Lee Bey

Shuttered multiplex needs new use

By: Lee Bey | Jun. 13, 2012

Jun. 13, 2012
 

My recent travels took me to 62nd and Western where the closed ICE Theater has sat idle for a couple of years now.

The ICE 62nd & Western 10 theater was one of three then state-of-the-art Chicago multiplexes built by the ICE Theater chain in 1997. With locations at 87th and the Dan Ryan and on Roosevelt Road in the North Lawndale community, the theaters brought first-run movies to those areas for the first since at least the early 1980s.

But hard times hit the multiplexes nationwide. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, there were 6,900 indoor movie theaters in the U.S. in 1997, the year the ICE Theaters opened. The amount plummeted to 5,543 when the ICE 62nd & Western and ICE Lawndale 10 closed in 2007.

The theaters, which all have the same design, are good-looking buildings, as the 62nd and Western multiplex shows.

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Aldine Square: A forgotten gaslight Eden

By: Lee Bey | Jun. 8, 2012

Jun. 8, 2012

For a few decades straddling the onset of the 20th century, Aldine Square was one of the city's most fashionable neighborhoods, with its big brick and limestone townhomes that surrounded a wooded park with a lake.

Built in 1874 between 37th and 38th streets bounded by Vincennes to the east and Eden–a street that no longer exists–to the west, Aldine Square was where judges, attorneys and society folk lived. In 1877, the Chicago Tribune called it "the most charming of all the beautiful places of residence in the city."

But by 1938, Aldine Square was gone–razed to build the now-demolished Ida B. Wells public housing project–and is mostly forgotten. Fortunately, just before Aldine Square was demolished, the federal government sent photographers Joseph Hill and Robert Tufts to document the site. Their photographs, taken between 1934 and 1936, are among the few visual records of this spectacular place that looked impressive even in its final days. The photos are available online at the stellar Library of Congress site.

The westward-looking photo below shows the Aldine Square main entrance on Vincennes, marked by two big stone pylons.

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Church teaches bitter preservation lesson

By: Lee Bey | Jun. 6, 2012

Jun. 6, 2012
 
The vacant St. Laurence Church – a fine ensemble of early 20th century Chicago ecclesiastical architecture – shamefully withers on the corner of 72nd and Dorchester.
 
The century-old church, its accompanying rectory, school and lively Renaissance Revival-style parish house have been closed since 2002. Eden Independent Living bought the site in hopes of building a supportive living facility where the former St. Laurence school stands. Under the plan, the remaining buildings were targeted for reuse. But the effort met community opposition and stalled.
 
That was seven years ago.
 
Since then, St. Laurence's handsome rectory caught fire, leaving a partially charred shell. The church's basement pipes burst, causing water damage.

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Highrises, bungalows destined for National Register?

By: Lee Bey | Jun. 4, 2012

Jun. 4, 2012

Downtown's famed LaSalle Street canyon and 250 South Side bungalows could take a step closer this week to being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, according to a draft agenda by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

The proposed West Loop/LaSalle Street Historic District would place 70 historic buildings on the National Register in an area bounded by Wacker Drive, Wells, Van Buren and Clark. The district would also contain some of the city's best late 19th and early 20th Century architecture, including the Rookery Building at 209 S. LaSalle; the City Hall/County Building and the Chicago Board of Trade, seen in the above photo, at Jackson and LaSalle.

The landmarks commission's program committee will consider the recommendation at its Thursday meeting. The measure would then go to the state's Historic Sites Advisory Committee for further approval. The panel is also slated to weigh a National Register district composed of bungalows in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

The proposed Auburn Gresham Bungalow Historic District would be located in an area roughly bounded by 78th and 75th streets between Paulina and Winchester, featuring 250 intact bungalows built between 1918 and 1932.

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Calumet 412: Chicago's architectural lost-and-found

By: Lee Bey | May. 29, 2012

May. 29, 2012
The magnificent pile in the above photo, taken in 1919, is the Illinois National Guard First Calvary armory that once stood at Lake Shore Drive and Chicago.
 
Until now, I'd never seen images of this building. I remember its sturdy, less-embellished successor, which was demolished in the 1990s to build the Museum of Contemporary Art. But this building–a vertical and heroic structure built when the now-packed Streeterville area still had room to grow–was a revelation to me.
 
And there is more where that came from, courtesy of Calumet 412, a Tumblr that allows folks to post all sorts of Chicago images and ephemera.

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Caught on video: Chicago after dark

By: Lee Bey | May. 23, 2012

May. 23, 2012

Here's another one of those old MGM Traveltalks movie shorts that surface on YouTube from time to time.

This one looks Chicago nightlife in 1947, and features a host of locales and places, many of which are no longer with us. Gosh, to see downtown's Randolph Street ablaze in neon at the 0:53 mark – now that's what a city should look like at night. And it is amusing seeing Mayor Martin Kennelly, Tribune publisher Col. Robert McCormick, Charles Dawes – vice president under Calvin Coolidge – eating and drinking at the Walnut Room in what was then the Bismarck Hotel (now the Hotel Allegro).

I wish they could have taken us inside Don the Beachcomber, an early Tiki restaurant at 101 E. Walton referenced at 2:22. That neon sign alone sold me. Instead they take us to the Chez Paree, where a troupe of women in gold pants leap and sashay before breaking into a kind of drunken sailor dance at 3:02. They suddenly wind up with long ropes or ribbons at 3:08 and are spooling and unspooling themselves like yoyos. The crowd, no doubt drunk now, is quite pleased. Curtains close.

These vintage color Chicago videos are a blast. Here's one from 1942 I profiled two years ago.

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A second look at Chicago Vocational

By: Lee Bey | May. 21, 2012

May. 21, 2012
Chicago's public schools remain one of the most overlooked aspects of the city's architectural heritage. It's good to take a closer look now and then.
 
Take the design of Chicago Vocational Career Academy, for instance. The massive, 72-year-old school, located at 2100 E. 87th St., is not only the city's second largest high school building (only Lane Tech is bigger), but is Chicago's best large-scale example of Art Moderne architecture. 

The 27-acre school, formerly known as Chicago Vocational High School, was built for $3.5 million, with 45 percent of the cash coming from the federal Public Works Administration. The result was a big, robust complex rendered in a blocky, 1930s-modern esthetic. Once you get past the school’s size, there are a host of nicely-done abstract architectural details such as the auditorium’s stately columns seen in the above photo.

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'Where America shops' needs an architectural makeover

By: Lee Bey | May. 8, 2012

May. 8, 2012

Hey Sears: I passed your East 79th Street store a few days ago. From the front, I couldn't tell if the store was open or closed--not good for a retailer getting its clocked cleaned by the big-box behemoth from Bentonville.

Built in 1928 with a tower that can be seen for blocks, the 79th Street building is one of Sears' oldest free standing stores. It is very much open. And it used to look the part. Sears' own website described the store as originally having "lots of windows for light and ventilation." 

Not anymore. With two-stories of bricked-over shop windows on two major unadorned elevations, the store looks like an unfriendly neighbor with shades pulled. Again, not good. It's a recurring theme with Sears older stores. These places--much like the company itself--need a makeover.

Take a look at the Sears store on 62nd and Western in the photo below.

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