Re: Halsted/North Avenue pix and info
Date: July 15, 2011 07:51PM
I can't help you with photo sources (alas), but I can tell you some recollections. In the 1950's and into the early 1960's, there were a lot of small, wood frame houses along North Avenue. They were probably built as workers' cottages, and there may still have been working class families living in some of them in the 1950's, but by that time, Old Town had become an artists' neighborhood (for a brief period of time, until it got so gentrified that even the artists couldn't afford it). My parents had friends who lived and worked in Old Town, so I have childhood recollections of visiting in that area, especially one family friend who was a sculptor. I think he lived in part of the house and used part of it as his studio.
I looked at Historic Aerials, using the address 1600 N. Halsted. It's not quite the photo angle you want, but what is pretty clear is that the 1938 & 1952 listings have a lot of small buildings (consistent with my recollection of workers' cottages). Some of them were demolshed by 1962, but most of the demolition took place later on, in the 1970's & 1980's.