auuugh. i bet your mom didn't kiss you for MONTHS.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

used to go to Oak Lawn roller rink (now sadly replaced with a Hooters) every saturday when i was about 12-13. the first rink i ever went to was the Fleetwood (still there) - my best friend and i didn't even know how to skate, we were about 8 and all we did was grip the handrails and scuttle sideways, gingerly. lol. how far we come.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

gulf shores is nice! plus you get surf. used to go to pensacola too occasionally. your cousin's probably right where we were, between 55th and archer, we were at 54th/latrobe.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

chicago railroads are part of my DNA - i was born and grew up with the Belt Railway right behind my house near midway! hey 222psm, i know how it is to miss Chicago, i lived in Gulfport-Biloxi for about 4 years, and then NJ for 6. it's not til you move away and gain perspective (kinda like walter jacobsen) that you really start to realize all the little idiosyncrasies particular to Chicago, and
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

i think there's one on 95th in Oak Lawn, but it's a Lang machine?? little building's been there forever.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

oh me too! love this place! i wish it were busier! feel like i'm becoming an unofficial chicago historian.
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those railroad tracks psm and artista were talking about were INDEED the "Crazy Train" tracks! old Blanchard's maps from the 1800s to the 20's i.d. them as the three-mile spur off the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. before that, commuters would have to walk the stretch up to the Dunning site. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/395.html
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

sometimes you see old brick ones in people's yards! i love these kind of "mysterious mundanities" too.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

oh man, i LOVED Stark's. we used to go there for just about everything. i'd kill for one picture of the inside of that store. i remember the high ceilings, the way all the doors were always left open in warm weather. i think all our plants and flowers came from their garden center alongside the store.
Forum: General Discussion

THANKS, b.a. hoarder. awesome info. i always thought maybe it was waste pits from CPI across the canal.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

i have a feeling this is probably common knowledge here, but i'm going to ask anyway. on the south side of of i-55, between first ave and la grange, there are all these large, square ponds visible from the expressway. back in the day they looked like black "lakes" to me, covered with tar and in various stages of use. portions are hidden behind dilapidated fencing of varying eras. i'm su
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

actually it looks like the back half on the school st side was added some time after 1951. if it was some sort of joint thing with ComEd and CTA, perhaps it was something to do with electric streetcars at the time?
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

shekaago: of course i remember Polk Bros - but does anyone remember the plastic "Polk Bros Santas" they would give away at christmastime as a premium? just about every house in our neighborhood had one. also remember them giving out the "Wally Phillips People Book", which i still have. if it wasn't for Polk bros, i wouldn't be on this computer right now - it was the gateway to
Forum: General Discussion

Ford City would have been our closest one, but i remember going up to the Oak Park one a lot because we used to go up by my dad's UPS route along North ave to pick up his check. on the way home down Harlem we'd go in Wieboldt's and get chocolate sponge candy and swedish fish by the pound (the only ones that come close are Fannie May's). and then hot dogs at Parky's. those were the days. bt
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i went googling around there, pretty cool, looks like a movie set. i've seen some suburbs like that around philly.
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There was a JupitEr in Green Oaks shopping center at 95th and Cicero, too. after that, they turned it into a Giant Auto parts. i remember they had those shopping carts with the tall poles attached so they couldn't get out the door with them.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

other than the re-incorporation in '23, it says it only ran until about the beginning of WWII. really didn't see much else.
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you're welcome, the first source is "The Manual of Statistics, Stock Exchange Handbook, 1908". the second is from "Report to the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Chicago by the Chicago Harbor Commission - 1909". both of which can be viewed in entirety on google books. i noticed on the 1938 aerial, there's a little "slip" of water cut into the shoreline just below
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looked at aerials from '38 and '51, i figure that's a safe date to assume they'd still be standing, considering cabin style motels date from the 20s-40's. followed sw hwy from cicero up to western, didn't see anything that looked like separate little cabins.
Forum: General Discussion

between cicero and western is a pretty long stretch. i grew up a block from cicero on sw hwy in oak lawn - i don't remember anything or the remains of such a place, at least not in MY time, i'm only 41. i would have noticed, because i notice things like that.
Forum: General Discussion

Archer Variety in the Ridge shopping center on Archer and Mayfield (nr Austin). I remember as a child, being in there on a sunny morning and looking at all the fake flowers and sewing notions. There was also a "Ridge Department Store", which was the first floor of a small 20's bungalow. They used to have old-fashioned wooden draweres that they kept ladies' slips and stockings in. VER
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

thank you for all that info. from what i've dug up, i've gathered that there were two buildings, a smaller smallpox hospital and another that was built a few years later. that would be the one at the corner of 34th and lawndale and, as an earlier person stated, has a dog's head above the doorway. yeah, i've noticed that hamlin bldg. i think that was it. there is documentation of a lawsuit
Forum: General Discussion

various references i've found: "The company owns eight steamships with an average tonnage of 2,200 tons, and the wharf and warehouse property in Chicago located on the Chicago River." "The lines have terminals for delivering and receiving Chicago city freight located on the Main branch of the Chicago river, with the exception of the Rutland .Transit Co., located on the North b
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

i would, too. at least wait'll the snow melts, rich.
Forum: General Discussion

if you're looking for any kind of historical info, "Google Books" is a great feature to check with, if nothing comes up in a conventional websearch. thousands of books, documents and publications are there in a searchable database, some full-view, some partial, some as snippets. when i could come up with virtually nothing about that old Isolation Hospital at 35th and Lawndale, i found a
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

i remember my ma taking me to a dimestore calleed "Woolley's" or "Wooley's" on i think 55th. it was on the north side of the street and somewhere east of kedzie? it was a really old, small dimestore, very dark inside with wooden floors and that "old store" smell. i loved it.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

cool info, walsh. i've always had a weird little fascination with quonset huts for some reason. thinking back again on that arrow on the roof of the ford city plant, it was probably to direct pilots toward midway. but i'd like to think it was because they wanted the Germans to bomb Lyons..
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

wardell, i SAW that last night! i almost made a post about it! if you notice, it points to the northwest, which isn't toward chicago. the first thing i thought was maybe it was wartime humor to throw off any enemy air strikes? i found it rather amusing.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

aHA! great job, wardell! thanks so much. wonder if anyone has any pics of that area?
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

old aerials show some sort of development just west of Pulaski on 79th, which would later become Rainey Park. 1938 aerials show nothing in the area; a substantial-sized subdivision suddenly appears in the 1951 aerial, and then disappears again in the 1962 shot, replaced by the park and the current homes just to the north. it almost looks like an army base, with long buildings along the east perime
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings