Mike Medina
June 13, 2017
63rd Street in Woodlawn [Eric Allix Rogers/Chicago Patterns]
With the coming of the Obama Presidential Center, the continued southward expansion by the University of Chicago and a tentative plan to remake the Jackson Park golf course into a PGA Tour-worthy venue, the fortunes of Woodlawn look to be rapidly changing. Once one of the city’s largest entertainment and night-life districts, a new spotlight is shining brightly on an area long marked by disinvestment, demolition and decline.
Continue reading »
Eric Allix Rogers
May 24, 2017
City Methodist Church (Eric Allix Rogers/Chicago Patterns)
Mark your calendar for June 17! You’ll want to be in Gary, Indiana for the first-ever Gary Preservation Tour Open House. After beating their crowdfunding goal by 20%, the organizers have been hard at work lining up sites to open to the public from 10am to 4pm.
Continue reading »
John Morris
April 4, 2017
Gingerbread Gothic home at 1944 N Sedgwick will likely be destroyed [John Morris/Chicago Patterns]
In Chicago, as it is nationwide, demand for housing is outstripping supply. Speculators and wealthy individuals are eagerly rushing in to meet the top-end demand, leaving a trail of destroyed historic housing stock in their wake. Meanwhile, the supply of low and mid-range housing stock remains largely unaddressed.
This is often evident in real estate listing descriptions that say “the value is in the land,” for properties that exceed a million dollars with the implicit understanding that the home will be razed and replaced. This is playing out heavily in North Side neighborhoods like Lake View and Lincoln Park, where blocks of mostly new construction mega-mansions dot the landscape.
Continue reading »