My source tells me that both the observation deck and club have been closed and likely turned into office space. My dad and brother walked down and couldn't get out, they had to climb back up a few floors (with my brother crying bloody murder - he was such a spoiled scardy cat) to find an unlocked door. It probably didn't bother or even faze my dad - he's fearless. But sounds dangerous to me i
Forum: General Discussion

Is this the club that became the course in Warren Park?
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I think it's still there just closed. There is a private club that has space there as well. I've asked someone who is in the know, so hopefully I'll get an answer soon.
Forum: General Discussion

According to Google "Party Linens" is located there. Streetview has trucks actively going in to the docks.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

I have a friend who lived in LPT (Lake Point Tower) when the S curve was still in existence. She said that they could hear cars crashing, but only in certain conditions, such as wind, location, angle, etc. They once heard a Corvette crack. But other times they'd never hear a thing. Here's a good picture of it.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I always thought it was because the S curve was actually on raised streets which were never fully built out with the planned buildings over the railyards. A post about the planned art deco predecessor to Illinois Center would shed some light on this I think.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Remember, the Kennedy was built next to massive RR viaducts for the most part, which already cut off neighborhoods, so there was little new division (same with the Dan Ryan to some extent as well).
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I remember stone sidewalks in HP too, but not where. Now I'll have to keep an eye out, but there were some on Campus, which I think are mostly gone now
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We used to go see Ringling Brothers et al here in the 70's and 80's. I remember seeing a nekkid woman from the bus on like 47th street (maybe at King Drive or Cottage). I'm jealous, Monie, Latifah and De La Soul would have been an awesome show!
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I wonder if this is related to the UK "Fairy" dishwashing detergent which has hilariously wholesome commercials (with a pre-AbFab Joanna Lumley even).
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Another store, probably only familiar to Hyde Parkers and southsiders, was Mr. G's (for Gerstein) which had several locations and finally closed around 1990 - the last store (in Kimbark Plaza, 53rd and Woodlawn) was merged into the Co-op for a time. Interestingly, the main co-op market was the largest supermarket in Chicago when it opened the new store in '59 (if I recall correctly) in the I.M
Forum: General Discussion

Yes, that's the Englewood Branch. I think the mall was a partial success, more than people are willing to admit (thanks to the new urbanism gobbledygook which demands tradition everywhere) - other cities have done it very successfully and without it State Street would never have revived at all.
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I still suspect that the postcard is of a building on Cermak - it's just too similar to the other buildings there.
Forum: General Discussion

The sign on the building seems to indicate Cermak and Ashland... But the dirt street says otherwise (were the wires originally in the street in Chicago switched to alleys at some point? Though I don't have an alley behind my place and the wires are out back anyways).
Forum: General Discussion

Wouldn't most victory gardens have been in peoples yards (such as the side yard example above)? Chicago didn't have that many vacant lots available then for gardening. After urban renewal in Hyde Park, a few lots took many years to redevelop and were used for about 15 years as community gardens.
Forum: General Discussion

That storefront looks to me as if it was done in the 20's sometime, rather than being original.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Are those actually el cars in the shot of the lake street el or North Shore Line cars? I can't quite tell, but there don't appear to be enough doors for it to be the el.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

For some reason the name Perkins and Will comes to mind but I don't think it was them, just the high rise complex to the west on Golf Road.
Forum: General Discussion

Not in my car, but I know a Saturn owner who would be happy to volunteer his car...
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

My mom mentioned last time we ate at Italian Village that she'd eaten there with her sister when they were in College - around 1950 I think. Yeah, Cal City used to be known for strip joints and speakeasies. My mom's other sister took a year off from college and worked in the loop (and Marshall Field's on Thursday evenings). She told my cousin to go to Rush Street when he visited us in the 80s.
Forum: General Discussion

Anybody know how these stand up to cars? An old brick garage in my alley was totaled by a drug dealer escaping a shooting by backing into it with his range rover at like 60 mph.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

The Music Box is a case in point; gentrification/redevelopment is all about street life, none of which is really present on 63rd around the new KKC, which is a really suburban building with a big fence facing the street. Also KKC is mainly a commuter school serving people without a lot of time or money to spend on college or student activities - at least not around the school. Though their radio s
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

It's my understanding that the Bloomingdale Line is going to be turned into a park along the lines of the High Line Park in NYC. It'd be fun to hike the Kenwood El, but climbing up and down at the missing bridges would be a pain.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

Yes, the plans are in the Chicago Apartments book - Lakefront Luxury Living (can't remember title). I hadn't realized that either.
Forum: General Discussion

When my parents redid their kitchen the pantry (which had already been converted to an ad-hoc laundry room) they found an old plumbing stack which we tied their washer into. You could see where the old ice box drained into it (though no ice door - there were bars on the windows from day one - 1906 - at the back. It wouldn't surprise me if not having an alley behind the building had something to do
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Check and see if there was a floor drain (if you have the original flooring) near the hatch. There might also have been milk delivery that way as well.
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Could it have been at Touhy (or Pratt) where the current High Ridge Y is?
Forum: General Discussion

State Street was already near-dead when they proposed the Mall and it kept it from getting worse. The aesthetic was (and construction quality) was better than the new stuff too.
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That's WEST 63rd Street, I was talking about EAST. I always understood that the redevelopment at Halsted was the merchants doing. I still think the new Kennedy-King college is awful - the old one was far more urban in concept, and definitely architecturally superior. I'm also one of the few people who thinks that the State Street Mall was way better than the faux beaux arts dreck we have now w
Forum: General Discussion

The building I grew up in (A 1906 six-flat) had them, but at some point after conversion (in 1955, to co-op) the old mailboxes were replaced and the speaking tubes, which still worked, were sealed up. Some of them were chopped off and capped, but we still had ours in the hall by (right next to, in fact) the push button for the door release downstairs.
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings