Fishing From Pier

I don't know for certain which pier this is, but it's so reminiscent of the fishermen you see now on the north side that I wanted to include it.

Edgewater Beach Hotel by Night

The Latin Quarter Tropical Supper Club

A matchbook from The Latin Quarter Tropical Supper Club. Today the spot is home to Les Skin Care and Acupuncture and Herb Healing.

Cradle Cruise: A Navy Bluejacket Remembers Life Aboard the USS Trever During World War II

I've written about my grandfather before. Lon Dawson lived in the Uptown neighborhood during my mom's school years, before retiring to Southern Illinois and taking up a career as a writer.

One of the manuscripts he completed chronicles his adventures during World War II in the Pacific. He had enlisted in the Navy prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, was assigned to the USS Trever, a four stack destroyer, and spent most of the war aboard that ship.

Well, just in time for what would have been his 86th birthday, the book is now available. It's an interesting perspective of the war through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old kid from Chicago's north side.

You can read a little more about my grandfather here, or go to Amazon and see the book.

Uptown Broadway Builing and Walter Ahlschlager

Legend of the North Side

By Eve M. Kahn

Unverifiable legends persist about the Uptown Broadway Building on Chicago’s North Side. Al Capone allegedly built the place and ran a speakeasy in its basement, which extends deep below the Broadway sidewalks. But the truths about the Uptown Broadway are as interesting as the tales.

The Spanish Baroque 1926 building is engulfed in terra cotta depicting rams, musical instruments, military trophies, garlands, volutes, Medusas, fruit, fringed curtains and tasseled ropes. The roofline bristles with urns and Poseidons, and the building’s triangular footprint, which backs onto the Red Line elevated tracks, narrows to an improbable 9-in.-wide point.

The Uptown’s now-underappreciated architect, Walter W. Ahlschlager (1887-1965), was prolific and charismatic. He ran offices in Chicago, New York and Dallas, working in a variety of Classical Revival modes (and after World War II, he segued gamely into curtain-wall Modernism). His 1920s masterworks are as high profile as Cincinnati’s Carew Tower, Manhattan’s Roxy and Beacon theaters, and Chicago’s InterContinental hotel...

Read complete article at Traditional Building