Richie--you are probably thinking of the restaurant on the 3rd floor of the Mallers building. The building is still there but I haven't gone up to the restaurant in many years. It was there as early as the 1950's, maybe even earlier.
Forum: General Discussion

Re: Lincoln Logs--Cragin Spring--you have your generations mixed up. Lincoln Logs was invented by John Lloyd Wright (1892-1972), the second son of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).
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Cragin Spring--actually, the place you're talking about was called Wall Street Deli, not New York Deli. They were a national chain, because I recall visiting a friend in Baltimore after they'd opened up several Chicago stores, and there was at least one in downtown Baltimore.
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I recall returnable glass bottles up until sometime in the 1980's, when most soft drink companies went in the direction of plastic bottles, which were not returnable. I can date this roughly for a couple of reasons. 1) Some friends of mine turned me on to seltzer (sparkling water) around 1980 or 1981. These friends lived in Milwaukee at the time so we visited frequently. I know that when I first
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It is Welsh, but more specifically, the 19th century real estate developer, J. Lewis Cochran, who developed much of the Edgewater neighborhood, was a native of Philadelphia. He used a lot of street names from the Philadelphia Main Line--Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, etc.
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mogra--I wonder if the place you're thinking of was Vaughn's Toy Store (or Vaughan's?). I've been trying to remember exactly where it was located downtown. I know it was west of State and north of Washington (that is, west of all the department stores on State, and north of the public library--now cultural center--on Washington) but I don't recall exactly where. It could have been on Lake Street.
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Chez Paris--in French, the pronunciation does sound like "shay paree."
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212 W. Washington--1912--Holabird and Roche; 2002--condo conversion--Fitzgerald Associates. Info courtesy of "AIA Guide to Chicago" (an invaluable resource). Holabird and Roche was the name of the firm from the 1880's to the late 1920's. After the deaths of both William Holabird and Martin Roche in the 1920's, the next generation took over--William's son John Holabird (Sr.) and John Ro
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Davey--Sinai congregation sold the land to a real estate developer and moved north, near Newberry Library and "Bughouse Square."
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To the best of my knowledge, Leibling's book was the first to use the term widely (there may be previous uses, but it never caught on as much until after Leibling published his book). Shortly thereafter, a newly-formed improv comedy group in Chicago glommed onto the name for themselves, which spread the term to even wider audiences.
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As noted, Hillman's was in Sears on South State (the building that now houses Robert Morris University), but there was another grocery store within a larger building farther north in the Loop--that was Stop and Shop. I don't have a clear recollection of the building and location, but it's a good possibility that it was Block 37 (I'm pretty sure the store entrance faced Washington, so it could well
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Seminary Co-op bookstore in Hyde Park. The bookstore started around 1960 or thereabouts, and for roughly 50 years was located in the basement of Chicago Theological Seminary, 58th & University. More recently it moved to the first floor of a building on Woodlawn, between 57th and 58th streets. Also about 30 years ago, Seminary Co-op expanded to a second location, called 57th Street Books, at K
Forum: General Discussion

Samuel E. Gross was one of the big developers in the late 19th, early 20th century. He did a lot of "workingman's cottages" in poor and immigrant neighborhoods, as well as Alta Vista Terrace for a much wealthier clientele. One good source of photos and other information is "Chicago--Growth of a Metropolis" by Harold Mayer and Richard Wade.
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I recently got the book "Chicago's Historic Hyde Park" by Susan O'Connor Davis. I haven't really started to read it, but on p. 276 there's a photo of some of the pre-fabs on the Midway. The photo seems to show only the one-story buildings, but I also remember two-story buildings with exterior stairs to the second-floor apartment.
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The photo posted is clearly a regular train, probably a freight train, not a steam-powered "L" train. The "L" converted to electric power sometime in the 1890's.
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If "Chicago, 16" means that the postal zone was 16 (which would now be zip code 60616), then the east 21st street address is probably the right one, because that area is 60616.
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daveg--any artist (or, in my case, daughter of artist) could have told you that. Any mish-mash of colors mixed together will be gray (but realize, there are different kinds of gray--dark, light, bluish gray, etc.--which will vary depending on the mix of colors).
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I think the actual opening date of Millenium Park was 2004.
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I remember something like this in Hyde Park in the 1950's, maybe into the early 1960's. There were probably different people doing this in different neighborhoods. I'm surprised that someone is still doing this; this kind of itinerant craftsman pretty much went out of business when hardware stores and the like took over.
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You might want to look at biographical information on actual artists of that period. Two names that come to mind are the sculptor Lorado Taft (1860-1936), who lived in Hyde Park, and the architect Howard van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), who I think lived in Hyde Park briefly as a young married man and then moved to the north shore suburbs. I'm not sure if the 57th street "artists colony" was
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I looked around further on other downtown streets and saw the logo you referred to. It actually says "Chicago 2001" so I googled that phrase and came up with information on a ten-year-old tourism campaign called "Chicago 2001." You can find information on this website: www.atme.org/pubs/archives/77_254_1114.CFM. So now the question is--why do our street signs still have this t
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Could you specify which street signs (locations) where you've seen this? I've never noticed it but I don't usually look at street signs downtown because I know where I'm at (unlike some unfamiliar neighborhoods). Yesterday, after I read this post, I was waiting at a bus stop at State & Jackson, but I didn't see anything like what you've described on those signs.
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Vince Michael teaches historic preservation and is active in several organizations. His website is http://vincemichael.wordpress.com. He can probably put you in touch with other people as well.
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Actually, Kroger used to be in the Chicago area (and under the name "Kroger"). For whatever reason, Kroger left the Chicago market sometime in the late 1960's or early 1970's. I seem to recall a couple of grocery stores, one of which might have been a Kroger, on the north side of East Hyde Park Blvd (51st St.) at Lake Park Ave., where Kenwood High School is now located. The buildings wer
Forum: General Discussion

I can't tell you anything about Old Town as early as the 1940's, but it was clearly already called Old Town by the mid 1950's. The Old Town School of Folk Music opened in 1957 (originally at 333 W. North Ave.), and obviously took the name from the common name of the neighborhood where it was then located. OTSFM has moved several times since then but retained the name, even though they're now in Li
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To make it easier, if you look at the "Links" section of the main Forgotten Chicago website, in the category of Research Links, you'll find a link to the Historic Aerials website. Click on it and it takes you right there.
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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 bri
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In the Lakeview neighborhood, about four blocks south of Wrigley Field, there's Ann Sather's Restaurant. It's at 909 W. Belmont (between the "L" tracks and Clark Street). I think Ann Sather started the restaurant sometime after World War II (I became familiar with it around 1970), and Tom Tunney has owned it for about 30 years, after Ann Sather retired. Another long-running restaurant (
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jak--you're not crazy. I remember them on the Midway as well (in fact, that's the only place I remember them, not all around the neighborhood). At the time, my parents & I lived in an apartment at 55th & University (subsequently demolished to make way for Pierce Hall, a U of C dorm). I think my parents knew a couple of families living in the pre-fabs, and I remember going over there to vis
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Union Park is smaller and older than most of the other parks mentioned here, and I am pretty sure it does not have a lagoon.
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