Andi Marie
May 7, 2014
Andi Marie/Chicago Patterns
Located at 5800 N. Ravenswood Avenue on what was originally Hiram Roe’s Farm is Chicago’s largest cemetery. The City of Chicago had been after Hiram’s farmland for a long time, but he refused to sell unless the city promised to build a cemetery and name it after him. They agreed, but city clerks misspelled the name and the result was Rosehill Cemetery instead of Roe’s Hill Cemetery. I believe there was some underhandedness taking place back in 1864.
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Stephanie Barto
May 6, 2014
The shop I featured last week, “Corner Barber Shop” in Lakeview, conjured the nostalgic yet timeless atmosphere most often associated with old school neighborhood barbershops. It had thrived for decades upon a business model that was essentially unchanged as the shop passed from one owner to the next–it was a great place to get a shave and a haircut in a friendly, informal setting. It wanted to be one thing, and do that one thing well. This week, I found myself drawn to explore a new shop in Portage Park that has a very different vision.
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Eric Allix Rogers
May 5, 2014
Around the turn of the last century, it became a trend among wealthy industrialists to provide planned housing for workers – an effort to Americanize and “civilize” new immigrants and maintain tight control over the labor force. George Pullman famously pioneered the approach in the South Side neighborhood that bears his name today. Experimental cast-in-place concrete houses were built for steel mill workers in Gary, Indiana. And in nearby East Chicago, Clayton Mark sought to create an idyllic and uplifting village for his own mill workers – at least, as idyllic and uplifting a village as can exist surrounded on all sides by heavy industrial plant. That place is now known as Marktown, a verdant postage stamp of a neighborhood just south of the intersection of 129th Street and Dickey Road, and its future is very much in question.
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Stephanie Barto
May 2, 2014
Sitting on the bank of the Chicago River adjoining Ronan Park is a handsome building that could easily be mistaken for the park’s field house. The graceful art deco structure appears quite elegant and inviting, particularly when viewed from the nearby Lawrence Avenue bridge.
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