Open Street Map is a good source for the status, names, and even division names for railroad tracks.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

Open Street Map is a good source for the status, names, and even division names for railroad tracks.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

Julie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Germanish Restaurant on State right by and across the street > from the Chicago theater. Anyone know what it was? Sounds like the Old Heidelburg on Randolph just west of State. The façade is still there. Of course, much earlier, Henrici's stood until 1962 where the Daley Center is, a bit of Alsace-Lorraine by w
Forum: General Discussion

That one house near Wrightwood and Altgeld is shown in city address records as 1724 W. Altgeld, which would be the vacant lot in front. I don't know if the same person owns both the house and the vacant lot, or if it's a mistake. I don't see anything but garages on the alleys around Wellington and Clybourn. Which building were you thinking of?
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

The 1948 Comprehensive Study Relating To Aeronautical Facilities for Metropolitan Area of Chicago Projected to 1970 looks at only the Douglas site (that became O'Hare), Municipal Airport (now Midway), and Glenview Naval Air Station for major facilities. "Other possible sites" considered but rejected as impractical in the study are one in Clearing, very close to Midway; a Lake Calumet
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

It's pretty hard to prove a negative, but just from a practicality standpoint I've got to call that extraordinarily unlikely. You'd be talking about millions of dollars even in 1920 money, and where would the lake end of such a tunnel come out? Hundreds of acres of new parkland were being added out in the lake in the 1920s, which would have either led to discovery or pointlessness. Any boat big
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

It appears that there were several "Atlas" buildings: The Atlas Block at Wabash & Randolph; The Atlas Building at 228 S. Wabash, built in 1930; and apparently another one near Chicago & Paulina. My reply to gordonmeyer about the Atlas Block doesn't mean Chipast is wrong.
Forum: General Discussion

I'm not sure if a "block" was merely a bit of puffery, used for larger buildings, or if it perhaps indicated a building with multiple uses, such as retail and office. The Monadnock Block is probably the best-known such building that remains, but once there were many.
Forum: General Discussion

US 41 wasn't moved, even though the Drive was extended. It still runs via Lake Shore Drive-Foster-Lincoln. As for the peripatetic route numbers, I've always assumed that was because the city/county could use federal-aid money to improve whatever arterial carried the route.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

The Atlas Block (built 1879, demolished 1940) was at the northwest corner of Wabash and Randolph.
Forum: General Discussion

The chain is not mentioned in any of the standard three scholarly works on the rise of fast-food chains (Langdon, Liebs, or Jakle). Ashland is one of the streets that was dramatically widened in the 1920s, and that left a lot of small parcels like the one holding the tiny hot dog stand and the northeast corner of Ashland & Chicago. The 1914 fire insurance maps show a small insubstantial st
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

Looking into it a bit more, it may not have been connected to a particular US route number. In the 1920s Chicago was doing a tremendous amount of arterial street widening (107 miles total), and apparently Lincoln was to be a big new "through route" in that area. I guess it was thought preferable to connect it to the newly widened Western Avenue at Catalpa rather than face the congestio
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Looking into it a bit more, it may not have been connected to a particular US route number. In the 1920s Chicago was doing a tremendous amount of arterial street widening (107 miles total), and apparently Lincoln was to be a big new "through route" in that area. I guess it was thought preferable to connect it to the newly widened Western Avenue at Catalpa rather than face the congestio
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I've always heard that part of Catalpa was widened because at one point it carried US 41—though it's not clear to me that exact routing was ever used. Catalpa (and Lincoln north to the city limits) were widened by ordinance in 1926, though plat records indicate it might have taken until 1945 to actually get possession of the land.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

That little yard at Kimball was called Elsmere. There were sidings for a couple of industrial customers and a team track. There was a team track at Robey St. (now called Damen).
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Actually, the part we're discussing (the "Riverside Park" parcel) was owned by the Rock Island and the B&OCT, and served LaSalle Street and Grand Central stations. The C&WI yards that served Dearborn Station were all south of 16th/St Charles Air Line.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I believe the engineering situations were completely different for the different parts of Wacker Drive. For the east-west portion, I think they dug down about four feet for Lower Wacker, and put Upper Wacker about nine feet above the original level. They were planning to rebuild all the bridges at a higher level anyway, which is one of the reasons the "South Water Street Improvement,"
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

^Requires a login to see. But probably these: Guide to 1909 house number changes outside downtown (170MB PDF) Guide to 1911 house number changes downtown (47MB PDF) Guide to streetname changes (small PDF)
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

22nd Street was changed to Cermak Road in Cook County only. In DuPage it remained 22nd Street. Also, the Chicago Plan Commission (nor Burnham and Bennett) never had anything to do with street names. The Brennan Plan was worked out in 1901, and adopted before the Plan of Chicago. The big push to rename streets "on the same line" came from Brennan about 1910. John Riley, Superintend
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

The buses came and went via Garvey Place. About 150 feet north of Lake Street, a tunnel to the Greyhound Station took off to the east, then due south under Lake Street, about where the Seven-11 is now. Here's an old fire insurance map that I colored to show the tunnel in yellow:
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Are you sure that's the right address? There are single-family detached houses at that location, not row houses.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

St. Bruno Church is at 48th & Harding.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

That big institution in the background of the Old Town (Fern Ct) photo was built in the 1920s as the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital. Later it became the Catherine Booth Hospital, operated by the Salvation Army, and then in 1960 became part of Roosevelt Hospital. After a big 1980 Medicare fraud scandal, the name was changed to Chicago Center Hospital in 1981, and the hospital closed in 1985. Sho
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Alas, you won't find Bookman's Alley in Evanston any longer. He finally closed about a year ago.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

That's 418 W. Eugenie, NW corner of Fern Court. Photo is looking north on Fern toward the (now removed) Ogden Avenue. It doesn't look all that different today: http://goo.gl/maps/UByYH
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

In advance of the 1996 Democratic National Convention, CDOT/the mayor's office was sold on the idea of installing new street signs with changeable panels. So originally they went in with Chicago '96 on them, and then in 2001 they were updated with the new tourism logo. Nothing since. In retrospect, the flaw seems obvious.
Forum: General Discussion

Soka Gakkai USA Cultural Center occupies the actual site of the Coliseum. The park was the former Haven School site, and was given the name to commemorate the neighborhood landmark shortly after it was completely erased in the 1990s. The townhouse development just to the south took the name as well. I'll be talking about it on the South Loop Twilight Tour next week. July 20, 6 pm. Tickets he
Forum: General Discussion

Having the sales slip filled out separately from the cash register was fairly common in the old days. I think Central Camera still does it. Easier to keep an eye on one till, and one cashier, than on six.
Forum: General Discussion

Use the icon that looks like the globe and chainlink. You end up with something that looks like this: new feature on FC
Forum: General Discussion

Here's a section of the 1850 Flower and Rees map of Cook County. It shows several houses on Robinson's Reserve, but I don't know which was his original dwelling.
Forum: General Discussion