone mansion next door. My friend estimated the new mansion to be 5 million, in 2005:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=1927+North+Burling+Street,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.917383,-87.645557&spn=0.006978,0.013046&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=7.380937,13.359375&oq=1927+north+burling&hnear=1927+N+Burling+St,+Chicago,+Illinois+60614&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.916797,-87.647255&panoid=oBGrfKs5Qs3MrhFHB9tocg&cbp=13,78.82,,0,0



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2013 10:42AM by nordsider.

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: querencia (---.lightspeed.cicril.sbcglobal.net)
Date: November 09, 2013 01:35AM

There was an article in the Sunday Trib about a year ago featuring that stretch of Burling that is now lined with super-expensive real estate. It said one reason the development went there was that, unusual for Chicago, there were no alleys behind the houses so that a wealthy person could buy up multiple properties to tear down and have one deep "through" lot running from street to street. If I remember correctly, the Pritzker family tore down seven houses to get the lot they then built on. The woman who used to check out my groceries had grown up there in a house owned by her grandparents; needless to say, she has since moved---taxes got too rich for her blood.

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Re: Most Expensive Block
Posted by: nordsider (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: November 10, 2013 11:23AM

Yes, the alleys are/were less the one quarter of the entire length of the long Burling block. And, it seems to me, that the block is becoming the Prairie Avenue of old --- "the sunny street that held the sifted few."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/2013 07:20PM by nordsider.

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