Month: February 2018

Dearborn Station is an old Chicago train station located on the corner of Dearborn Street and Polk in Chicago’s Printers Row neighborhood and borders the South Loop area. Dearborn Station is the oldest of the six early commuter train stations in downtown Chicago.

Dearborn Station opened on May 8, 1885. It was designed by New York architect Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz and built by J.T. Alton in the Romanesque Revival style. It has a 12 story clock tower that can be seen from many blocks away. It cost nearly $500,000 to complete. It featured a classic Harvey House Restaurant, and ornate interior.It was the main facility for the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad and provided service for the Chicago, Danville and Vincennes Railroad; the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company and the Grand Trunk Junction Railroad. By the turn of the century there were 25 railroads consisting of approximately 122 trains and 17,000 passengers that went through the station on a daily basis. Santa Fe’s most famous trains could be seen passing through the station. Trains such as the Super Chief, El Capitan, Zipper, Silent Night and Wabash Banner Blue and Blue Bird.

From 1920 through 1949 Santa Fe ran trains from Dearborn Station to Southern California, so a lot of Hollywood stars, such as Clark Gable and Judy Garland passed through the station. Dearborn Station closed May 1, 1971 when services were taken over by Union Station. In 1976 the tracks were removed and the trainshed was demolished. The station has been restored and now houses office and retail space.

I first became familiar with Dearborn Station when I walked around the Printers Row neighborhood during lunchtime and then joined a Curves fitness center that was previously located there. Today Dearborn Station contains a restaurant, a bank, a wellness center, legal offices, mail services, jazz club and a medical facility. It’s a beautiful building in a beautiful neighborhood – definitely worth checking out!

          

As a child growing up in the Avondale neighborhood in Chicago I loved to go to the Olson Park & Waterfalls with my mother. My mother simply called it Olson Rug. I think we visited there at least once a week during the Summers. It was such a place of natural beauty right in the heart of the city. It was within walking distance of our house.

It was located at the corner of Pulaski and Diversey next to the Olson Rug Company (which owned and operated the park). It had 35 foot waterfalls, rock gardens with 3500 rare plants, shrubs, trees (such as junipers,spruce and pine), ponds with ducks, ravines and caves. It was also home to hundreds of wild birds. The park was a stark contrast to the surrounding industrial area. The Chicago Tribune called it one of Chicago’s Seven Lost Wonders. Admission to the 22 acre park was free and over 200,000 people visited annually.

The park opened in 1935. Walter Olson had the park built because he wanted to bring some natural beauty to the gray industrial background of the area. He wanted it to resemble his vacation home setting in Wisconsin. The building of the park was a huge project that took 200 workers approximately 6 months and was made of 800 tons of stone and 800 yards of soil. The Native American theme of the park included tee-pees and totem poles and events with Native American chiefs performing war dances. 1935 was the 100th anniversary of the forced movement of Illinois Native American tribes from Illinois across the Mississippi River. The park included a symbolic gesture deeding back the area of the park to the Native American tribes. The Olson Rug factory, mill and grounds were sold to Marshall Fields in 1965 and the park was closed in 1978.

I grew up in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago. Avondale had a lot of industry. It seemed like there was a factory on almost every block. It’s no wonder Avondale has been referred to as the neighborhood that built Chicago! My parents both worked at factories. My Mom worked at Beltone hearing aid factory at Addison and Kimball and my Dad worked at Continental Can Company around Belmont and Cicero. Still, the factory that stood out to me the most was I.S. Berlin Press. It was a large building complex that was located on the Northeast corner of Belmont and Kimball. It was designed by A. Epstein and Sons architects.

Chicago was the the center of the printing industry when I.S. Berlin was located there in 1949. It had previously been located in the Printer’s Row neighborhood since it was founded in 1920, but was relocated to Avondale to make room due to the construction of the Congress Expressway.

I.S. Berlin Press printed children’s books, advertising literature with colored pictures, and other products using the lithography process. Manufacturing companies like I.S. Berlin were the base of the post-World War II industrial economy in cities like Chicago. When the plant first opened on Belmont and Kimball in 1949 they emplyed over 500 workers. A major $2.5 million expansion was made to the facility in 1961. This new addition was designed to reflect the curved shape of the new Northwest (Kennedy) Expressway built at the same time. The clock at the top became a true Avondale landmark. Growing up, I remember looking at the clock from my back porch window to check the time and it was also where we looked on the Fourth of July to view the fireworks.

I.S. Berlin was demolished in 1977 following a decline in the manufacturing industry which cost Avondale and other industrial Chicago neighborhoods thousands of jobs. It was replaced by the Kennedy Plaza Shopping Center.

           

This year I celebrated the New Year with my husband and son, as we always do. But, this year we also had a guest. My son’s friend, Wenwei stayed with us a few days while her car was being repaired after it broke down while she was on her way to our house. Wenwei is a graduate student at NIU, and I found out she’s also a talented artist! She shared some of her art with me and allowed me to share it with you. She said she does the drawings and clay figures because it’s fun. Wenwei is Chinese and one of the drawings is of Tian’an Men Square in Beijing, China. The clay piece is a figure about Illinois. Wenwei likes to travel and represents that in her art. One of the sketches shows a dog named Cammie Traveling Around the World wearing a pink backpack with a Leica camera around her neck, because Wenwei said her own backpack is pink and she’d like to get a Leica camera in the future. One drawing represents The Bean at Millenium Park. The other drawings are of places she’s visited, kind of like a travel journal of drawings. Thank you Wenwei!!