Gabriel X. Michael
July 10, 2015
Site of 2934 North Wisner Avenue barn, circa 1880s, before (December 2012) and after (June 2014) demolition.
A former Gothic style barn or stable at 2934 North Wisner Avenue was arguably one of the oldest structures standing in the Avondale & Logan Square community areas, and was built when the area near Milwaukee and Kimball Avenues was farmland (adjacent to the famed Kimbell Farm founded in 1836), with a few residential structures.
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Gabriel X. Michael
June 12, 2015
2900 block of West Monroe Street, viewing northwest from an alley connecting Fifth Avenue and Monroe Street, April 2015. (Gabriel X. Michael/Chicago Patterns)
When renowned Chicago real estate developer Samuel Eberly Gross purchased swaths of land near present-day Fifth Avenue and Sacramento Boulevard, the area was not much of a neighborhood, but the undeveloped outskirts of western Chicago—very rural and surrounded by farms.
With the assistance of architect Lars Gustav Hallberg in 1887, he erected a series of upscale Queen Anne-style rowhouses to serve a growing, fashionable professional population working downtown; Chicago’s central business district was 3 miles to the east down Madison Street, and the recently established Garfield (then “Central”) Park was 4 blocks to the west at Homan Avenue (3400 West) for city residents’ enjoyment.
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Gabriel X. Michael
March 27, 2015
124 North Sacramento Boulevard. January 4, 2014.
For years, possibly decades, the two-story brick flat at 124 North Sacramento Boulevard, just south of once-bustling Lake Street, has stood isolated and surrounded by vacancy. Bordered by an alley to the south and an overgrown fenced lot to the north and existing here since approximately 1889, it provides a glimpse into the former life of this block, neighborhood, and the greater West Side of Chicago.
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Gabriel X. Michael
March 10, 2015
2743 – 2759 West Maypole Avenue, built from 1883 – 1889
In the northeast corner of the East Garfield Park community area, an array of picturesque, nearly-continuous Queen Anne-style rowhomes (and a couple of workers’ cottages) line the 2600 – 2800 blocks of West Maypole Avenue.
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