Since Forgotten Chicago s modest beginnings as a web site in November 2007, we have prided ourselves

Since Forgotten Chicago s modest beginnings as a web site in November 2007, we have prided ourselves on the depth of our extensive research on the Chicago coach tours england uk area s overlooked built (and unbuilt) environment. In addition to writing articles, giving presentations, and conducting tours, Forgotten Chicago coach tours england uk recognizes that an enormous amount of little-known yet invaluable coach tours england uk information on Chicagoland history and development to date has never been cataloged, coach tours england uk digitized, or made easily accessible to researchers (including us).
For five years, Forgotten Chicago has drawn attention to extant remnants of Chicago s built transportation infrastructure, but little-known and unbuilt projects are also worth noting. One example is pictured above: a 1930 rendering of the ambitious, enormous, and never built Lake Front Passenger Terminal that was proposed and nationally coach tours england uk publicized for a site west of the Field Museum, coach tours england uk and then promptly forgotten.
Since no one else has, as of November 2012 FC staff has reviewed over 150,000 pages of non-digitized and non-cataloged regional and national publications including Realty Building, Inland Architect, Commerce, Western Architect, Architectual Forum and Architectural Record, along with decades of non-digitized Chicago telephone directories, maps, and city reports, some of which are seen below.
Roosevelt Road in the South Loop was not the only location proposed in the 1930s for a new, centralized passenger railway terminal. Shown above is an unbuilt scheme from 1933 for one of three stations, along with the existing Union and North Western stations, to consolidate all passenger rail traffic arriving in Chicago. For reasons unknown, this project also never made it past the drawing board.
As a continuation coach tours england uk of the presentation we made at FC175 , our Chicago 175th birthday party in March 2012, below are more finds from Forgotten Chicago s vast and exclusive research database. These images and articles, many unseen for decades, have been shared in the past (with more to be shared in the future) during FC articles, tours and presentations. We hope you enjoy the very small sample of our research coach tours england uk below.
In the Chicago area, built and unbuilt transportation infrastructure is equally forgotten . At left is the circa 1930 Spectator s Promenade by Rebori and Wentworth of the hangar building at Curtiss-Reynolds Airport (building demolished, later site of Glenview Naval Air Station, now the site of Glenview Town Center). For in-depth information about Curtiss-Reynolds Airport, and other abandoned and little-known airfields in the Chicago area and elsewhere, click here.
Seen above right is a curious 1951 scheme for Chicagoland expressways, or superhighways: not only does this image show the little-known and unrealized River Rd. Superhighway and the unbuilt coach tours england uk (and unlabeled) Crosstown Expressway, but it also shows an unbuilt connector highway that appears to go through (or under) coach tours england uk River North and the Merchandise Mart (seen north and east of Wolf Point at far right).
In downtown Evanston, a commercial building on Church Street has a forgotten past. Pictured at right in 1937 is a Firestone gasoline and service station, as well as a rooftop parking deck built for patrons of the 1929 Marshall Field's store, located just to the east. Designed by prolific coach tours england uk local firm Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, this building is still remarkably intact seventy-five years later (below right); the original round windows and outline of the ramp to the upper parking deck may still be seen in the alley. The lesser-known coach tours england uk built environment of Evanston will be explored on an upcoming Forgotten coach tours england uk Chicago walking tour.
Forgotten Chicago s research is used extensively in our exclusive tours throughout the region. First offered in 2009, our Pilsen Little Village tour offers participants an exhaustively researched examination of this dynamic neighborhood. Seen below left is a map showing the large number of sites shown during this tour, including the terrazzo sign of a former Stege tied house on California Avenue (below right). coach tours england uk Tied houses (taverns directly owned by breweries and made illegal with prohibition) have been extensively researched by Forgotten coach tours england uk Chicago, and are shared on tours where they are still extant. Forgotten Chicago s article on tied houses was published in 2009, and may be read here.
Forgotten Chicago conducts the research seen here the old-fashioned way – flipping through non-digitized publications, reading microfilm files, and photographing and scanning library special collections that have yet to be made available online. Forgotten Chicago now has an immense research archive of over 11.5 GB of data, including (as of this writing) over 7,500 articles and images from the 1920s to the 1990s, indexed by date, location, purpose, and architect if known, to be used in future coach tours england uk articles, tours, and presentations, and shared during public coach tours england uk and private tours, presentations, and events.
FC staff has examined collections of the Newberry Library, University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, discovering long-forgotten and little-seen images of Chicagoland's built environment and unknown history. Seen above is one of many unrealized early plans for a Chicago subway (this example is from 1925); Chicago s first subway line would not open until 1943, nearly 20 years later.
Chicago's swank North Shore is generally coach tours england uk not associated with low-cost coach tours england uk housing, but Forgotten Chicago has unearthed two little-known instances in the 1930s of low-cost North Shore housing featured in national magazines. Above left is Chicago architect Howard T. Fisher's first built example of his planned low-cost, sectional steel General Homes project; this modest home was built overlooking Lake Michigan in Winnetka for famed dancer and choreographer Ruth Page in 1933.
Above right is one of the earliest (1936) published designs by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings, (later joined by John Merrill to form Skidmore, Owings coach tours england uk and Merrill). Pictured is a low-cost (less than $60,000 in 2012 dollars) housing development proposed for, of all places, Highland Park. The plan at right was one of four low-cost home designs for this Highland Park development. The fate of these low-cost coach tours england uk housing projects coach tours england uk in 2012 is unknown.
Forgotten Chicago takes pride in drawing attention to lesser known (or unknown) works by recognized architects, especially those who were or are based in the Chicago area. Seen above is one of Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman's least-known local projects, the AIA Chicago Chapter award-winning 1979 Arby's that once faced the Water Tower near the intersection of Chicago and Michigan Avenues. This one-of-a-kind restaurant is long gone and was, until now, long forgotten.
Another Stanley Tigerman building coach tours england uk rediscovered by Forgotten Chicago is a strip shopping center on Rand Road in Palatine, which remains coach tours england uk standing but is now heavily altered. Opened in the early 1980s, this building originally featured distinctive keyhole openings along the entire 350-foot long façade; above left is an image of this shopping center as built. The middle image shows original keyhole designs on an interior wall of a store, along with the now-altered front elevation as it appears today. The picture at right shows the rear of the building and the only keyhole design remaining on the building's exterior, with a door labeled "METER coach tours england uk ROOMS".
Generally overlooked, architects other than Mies van der Rohe also designed notable buildings in the International Style in the Chicago area. In a little-seen image above left, Gary, Indiana once had a startlingly modern car wash on Lake Street and Dunes Highway designed by architect Leonard Klarich. Above right is the 1961 Seven-Up bottling plant by Naess Murphy once located at 4544 West Carroll Avenue. A Forgotten Chicago forum user ("frworksonpaper") informed us that while this building was demolished in the late 1990s or early 2000s, a few remnants of the original steel frame are visible in the foundation coach tours england uk of the building that stands on this site today.
FC strongly coach tours england uk believes that more recent, and little-appreciated, architectural styles in the Chicago area are worthy of research, study and attention. The expressive, blocky and concrete-heavy style widely known as Brutalism (rebranded by Forgotten Chicago with the more user-friendly label "New Monumentalism" ) may take years, or decades, to be widely seen as worthy of study.
As with past styles such as Queen Anne or Art Deco, by the time this consensus occurs, many of Chicago's most notable examples of New Monumentalism may have already been destroyed. The best-known and highest-profile local building in this style is subject to an ongoing preservation battle; Bertrand Goldberg's remarkable Prentice Women's Hospital .
There are, however, dozens of other Chicagoland buildings in this style that are virtually unknown. Unearthed during our research, seen above left is the unusual and windowless 1970 building at Naval Station Great Lakes; the condition of this building, or if it still stands, is currently unknown.
The award-winning 1971 Hoffman Estates bank seen above right by Mayes, Williams Associates is virtually unknown outside coach tours england uk its community. A Forgotten Chicago reader informed us that this bank is located at 1100 North Roselle Road in Hoffman Estates.
Forgotten Chicago coach tours england uk discovered what may be first major Postmodern building project in Chicago (above left), an expansive Hyde Park condominium project by Booth, Nagle Hartray announced in April 1977. This building s exterior remains virtually unchanged 35 years after the publication coach tours england uk of the rendering above.
Postmodernism is another unloved and little-studied recent architectural coach tours england uk style with an immense number of examples in the Chicago area, including the former Hotel Bellevue (opened as Hotel 21 East, later Le Meridien Hotel, now Sutton Place Hotel, to be renamed Thomspon Chicago in 2013) seen above right. This