Tour spotlights area's top historic buildings
A former drafting supply factory, a shuttered social hall and the Mayfair Pumping Station were among the highlights of a three-hour historical walk on Sunday, Aug, 8, through the Jefferson Park and Mayfair communities.
The walk, which attracted 35 participants and was sponsored by the Northwest Chicago Historical Society and Forgotten Chicago, examined the area’s industrial base, churches, nickelodeons, municipal buildings and housing stock. It was the organizations’ first-ever walking tour of the two neighborhoods, and tour guides Jacob Kaplan and Dan Pogorzelski said that a similar walk may be planned for next summer.
“A lot of money was put into industrial buildings, and sometimes people don’t think twice about demolishing these buildings,” Pogorzelski said, pointing to the former Charles Bruning plant at 4700 W. Montrose Ave. “See that curved brick. You don’t see that nowadays because it’s so expensive.”
The plant, which was built in 1941 and designed by architect Victor Cham, features an Art Moderne architectural style, which is closely identified with Art Deco and which is known for its rounded edges, curved canopies, flat roofs and smooth wall finishes. Pogorzelski said that another example of Art Moderne is the Sears Department Store at the Six Corners shopping district at Irving Park Road at Cicero Avenue.
Kaplan said that the while the site was ideal for manufacturing because it was located between two sets of railroad tracks, the Bruning plant relocated to Mount Prospect about 15 years after it opened on Montrose. The building is located on the north end of what is now called the Knox Industrial Corridor, and the building’s current occupant is Midwest Business Systems.
Another industrial building on the tour was the former site of Hobson Brothers, 4940 W. Lawrence Ave., where a property for sale sign last week is posted. Hobson, which produced parts for radios and televisions, was originally located in the former Czechoslovak American Hall, 4954-56 W. Lawrence Ave., before it expanded to a newer facility on an adjacent lot.
The name of the Czechoslovak hall and the date, 1926, that it was constructed, can still be seen etched in stone on the building, which once included a bowling alley. “But by 1950, it was a machine shop,” Kaplan said.
The tour also took walkers to the Mayfair Pumping Station, 4850 W. Wilson Ave., which was built in 1915 on the site of a farm once owned by pickle factory owner Elsie Budlong, Kaplan said. The station’s main entrance features an ornamental lion above the door.
When the Kennedy Expressway was constructed in the mid-1950s, the area’s sewers needed to be relocated, and an underground bridge was built over the main water lines serving the station to accommodate the sewer lines.
The following churches were visited on the walk: Saint John’s Lutheran, 4939 W. Montrose Ave., Calvary United Methodist, 5001 W. Gunnison St., Edens Evangelical, 5051 W. Gunnison St., and the Congregational Church of Jefferson Park. 5320 W. Giddings St. Jefferson Park also was home to several German prayer meeting houses which were scattered throughout the neighborhood, Pogorzelski said.
The congregational church is the area’s oldest, as it was founded in 1861, with its existing structure being built in 1929. “I encourage you to take in and appreciate the real example of New England architectural style we have right here,” Pogorzelski said of the congregational church.
In addition, several buildings which once housed nickelodeons also were pointed out during the tour, including the Jefferson, 4766 N. Milwaukee Ave., Casmir/Jeff, 4750 N. Milwaukee Ave., and the Montrose, 4410 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Kaplan said that many storefront movie houses closed when a movie palace, with its large screen, opened in the same neighborhood but that the Casmir, which operated from 1910 to 1937 and then as the Jeff until 1950, remained opened for 20 years after the former Gateway Theatre opened at 5216 W. Lawrence Ave. The 1,900-seat Gateway has since been renamed the Mitchell Kobelinski Theatre and is now part of the Copernicus Cultural and Civic Center.
The tour also included the former 16th (Jefferson Park) Police station at 5430 W. Gale St., where the City Clerk’s office now occupies a portion of the approximately 75-year-old building, and a former firehouse at 4835 N. Lipps Ave., where 45th Ward Street and Sanitation facility is now located. A frame firehouse was built on the Lipps site in 1870s, with the current brick structure being erected in 1905.
The tour guides also discussed the impact that transportation had on the community’s housing stock. Following the addition of streetcar lines around 1910, the area experienced a rapid growth in the construction of single-family homes and then after the construction of the Kennedy Expressway was completed in 1960 and the Jefferson Park CTA Terminal in 1970, many of the community’s homes were replaced by apartments and condominiums, Kaplan said.
The pattern of development of the residential and commercial sections of Jefferson Park was similar to what took place in other Chicago communities, Kaplan said. “It is not unique to Jefferson Park. Other neighborhoods developed in a similar way,” Kaplan concluded the tour.
