Montrose, Sheridan, Broadway

Many thanks to my friend Andy for finding this terrific historic postcard, postmarked 1910. With all the other rehabs going on in the neighborhood, wouldn't it be great to replicate the original ornamentation at the top of this building?

Graffiti Removal Begins on Historic Uptown

Removing graffiti from a building can be very expensive, in the tens of thousands for large buildings. That's why Chicago is lucky to have a program like Graffiti Blasters, which removes graffiti from private property at no cost to the property owner.

Unfortunately, the graffiti that was defacing the east facade of the Uptown Theatre was too high up for the city's Graffiti Blasters program to reach, and the fact that it is a historic building disqualifies it as well, as special techniques need to be used to ensure the integrity of the structure.

That's why it's so good to see that graffiti removal has begun this week on the Uptown. Thanks to those responsible!

Uptown Chicago Architecture in The Reader

The March 2007 neighborhood profile of Uptown found in The Chicago Reader contained an excellent survey by Lynn Becker on Uptown's unique residential and commercial buildings. Lynn has a fantastic blog that's well worth checking into if you like Chicago architecture: ArchitectureChicago Plus.

Remembering the Edgewater Beach Hotel

1930s Uptown comes alive in Kerne Erickson’s painting of the Edgewater Beach Hotel, available as a poster. The Edgewater, originally located near Sheridan and Foster, lost its beautiful beach front when Lake Shore Drive was extended, and was eventually torn down in the late 1960s. Today, the 33-floor The Breakers of Edgewater Beach, a retirement home built in 1987, stands where the tower of the hotel once stood. Editor, author, playwright, and occasional film producer Adam Langer wrote an amazing tribute to the Edgewater. A link to the full article follows the excerpt below:

Remembering the Edgewater Beach HotelMy parents spent their honeymoon there. My Aunt Faye and Uncle Harry had their high school prom there. They wanted to dance on the Beach Walk, but the 17-year cicadas were swarming, so they had to stay indoors in the Marine Dining Room. I don’t remember the place, but I do remember my dad driving us by in 1970 to watch it being demolished. We sat in the back of his black Thunderbird while he took home movies of the wrecking ball crashing into the [yellow] stucco structure...

For the rest of the article, go to Remembering the Edgewater Beach Hotel.