Category: History
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Other Coach Houses in Oak Park
Once, in a fit to buy an inexpensive though highly presentable company car for my practice, I came across a restored 1965 Chrysler Crown Imperial convertible. Trouble is, we live on that side of Oak Park where garages are accessible off of alleys; our alley surveys at sixteen feet (about 5.2) metres across. I thought…
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Barn Doors, Department Stores, Kiddie Monorails and Urban Transit Systems
Some time ago, I was at a friend’s office and noticed a photograph on his desk. It almost seemed like something ‘photoshopped’ – it showed a bright, shiny metal tube with children, buzzing overtop the sales aisles of a department store. It was real – the photo was an image of the late 1940’s of…
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… and even more “almost Frank” kind of houses
As follow up to a previous post about William Street in River Forest, the street with an entire block of houses that might – or might not – be designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; the three Flori Blondeel Houses in Oak Park look very Frank Lloyd Wright – especially in the way they relate to each…
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A curious street in River Forest
While some like to think that history has uncovered everything that it will, some still keep finding secrets to be told. Are they, or aren’t they…? The houses of the 700 block of William Street in River Forest seem different from their large, revivalist neighbours. The two dozen or so small, simple houses are… Prairie…
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A River Runs Through It, and the Malibu Supper Club
I used to fly out of Gallatin Field in Belgrade, Montana quite a bit as a student. During my terms of office with the American Institute of Architecture Students, Gallatin Field became a regular point of departure / point of entry for trips to the east coast and other points. My alma mater, Montana State…
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More Walls Talking – Vacant Storefronts
The current economic doldrums have brought out all sorts of vacant storefronts – not just a tell tale of the economy, but a fascinating take on urban anthropology. At first glance, they would indicate that the economy is down, that the activity that previously existed at that location fell victim to a recession. Any retail…
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If walls could talk…
In stripping wallpaper off of the walls in the study, what did we find but this inscription written on the plaster: “March 16, 1937 16% above zero” 1937 is when Albert Speh Jr. graduated by Fenwick High School. March 16 would be the day before St. Patrick’s Day – a very big deal in Chicago,…
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Roadside Oddities in Central Illinois
There is a certain stretch of Interstate 55 leading out of Chicago that is simply a nasty stretch of road, everyone drives like madmen. Before the television show made the term famous. And there’s lots of them. A peaceful way to avoid this is to take Old Route 66, this stretch being identified as Illinois…
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House of Terra Cotta
Our house is somewhat like a “Chicago Bungalow” format from the 1920’s, though there are various things about it that are unlike other Chicago Bungalows. For starts, it has one of three “boomtown fronts” found in Oak Park, which disguises a full second floor. It also has a preponderance of terra cotta briq-a-braq. We embarked…
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Cars with Lots of Real Estate
A friend wrote in reply of my 4 July 2009 post “Big People. Little Cars. Tiny Houses. The Scale of our Neighbourhoods”, which spoke of our neighbourhoods being sized around our mode of personal transportation which, in modern day North America, tends to be our cars. To quote Alex: “There are a couple of…