Addison and Kimball vacant field.


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Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: thimmaker ()
Date: April 29, 2015 01:50PM

Anybody remember the open field that ran from Kimball to Kedzie on Addison st. and south all the way to the tracks? There was a golf driving range at Kedzie and once in a while someone would open up some other place like an archery range. Sometimes they trained dogs there on Sundays. A great hotdog stand was on the corner of Addison and Kimball and Pat and Franks White Fire gas station was across the street.Lots of fun in that vacant field till they built the first factory there in 1945. All factories now. I lived across the street from it.

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Re: Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: Dunning1 ()
Date: April 29, 2015 03:22PM

How about the old streetcar barn on the corner of Elston & Addison? It was an unusual wedge shaped building, and neither Addison, or Elston in the later years had a streetcar service. I remember the building in later years when it was Spra Con Products.

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Re: Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: thimmaker ()
Date: April 29, 2015 08:05PM

I lived directly behind the streetcar barns on Addison. Ran through the empty cars many times. The fence ran along the alley behind the barns and easy to get over when we were kids. Streetcars ran on Elston, but they also parked trolley busses there.
Geo.

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Re: Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: twaflyer1 ()
Date: June 25, 2015 10:21PM

OK, on the NE corner of Elston and Kedzie is an old 3 story Apt. building. built in the 1880s I suppose! It might be older because another old 3 story Wooden building was on the SE corner of Albany and Elston was very Old as old Art used to say! Art was a 3700 block resident since the 1910s, and he said that that building was "Old" even when he was a kid! That building has been replaced by huge antennae of some kind, but back to the Kedzie and Elston Building! Anyway, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, before Wrigley field was built, the Cubs used to practice in the old open field right where Jewel and other factories now lie! To get a good view of the practices, or games, I don't know which, people used to go on the roof of that old 3 story wooded structure to see the old Cubs play! Oh how I wish sub-particle physics would prove that time travel was possible, just to get a glimpse of those days! How about you? Art, who used to work at Ed and Marie's on Kedzie also said that on Kedzie, just North of addison, there were just prairies, and one old Horse drawn wagon owner used to sell his pots and pans in one of those empty lots! TWA..

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Re: Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: thimmaker ()
Date: July 10, 2015 07:18PM

If your talking about the building just SE of kedzie on elston, its where Sportsman Inn tavern was located for many years, possibly still there. They had a flat roof that could have been used to view the old prairie. There was a golf driving range on the elston Addison SW corner for many years from back in the 1940s. Used to steal golfballs out in the fields. West of the golf range was also an Archery range where you paid to shoot out ballons for a fee. The first factory ruined the area around 1945 and we kids lost a very large playground.

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Re: Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: WayOutWardell ()
Date: July 11, 2015 03:17PM

That three-story building on Kedzie & Elston was recently demolished. I remember it being a country & western bar when I was a kid, and then most recently it was a paint and decorating store. The paint store had an interesting animated neon sign mounted on the north side of the building.

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Re: Addison and Kimball vacant field.
Posted by: Dunning1 ()
Date: July 12, 2015 08:11PM

That three story country and western bar was named Carl & Regina's. It was a family joke as those were my father's and mother's names!

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