I remember the original Bally factory in the 2600 west block of Belmont (building now gone) having been inside in back the '70s, and when the '80s came their logo appeared atop one of the tall office buildings alongside the Kennedy Xpwy west of Cumberland that I'd often drive by, they having moved.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

if it weren't for the following things.... you can't be north of Narragansett you can't be north of Long (they're both north-south streets themselves you see) and there's no such place as Narraganssett & Long (in Portage Pork or anywhere else) because they don't intersect, both being parallel north-south streets ....I'm sure I could address your question
Forum: General Discussion

I'd agree with everything the last post stated about the Amos 'n Andy TV show which I watched. But in the end I'll still come to its defense, since its characterizations were not harsh, and the overall tone was benign in its entertainment. it followed the general TV show formula then which must finish on an upbeat, wise, if moral resolution. Yes it was the only regular and continuing all-black
Forum: General Discussion

Moloney is the company name I remember there on Belmont ave (after Bally relocated). In addition to those 5 old hi-fi manufacturers I'd named there's a 6th one (that may've been the one once near Addison & California) I just recalled--KENWOOD. But right now I can't pinpoint a thing about them. Although I went to Lane Tech H.S. in the '60s I didn't live nearby; like so many I took the Ad
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

oh yes, there's no humor 'drier' than Bob & Rays, got that way because neither would be a straight man nor a fall guy
Forum: General Discussion

well it looks like right location but wrong company Williams there and Bally when they were a couple blocks away on Belmont Ave really enjoyed a business heyday 1970's - 1980's. I always viewed them as competitive but perhaps they weren't exactly When Bally moved their old Belmont bldg. went to a limousine coach mfgr before it got torn down
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

that's the CE electric locomotive, and that maybe how Califonia Ave appeared circa '51 (before Gorden Tech H.S. was built), or it could be crossing some other street west of the plant ye olde hi-fi Chicago street addresses I've found: ADMIRAL - 3800 W. Cortland SCOTT - 4541 N. Ravenswood ZENITH - 6001 W. Dickens MOTOROLA - 4545 W. Augusta my (late) sister worked at the Augusta Moto
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I wonder if the electrified tracks did NOT include the spur that went east to the river branch and never did, it was just the western tracks that had that 'electric diesel' In the olden 'Hi-Fi' days when brands like Scott, Marantz, Jensen, Fischer, Harmon-Kardon etc. were still in their original made-in-USA incarnations, up to the 1960's, I was told one of those brands factory's was located aro
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makes me wonder in a 1920's (pre-thermoplastics) manufacturing world just what was electrical conduit that's NON-metallic. probably ceramic or a melamine/phenolic type though not home conduit
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I don't think the coal-loaded barges would have any problem passing under the bridges, bascule or otherwise, from what I remember seeing (enough clearance). The bascule on Western Ave was replaced with a fixed structure early '70s, wasn't it, and a few years later Belmont bridge followed.
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up through the early '90s at least (maybe later?) ComEd had a customer service office at the front of that old plant building on California Ave, so I could walk in there and pay my monthly bill. Me and the Mrs. love the IRM @ Union and've seen that old electric locomotive there.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

yes as one's already mentioned anyone (like me) who went to either Lane Tech or Gordon Tech in the '60s (as the schools were called then) will remember the train hauling coal from the river barges and cross California Ave--one track only existed there--just a couple feet south of Addison (no RR crossing gate), to the big ComEd plant. The track continued west alongside the buildings north face the
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yes Round Robin's what I think too (I was viewing chick-in-the-rough as a generic or type description myself)
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I'm reminded of the Super-KMart right across Harlem there, in that recently 3 other K-Mart stores've closed--Ashland/Milwaukee, west Roosevelt in Forest Park, and Elston/Cicero. I shop at K-Marts and don't like the spectre of any others (like the one across Harlem) closing too. They can take their WalMarts and shove it.
Forum: General Discussion

interesting to me a little what you say if true about underground parking @ HIP being salvaged, then the mall has streetlevel + rooftop + underground parking. boy does it ever need it IMO, every last square inch of that corner has been swallowed whole for all the commercial $$ an intersection could possibly be milked of
Forum: General Discussion

I never said Talman/LaSalle bank per se 'threw in the towel'. the Maurice Lenell old lot is rubble
Forum: General Discussion

1960/'61 would be the very first I went to HIP (outdoor) mall as a youngster. for whatever reasons my parents drove around town back then a lot because we didn't live anywhere nearby, and to tell you the truth I preferred us going to Golf Mill mall over HIP, both fairly new. there was a small record shop at the north end of the mall I liked. Me and my friends ate at the Ground Round (usually
Forum: General Discussion

here's a link you can click on that shows a fine & full (recent) view of this old (supposed) Lincoln Logs factory building (1750 N.): https://www.flickr.com/photos/chiski/5569016997/in/photostream/
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I google-map the 1750 n. Lawndale address and voila! 3-story long old brown brick factory building with red windows, on the west side of the street of course immediately south of the bloomingdale (606 trail) track viaduct. It appears in fine shape (I'll drive by it sometime soon to verify) and is probably used today for something. With an address like that it'd be more accurate to term its loca
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

the LincolnLogs plant bldg @ Lawndale near Cortland still stands although boarded-up, and coincidentally that's exactly where the tail end of the new 606 Bloomingdale trail is. There should be some little sign there so users of the trail appreciate the significance of that crumbling building off to the left there (pardon my meagre sarcasm)
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Lawndale & Cortland for LincolnLogs, yes! I seem to recall I was told that plant operated until 1968, is that right? I was told by an old-timer (and years ago) who worked there named Hillard Czubek, who later went over to Playskool. Playskool @ 4501 Augusta was in a building that used to be occupied by Motorola, but they moved (to Schaumburg / Hoffman Estates) in 1974. Up till then Playsko
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TootsieToy was 600 n. Pulaski (I worked there a few months). They had a division closeby called ChemToy, the mfgr of the wands you blew soup bubbles out thru. Also right there on Pulaski was Newark Electronics, a great competitor to Allied Radio. BTW I liked that newsstand on Fullerton / Cicero Does anybody remember the original Lincoln Log factory, I think it may've been on Cortland?
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BTW - you can't drive westward on Waveland from Pulaski Rd because it's one-way going east this area is behind the famous La Villa restaurant, whose pizza delivery drivers always clog/block streets & alleys thereby
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that is quite a fine old cicero & armitage photo there, thank you for that. one of my friends became the Ekco Housewares plant head of security in the mid-'70s the building you allude to on grand east of cicero was the Chicago Dowel Co., in fact it may still be, they were in business at least until recently. I went there in the '70s when I worked for Playskool Toys (on augusta blvd) becau
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yes, now that you mention it Continental Can, there was signage over those buildings to that effect that I think lingered there for probably a long time when the buildings themselves went unused at kostner & north there were silos, but my memory's imperfect, it was a coal yard of some sort. we're talking the '60s (where the jewel/venture/cook brothers eventually situated). and at division
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on the SW corner of Fullerton & Cicero there used to be a big, though not old, bank building called CAPITOL wasn't it? That's when the Walgreen's was on the NW corner there. That bank building was a waste IMO, few people saved there and the whole darn thing got torn down. Remember the big ECKO housewares manufacturing building at Cicero & Armitage (where Home Depot now sits)? Over th
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in the mid-'60s there was a local street gang that called themselves Simon's City and their graffiti was all over the bloomingdale line (606) side embankments. this was before artistic neighborhood murals
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

The hospitals before Resurrection always had a bad reputation probably because in so many cases that's where us locals went to die, if inadvertently (a practice that continues) remember the teeny-tiny savings and loan on Belmont a bit east of the Luna theatre? I remember the old Irving Park post office (on cicero) when it was but a block south of irving park rd and I used to wonder why th
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you misunderstood, read again, I was referring to SE corner of Addison & cicero (not central) at the start of my previous post I really hate that parking garage across Addison ave the hospital built with the overhead walkway - ugly and a structure such as that doesn't belong at all in a residential neighborhood there was a time - mid to late '80s, that old Dominicks did a good business
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Who wants to visit downtown and eat at a chain where you can go anytime in Chicagoland. I'd agree with that pretty much
Forum: General Discussion