Author: lbchicago1@hotmail.com

Bucktown is a Chicago neighborhood located in the Eastern part of the Logan Square community area. It’s directly North of Wicker Park. It was named Bucktown because of the large number of goats raised by the mostly Polish residents of the area in the 19th century. The Polish name for the area was Kozie Prery (Goat Prairie). Its boundaries are Fullerton on the North, Western on the West, Bloomingdale or North Avenue on the South, and the Kennedy Expressway on the East. It was an industrial area and made up of the Polish in the 1830s and later, as well as Germans in 1848 and 1854. In the 1960s the area was largely Hispanic and is currently a very gentrified area. I hope you enjoy this virtual walk around Bucktown.

Visiting the 2100 block of West Caton Street in Wicker Park is like taking a step back in time to the grandeur of the mid to late 1800s. Caton Street is located between Milwaukee Avenue and Leavitt Street. These incredibly ornate homes were mostly built by Scandinavian businessmen and professionals and are well maintained.The homes were built primarily in the Queen Anne, Queen Anne Victorian, Romanesque, Romanesque Revival and Gothic Revival styles. It is the most beautiful street I’ve ever been on in any city, state or country I’ve ever visited! I hope you enjoy this virtual walk down this amazing street!

Also known as the West Jackson Boulevard District or West Jackson Historic District. It was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1976 and put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It is a historic district on the Near West Side of Chicago. Most of the buildings are from 1879 through 1893. The area is bounded by Laflin, Ashland, Adams, and Van Buren Streets. The architectural styles are: Second Empire, Italianate, Queen Anne and other styles. It also includes the Church of the Epiphany.

This week I’m dedicating this post to my Aunt Frances. She passed away yesterday at age 90. I love and miss her so much, and this morning I realized I especially miss sharing my photos with her. She enjoyed seeing photos of my adventures in Chicago neighborhoods because she loved to wander too, but no longer could. So, this week these photos of Wicker Park Avenue are for her………….

This 2 1/2 story Victorian house located at 2138 West Pierce in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood was built for Hans (John) Runge in 1884-86. The house has intricate wood detailing and a unique mix of wood and brick construction. Hans Runge was a treasurer of a wood milling company, so that may explain the heavy use of wood in the home. In 1902 the house was sold to John F. Smulski. He was a prominent local banker and politician and a leader in the movement to make Poland a free independent state. Through this effort he worked closely with famous Polish composer and pianist Ignance Paderewski. In legend and folklore the house is more commonly known as the Paderewski House or the Polish Consulate House.

In the 1930s Paderewski gave an outdoor concert for the Wicker Park community from the building’s veranda. The Wicker Park District was once known as the Polish Gold Coast.

Wicker Park has been a part of Chicago since it was incorporated as a city in 1837. The furthest northwest part of the city was North Avenue and Wood Street. By 1853 the heart of the Wicker Park District, North, Milwaukee and Damen was populated by homes. The homes on Evergreen Avenue were built mostly in the 1880s with a few as early as the 1870s. The following architectural styles were common on Evergreen: Italianate, Queen Anne, Workers Cottages, Victorian, Gothic, and Romanesque.

Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood is home to a vivid street art scene including many beautiful murals that truly define the neighborhood. Here are just a few.

Preservation Chicago has named the 2020 Chicago 7 Most Endangered buildings/sites. Since 2003, the “Chicago 7 Most Endangered” has sounded the alarm on imminently threatened Chicago historic buildings to mobilize the stakeholder support necessary to save them from demolition. The 2020 sites are: Union Station Powerhouse, Central Manufacturing District, Washington Park National Bank, Roseland Commercial District, Chicago Town and Tennis Club, Thompson Center and Jackson Park and South Shore. Last week I went on a tour with the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) and Preservation Chicago go five of these seven sites.The only two we didn’t visit were the Roseland Commercial District and the Chicago Town and Tennis Club.Here are some photos and highlights from the tour. For more information visit

www.preservationchicago.org

The Hawthorne Works Museum is located in Morton College at 3801 S. Central Ave. in Cicero Illinois. The museum tells the story of the Hawthorne Works factory. It showcases the Western Electric telephones and other communications products manufactured there over the years. It also delves into local history and the immigrant workforce that was so important to this plant

The Hawthorne Works was a large factory complex of the Western Electric Company. It was named after the original name of the town, Hawthorne. It operated from 1905 through 1983. At its’ height it employed as many as 45,000 people.

The facility is also know for the industrial studies held there in the 1920s; the most famous of which was called The Hawthorne effect. Unfortunately, the Hawthorne Works faced tragedy when 220 employees were killed in the Eastland Disaster in 1915. They were mostly Czech immigrants and were going to a company picnic event.

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The Jane Adams Hull House Museum is located at 800 South Halsted Street in Chicago. Hull House was a settlement house that was co-founded by Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. It was named after the first/original owner Charles Jerald Hull. Hull House served recently arrived European immigrants on the West side of Chicago. Hull House had grown to 13 building by 1911, and in 1912 the Hull House complex was completed with the Bowen Country Club. By 1920 there were almost 500 similar settlement houses in the U.S. Hull House was a pioneer in this movement. In the mid 1960s most of the Hull House buildings were demolished to build the UIC campus. On June 12, 1974 the surviving Hull mansion was designated a Chicago Landmark. It is also a designated National Historic Landmark and is on the register of U.S. Historic places. The Hull House Association continued to provide social services in multiple locations throughout Chicago but ceased operations in January 2012. The Hull mansion and a related dining hall remain open as a museum.