West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: adgorn (---.dsl.emhril.sbcglobal.net)
Date: July 14, 2010 03:21PM

My original quest was to see if the art deco Lady Esther plant at 7171 W. 65th and the National Aluminate plant at 6221 West 66th Place (see http://snuffy.lib.umn.edu/image/srch/bin/Dispatcher?mode=600&id=atcB3659c) were still there. When I got to the first location, I saw what looked like the same shaped building, but covered now with a new reddish brick exterior. I then tried to get to the second location, but it is Nalco fenced property and inaccessible. For the heck of it I drove around the area and was pleasantly surprised to find a number of interesting structures, facades and logos from the Clearing Industrial District days. I thought I would share some of my photos, if you might find interesting. (I hope the two methods below from Picasa show up correctly.)

Album
http://picasaweb.google.com/adgorn/65thStreetClearing?feat=directlink

Slideshow
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" width="288" height="192" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&captions=1&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fadgorn%2Falbumid%2F5493792622534977489%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26hl%3Den_US" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>

Alan

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: bwalsh (---.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: July 14, 2010 09:13PM

Love your pictures adgorn! I have been meaning to drive over that way for the longest time to take pictures and just never get around to it. No excuse either, as I live all of 5 minutes from there. I have kicked myself repeatedly for not taking pictures inside and out of the old Johnson and Johnson factory that stood on 65th St about where the Marriott is now. I used to work there when it was offices for Acorn Corrugated (which is actually located a little further west on 65th). We only had a very small suite of offices in the front of the building. The rest of the building was empty, left exactly as it had looked when it was J & J. We went back in there a few times exploring - it was like being in a time capsule. Driving through the com plex of streets behind the factories was interesting too, but that's all gone now.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: 222psm (---.br.br.cox.net)
Date: July 15, 2010 12:01PM

Very nice pictures! When I was a kid my friend and I used to explore the factories
behind the WGN studios. Outside of course, because they where still in use back in the 80's. To bad bwalsh you did not take pictures of the J & J that would have been cool to see.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: shekaago (---.sub-75-242-219.myvzw.com)
Date: July 15, 2010 01:37PM

Great photos! Nice shots of the architectural details on the buildings too. I love stuff like this but must admit, rather shamefully, that I've never explored that area of Chicago. And now, after seeing your pics, I plan on taking a drive out there one of these days. I'd also like to do a bit of reading up on the history of this interesting place.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: bowler (---.chipublib.org)
Date: July 15, 2010 05:16PM

I have all sorts of photsos of the Clearing Industrial District and I'm pretty sure the J&J building . There is a woman who owns a jewelry store on 63rd street just west of the airport who has books and books full of old CID brochures, pictures and documents. I'll see if I can figure out how to post pics on this forum, if not drop me a PM and I can email some pics to anyone interested and give you contact info for the lady with all the originals.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: Chipast (---.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net)
Date: October 02, 2010 02:09AM

Wasn't there a Cracker Jack factory?, With a large revolving sign?. Maybe it was a mile east or so.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: b.a.hoarder (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: October 02, 2010 02:35AM

Go to http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/11095.html to see a picture of the plant, it was right on Cicero Avenue. After it closed some genius attempted to steal one of the large ComEd transformers located behind a fenced enclosure on 66th st. It still had a live connection, making him the last thing cooked on the property.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: tomcat630 (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: October 05, 2010 01:52AM

Chicago should have pushed to annex more land out there and on NW side.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: bowler (---.chipublib.org)
Date: November 18, 2010 01:31PM



Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: bowler (---.chipublib.org)
Date: November 18, 2010 01:36PM

Sorry tried to post some old pics of the Clearing Industrial District. Not sure exactly how to do this. You can however view them by clicking above. Can someone tell me how to post pics from Flickr?

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: shekaago (---.sub-69-96-215.myvzw.com)
Date: November 18, 2010 04:16PM

The way I post photos here is to copy the URL from my photo(s) on Flickr then click on the "Insert image URL" icon here. I then paste my photo's URL into the box that pops up. This is an easy method for me, though someone else out there may have a better idea.


[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/shekaago/5187281061/]Example Photo[/url]

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: 222psm (---.br.br.cox.net)
Date: November 18, 2010 07:04PM

bowler, what you do is hit the Flickr button (blue/red dot) where you type in your posts. the first time you do it, it will ask if you want to authorize the module to access your flickr account. There is a link, the word "authorize" next to step 1 click the word and it will take you to flickr to sign in. once you sign in it will give you a code, put that code in the box under step 2.

After that when you hit the blue/red button it will bring up you pictures, click the one you want to insert in your message.

Like this:



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2010 07:08PM by 222psm.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: shekaago (---.sub-75-211-131.myvzw.com)
Date: November 18, 2010 07:36PM

Thanks for the clear explanation, 222! I knew there had to be a better way to post photos here.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: 222psm (---.br.br.cox.net)
Date: November 18, 2010 07:47PM

You're welcome! Glad to help my fellow Chicagoan.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: bowler (---.chipublib.org)
Date: November 20, 2010 06:31PM









Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: bowler (---.chipublib.org)
Date: November 20, 2010 06:34PM










Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: shekaago (---.sub-75-211-47.myvzw.com)
Date: November 20, 2010 06:47PM

Really great photos!

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: 222psm (---.br.br.cox.net)
Date: November 21, 2010 08:53PM

Thanks for sharing the pics, bowler.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: badikian (---.c3-0.nwb-ubr1.chi-nwb.il.cable.rcn.com)
Date: March 08, 2014 03:20PM

Does anyone remember or know any stories from working at the Clearing plant of Western Electric in the early 70s? Please email me: bgartler@yahoo.com.

Re: West 65th Street - Clearing Industrial District photos
Posted by: daveg (130.36.62.---)
Date: March 12, 2014 01:37PM

badikian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone remember or know any stories from
> working at the Clearing plant of Western Electric
> in the early 70s? Please email me:
> bgartler@yahoo.com.

Do you recall the address of this facility? I briefly worked there in the 70s and can't remember exactly where it was.

TIA

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