Greenlee Residence, Sheridan at Windsor, Buena Park

Ralph Greenlee Residence, circa 1897
Sheridan at Windsor, Buena Park, Chicago
from the Inland Architect and News Record

731-741 W. Buena Ave., Buena Park, Chicago

William J. Bryson Residence
731-741 W. Buena Ave. (originally 169-173 Buena Ave)

From the Inland Architect and News Record, 1906

Buena House, Buena Park, Uptown Chicago

Excerpt from a bio at the Newbury Library site:


James B. Waller was born in Frankfort, Kentucky in 1817, to William S. Waller and Catherine Breckinridge Waller. He attended Center College in Danville, Kentucky, and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and received a law degree from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky in 1838. He practiced law in Kentucky for the next 20 years, but also began investing in real estate after an 1849 visit to Chicago. Around 1860, Waller relocated permanently to Chicago and established a real estate business with his brothers William, Edward, and Henry.

James built a large home for his family on the north side of Chicago known as Buena House, and developed the surrounding area into the Buena Park neighborhood. After retiring from business in 1867, James B. Waller turned his attention to managing the large estate of his brother-in-law, Robert S. C. Aitchison Alexander, of which he was appointed administrator. James B. Waller married fellow Kentuckian Lucy Alexander in 1847, and the couple had 11 children: Mary Eliza (Minnie) Waller Osborne, Robert Alexander Waller, Catherine Breckinridge Waller Peet, Lucy Alexander Waller Young, James Breckinridge Waller, Susanna Lees Waller, Isabel Waller Knott, Adele Waller Rogers, Virginia Waller, and James Alexander Waller. Robert Alexander Waller attended Washington & Lee College, and later became a successful and respected Chicago businessman. The Wallers entertained often at Buena House, and the residence was known among Chicago's upper class for fine hospitality and lavish social events. James B. Waller died at his home in Chicago in 1887; Lucy Alexander Waller died in Chicago in 1902.

Sheridan and Buena, Uptown Chicago, 1936

From the IDOT collection.

Source: Illinois Department of Transportation Chicago Traffic photographs
Collection: IDOT Chicago Traffic Photographs (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Repository: Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago Library

Sheridan and Irving, 1936

From the IDOT collection. This series includes a rare pic of the Sheridan Theater. If you go to the IDOT site, you can zoom in on these images.

Detail:

Source: Illinois Department of Transportation Chicago Traffic photographs
Collection: IDOT Chicago Traffic Photographs (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Repository: Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago Library

Buena Circle Park, September 1955, with St. Mary's in Background, Uptown Chicago

Buena Park Hotel, 4139 Broadway, Chicago

From HauntedHouses.com:

"Imagine a building with regular, run of the mill business storefronts. One of these storefronts has a hidden, huge disguised back room created for party festivities featuring 'a marble-floored ballroom, terra cotta moldings, a four-foot marble clock placed over the bar area and even ornate drinking fountains mounted into the walls.' Needless to say, many a good time was experienced here, through dancing, drinking and by partying hardy..."

When the hotel had a hidden speakeasy, you could escape police raids through ten different doors. In an interview with the Tribune, Larry Bryan, of National Pastime Theatre (which now resides at this address), says, "You could escape into three different storefronts, into the alley, down into the basement and then up the steps into an apartment building. And from the balcony, which is now our control booth, you could quietly ease into a hallway and head toward an elevator in the same building as if you'd never been there."

Read more about the hotel, built in 1929, here:

http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/il/national_pastime.cfm

Uptown's Buena Park: A Historic, Diverse Chicago Neighborhood Along the Lakefront

Editor's Note: Although the reporter missed the fact that Buena Park (like Margate Park, Andersonville Terrace, Argyle Park, Truman Square, Lakeside, Clarendon Park, and Sheridan Park) is part of Uptown, and not adjacent to it, all in all not a bad profile.

Buena Park: Tucked away next to everything
A historic, diverse neighborhood along the lakefront

"I never considered living north of Irving Park," said Khoi Nguyen, speaking from his three-bedroom condominium in Buena Park. Yet Nguyen and his partner packed up in November and left their contemporary home in the John Hancock Center on Michigan Avenue for a vintage building in historic Buena Park.

"Like most people, I was rigid when it came to looking [for a new home]," he said. "I wanted this, that, everything." The two looked in Lakeview and farther north but were disappointed in the cookie-cutter floor plans that they found. When they finally visited Buena Park, the professor says they were taken by surprise.

"I was amazed even," Nguyen said, referring to the range of properties in the small residential enclave that is bordered on the north by Montrose Avenue and Irving Park Road to the south, and from 1100 west in Graceland Cemetery to Marine Drive to the east...

Read more at Buena Park.

Troublemaking Donkey in Buena Park, Uptown, Chicago

Ya gotta wonder about the back story here. The original caption reads: Image of a donkey standing in Buena Park in Chicago, Illinois. Text on negative reads: Donkey at Buena Park, which causes trouble. Circa 1907.

Anyone care to speculate?

Source: DN-0051755, Chicago Daily News negatives collection,Library of Congress.

4365 Sheridan Chicago

This deco-looking building was located at Montrose and Sheridan, where the parking lot of the Jewel is now located. It housed several small businesses, including Top This Italian Beef, and a 30-lane bowling alley. At the far right, you can see the Buena Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Image courtesy HAARGIS.

Buena Memorial Presbyterian Church, Buena Park, Uptown Chicago

When the roof of Buena Memorial Presbyterian Church collapsed in 1996, it was the beginning of the end. Years of neglect and deferred maintenance had taken their toll, and the century-or-so-old church was to be demolished.

Buena Memorial was located at 4247-4301 N. Sheridan Rd., near Montrose and Broadway, on that little peninsula-like piece of land where The Mark condos now stand.

Additional photos of the interior—including closeups of the collapsed roof—can be seen at King Richard's Religious Artifacts, the company responsible for the salvage operation. Fortunately, a great deal of the stained glass and other fixtures were saved.

A very depressing photo of the final destruction can be seen at Midwest Wrecking.