High-Low Foods on E. 111th Street #tbt

Via Pete Kastanes of Vanished Chicagoland. This store was located at 409 E. 111th in the Roseland neighborhood. This is the corner of 111th & King Drive and the building itself is still standing, the business itself is still a neighborhood corner store.

Here is a photo of a High-Low Foods Store. Once located at 409 E 111th St in the Roseland neighborhood of Chicago. pic.twitter.com/5MNegwpQuD

— Pete Kastanes (@PeteKastanes) January 6, 2021

Here is a Google Streetview look at the same location in 2019

Union National Bank Christmas Club record via Vanished Chicagoland #tbt

 Here's another Throwback Thursday post, and a far more timely one. A Christmas Club record book from the former Union Nat'l Bank formerly located in Roseland via Vanished Chicagoland

Here is a Christmas Club record from The Union National Bank, once located at 11108 S Michigan Ave in the Roseland neighborhood of Chicago. pic.twitter.com/40kIBZ6p8L

— Vanished Chicagoland (@vanishedchicago) December 17, 2020

The Roseland Branch of the former Seaway National Bank - now part of Self Help FCU - is a descendent of the former Union Nat'l Bank located at 11108 S. Michigan Ave. Seaway ultimately demolished the old Union Bank building and built another branch a bit south though still using that same address.

Union Bank was purchased by Seaway in the 1980s. Seaway Nat'l Bank ultimately became Seaway Bank & Trust Co. in 2008 and unfortunately failed in 2017.

CTA Dan Ryan 1969 grand opening brochures

 

[VIDEO] I enjoyed this look back at the L as it was over 51 years ago. The unveiling of then new bright shiny object on CTA. The line many riders might complain about over the years. One of the busiest on the system. Its been through many changes, but I wonder if this compares to it's grand opening.

Also artistmac made a quick shot at the fact that 50 years later the L still hadn't been extended further south since then. However, plans are in motion though most won't be happy until those plans are executed finally.

I look forward to the future grand opening of the Red Line extension.

98th & Cottage Grove #fbf

Via Chicago History Today

It's amazing to see how this part of Cottage Grove which is basically Pullman looked in 1954. As you check out the blog Chicago History Today you see how much differently this part of the city looks today. Of course we no longer have a streetcar running in the city at all just about 70 years later. And there's a lot more brush and trees covering up the railroad right-of-way these days.

Seeing old photographs of this city just blows me away...

Historic south side scenes #Ward09 #tbt

I just wanted to share these two shots with you from Vanished Chicagoland on ig. The first photo is of the 87th CTA train station from during the 1970s. Just north of 87th Street you'd see a Magikist sign and it was a landmark for a lot of us who drove on the Dan Ryan Expressway once upon a time. The sign and that company is now gone. We at least have this picture with a now retired 2200-series train set departing 87th.

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A post shared by Pete Kastanes (@vanishedchicagoland) on May 27, 2020 at 10:30am PDT

This photo is further south on Michigan Ave and 114th Street. It's of a Hillman's Pure Foods (Hillman's also had a location within the old Sears store at 63rd & Halsted) store that formerly was located there with the address 33 E. 114th Street. The building itself is still there and perhaps one day I can head that way and snap a shot of it. Probably become a great location for another small grocery store in the future if it fits any company's needs.

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A post shared by Pete Kastanes (@vanishedchicagoland) on May 26, 2020 at 10:49am PDT

You know I can use Google Streetview to show you that building still stands. Since I see it still is, now it causes me to wonder what's there now.

White Castle 2 E. State Street in Roseland #Ward09 #tbt

You may well have seen this photo below on social media taken in the mid-1980s of the White Castle that formerly stood at 111th & State Streets or actually 2 E. 111th street. I'm most familiar with this location since often looking for a hamburger slider fix this was where my folks went. At some point during the 1990s this location was closed and demolished.

Then looking for photos I found an even older photo of the White Castle taken in 1937 according to the information on the photograph. Could be the same building and I don't recognize the neighborhood around it.

Via Pinterest

Of course back in the 1980s the White Castle was surrounded by a post office to the north and then to the east on 111th Street was the YMCA. The post office is still there however the YMCA is long gone though the building itself remains.

I hope you enjoy this look back and a break from the dire news regarding coronavirus.

Black Chicago at mid-century - Chicago History Today

It's amazing that as John R. Schmidt notes on his blog last month that Chicago's Black population was growing during the first half of the 20th century. Now as we just about halfway through the first half of the 21st century the Black population of the city is going down.

At least during the first half of the 20th Century for the most part Blacks were restricted to a particular part of the south side and housing increasingly was becoming an issue. These days Blacks have spread out to the point that many are leaving the city.

Either they're living in the suburbs or they're moving back to the south since during the first half of the 20th century many came from the south looking for better opportunities north. Of course if there is a reverse migration back to the south, perhaps the reasons are somewhat different.

NFL footballs are made in Chicago

I can't believe the NFL have started their 100th season and at least in Chicago the season started with a Thursday night loss to the Chicago Bears' longtime rivals the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field. However, did you know the manufacture of NFL footballs have a Chicago connection.

Read about it at NBCChicago. Wilson Sporting Goods is based in Chicago though footballs are actually made at a factory in Ohio. Another Chicago company Horween Leather Co. produced the leather for the footballs. Both companies relationship with the NFL dates back to the founding of the league and is owed to the late former owner of the Bears, George Halas.

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A post shared by Chicago Bears (@chicagobears) on Sep 4, 2019 at 6:00pm PDT

#tbt Decision at 83rd Street

[VIDEO] Last year at The Sixth Ward I posted this above video from a YouTube channel that refers to itself as Fuzzy Memories - which mostly posts old footage from Chicago TV stations. This documentary is 57 years old and illustrates the racial change that took place in the city during the 1960s.

On this blog and at The Sixth Ward I've showed a number of old pics of how various neighborhoods on the south side used to look like. As happens over time buildings are torn down, schools or churches close down, a streetscape looks vastly different from what it was decades ago. Or indeed looking at aspects of our transportation infrastructure which is vastly different from what we know about today.

Marynook on a map

In this case, WBBM-TV (or we can call them CBS 2 today) took a look at the racial change taking place in the Marynook area (which is the area between 87th and 83rd Streets north to south and the IC railroad tracks to Dorchester west to east. At issue here is the implications of the integration taking place and we hear a lot about things we associate with "white flight". We hear about "block busting" where unscrupulous real estate agents urge white homeowners to sell before the racial change of the neighborhood causes the value of their homes to depreciate.

These days Marynook is mostly Black, however, the character of that area is still basically middle class. It's often gotten attention for its mid-century architecture and could often be describes as a neighborhood that could resemble a suburban area.

BTW, as a side note I'm glad Fuzzy Memories is back. They were down for a while since YouTube tends to take down channels that are found to be uploading copyrighted materials. I've gotten away from following their channel in recent years, however, it's time to start back. It's fascinating what people saw on their TV years before I was even born. 

The Chicago Neighborhoods

Want to do a Pullman strike tour?

Credit: The Chicago Neighborhoods

I was awfully slow in sharing this. On July 13, 2019 there was a tour in Pullman related to the 125th anniversary of the Great Strike of 1894 and there are more scheduled through October. I believe this strike caused the President of the time a man by the name of Grover Cleveland to sent federal forces to end it.

I found out about this event through Curbed Chicago earlier this month, however, all I did was retweet this information. It would've been cool for me to take part in this as I know more about Pullman's story and architecture, but very little of some of the labor drama that took place there.

Tour the site of the Great Pullman Strike on its 125th anniversary https://t.co/IxFHGZDoQo pic.twitter.com/NkOtsl9jWh

— Curbed Chicago (@curbedchicago) July 5, 2019

According to the above link:

Labor history tends to get short shrift in history books.

The Pullman National Monument Preservation Society, created by Barack Obama’s presidential proclamation in 2015, is trying to change that. During the Great Pullman Strike’s 125th anniversary, the group is giving guided tours each month through October.
...
The next tour is scheduled for July 13 at noon. Admission is $25, and each ticket includes post-tour reception and dessert.

WTTW has more on the history of this strike in 1894 with regards to the perfect company town that was Pullman.

The site of the former Halsted Indoor Mall #tbt

I snapped these shots of the site of the former shopping center on 115th & Michigan during the summer of 2014. I never released the shots back then, but I wanted to share the context of this site with this article from the Chicago Reader which was actually published in 2003.

It illustrated the history of the former Halsted Indoor Mall which was once housed in a building that once contained a Zayre store. The shopping center here contained both a Foot Locker store and a beauty supply as well as a Jewel-Osco. However at some point all these stores have since closed. The Jewel-Osco closed once a new store was built at the new shopping center located at 119th Street and Marshfield (or on the west side of I-57) should be around 2007 or 2008.

I do remember shopping with my family at the old Zayre store and the old Jewel store you see in the photos below was another shopping destination over the years until the new store opened across the I-57 expressway. One ominous piece of information I learned shopping here one day, my mother was told by another customer that they did snatch purses in that store. YIKES!

At some point after 2012 the former Halsted Indoor Mall was razed, I see this looking at Google Streetview. And that largely ends the saga of the former space which seemed to riddled with some issues involving it's management by the people who operated the space and certainly the people who owned it. The property itself remains vacant with the idea of at some point perhaps something else will be developed here. Perhaps more retail or even some mixed-use retail and residential.

Below are the photographs from summer 2014. I wish I had a pic of the sign on the corner of 115th & Halsted which even the last time I drove by here still had a sign for the Halsted Indoor Mall although the building no longer stands.

Here's a Google Streetview of this property before the Indoor Mall building was razed from 2012 after this you see it's no longer standing. And as stated already the above photos were shot in the summer of 2014.

Recent shot of the Gately's ruins #Ward09

Drove through earlier this week. Sad to see this great big building along Michigan Avenue being demolished. I see the sign's gone, excited to find out any news of this local landmark. It's reminder of a business that no longer exists but many of a certain age still remember.

A posted this recent pic on ig embeded below

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A post shared by The Sixth Ward (@thesixthward) on Jun 27, 2019 at 10:43am PDT

The future of the Gately's sign #Ward09

Nitram242/flickr

At least we get one good thing out of the loss of the former Gately's People's store landmark sign. The building was destroyed by fire earlier this month and the city is in the process of demolishing the former longtime department store which closed in 1981.

After fire gutted the old Gately’s Peoples Store in Roseland last week, Ald. Anthony A. Beale (9th) said he’s working with members of the Gately family to save the store’s historic neon sign.

“The sign deserves a place in a museum where it can tell our community’s story to present and future generations, and help inspire everyone to work together to make Roseland the thriving and bustling destination it once was,” the neighborhood’s alderman said Monday.

Beale said he went to the fire Friday and saw Gately family members at the scene. He was already planning to preserve the sign, he said, adding that Gately family members said they would help raise the money to make sure the sign is taken down, preserved and put up at a later date.

The sign was not damaged in the fire, but the blaze damaged the century-old building at 11201 S. Michigan Ave. so bad, demolition crews began to take it down Friday night.
...
The sign remains on the building but will come down in the coming days. Beale said it will go into storage for a while and eventually go on display — but he didn’t reveal specific plans in mind to display it.

It does deserve to be somewhere to help tell the story of the Roseland community. And it's great to know the family that owned this business is still around to discuss plans to preserve this landmark.

It's awful to know about the fire, but to hear everyone - especially online or even in soundbites from any news reports - talk about their memories of the now closed store is definitely fascinating. 

State Theater 11016 S. Michigan Ave #tbt

The State Theater is one many movie theaters that existed on what was known in local parlance as The Ave. South Michigan Avenue in Roseland during far more prosperous times was a very active destination for local shoppers until the local economy changed after the 1970s.

According to Cinema Treasures this theater was opened in 1922 and as you read in below ig post from Pete Kastanes was demolished in 1997.

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The State Theater once located at 11016 S Michigan Ave in The Roseland neighborhood of Chicago. It was demolished in 1997.

A post shared by Pete Kastanes (@vanishedchicagoland) on Feb 10, 2019 at 1:23pm PST

Here's a Google streetview image of the corner where this theater was located near 110th & Michigan.

Here's another ig post from Kastanes of a 1936 program from the State. Sometimes I forget how different going to the movies was for movie goers back in the day.

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Here is a 1936 program from The State Theater once located at 11016 S Michigan Ave in The Roseland neighborhood of Chicago. It was demolished in 1997.

A post shared by Pete Kastanes (@vanishedchicagoland) on Feb 10, 2019 at 1:24pm PST

Here is a listing of other theaters that existed along The Ave/Michigan Avenue according to Cinema Treasures.

Footage of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma #BlackHistoryMonth

[VIDEO] If I had known the success and unfortunate tragedy of Tulsa, Oklahoma's "Black Wall Street" who knows if I would've appreciated knowing this history. It's great to see this wonderful colorized footage of Tulsa's Greenwood community during the course of the 1920s.

And thanks to the late pastor Solomon Sir Jones who shot his film with the then new 16-mm cameras. Most of those films were shot in black & white - although what you see above is colorized. It definitely shows what any Black community anywhere could become. Perhaps an early version of the "Wakanda" we could create.

Anyway while this footage aired on the Smithsonian channel the prints are actually owned by the Yale University Library. And his films - 29 of them over 355 minutes of footage - were selected by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". So aside from what you see above feel free to gain access to these films and see some aspects of Black history come alive.

#fbf 111th Street & Michigan Avenue

The photo above was taken in 1907 and the building you see in the front foreground according to Chicago history blogger J.R. Schmidt remains at the corner of 111th & Michigan Avenue. If I recall correctly for many years it was a Walgreen's until that location moved across the street. Though now the former Walgreen's store on the north side of 111th Street is now a dollar store.

Of course the progress of time over the course of 111 years ago (111th street and 111 years ago hmmm), we see a lot of the buildings are no longer standing. And of course the city ran its last streetcar in 1958. Even better according to Schmidt who posted this late last month:

A century ago traffic was so light on this stretch of Michigan that small children could wander around aimlessly in the street—not advisable today, in the era of the automobile.

Yeah totally agree with that statement! Click the link to see the photo Schmidt took in 2018 of this same area.

103rd & Michigan back in the day #tbt

Man I can't believe this is 103rd & Michigan as it appeared in 1940, 78 years ago. Hmm just like another old photo of 93rd & Jeffrey which is also from 78 years ago - both provided by Chicago History Today. Here's what the blogmaster there J.R. Schmidt wrote in March 2017:

In 1848 Dutch farmers established Roseland’s first permanent settlement, along what’s now the Michigan Avenue ridge.  By 1940 much of the area was built up.  However, aside from a few older homes, this particular stretch of 103rd Street remained vacant, zoned for business.  The rise in the street to the ridge is visible in the foreground.

Of course you can go to that post to see a more recent photo and it's almost like night & day. When you think about it, there is an old photo of Bennett School - which unfortunately is lost for now - that shows that school surrounded by undeveloped land. I can imagine it fits this image from 78 years ago. The above vantage point is no more than two blocks away from Prairie which is the street Bennett is located.

93rd & Jeffrey and 103rd & Michigan it's funny both photos contain a streetcar.

Chicago History Today: 103rd/Eggleston then & now #fbf

Just think how often I pass through this general area and it's fascinating how this area has changed over the years. 103rd Street and Eggleston back in 1905 about 113 years ago! This is courtesy of a photo provided by local historian J.R. Schmidt.

Here's how Schmidt described this scene from the early 20th century:

We are on 103rd Street at the railroad crossing, midway between Halsted and State. In 1905 this was the site of the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad’s Fernwood station, so various businesses had been established in the immediate vicinity. Yet traffic along the street was so light that people commonly walked down the middle.

Of course as you see there are a lot of changes to this stretch. You can go over to his post from 2015 to see how this area looks today. Just think this will be the next stop from 95th once the CTA Red Line is extended.

Oh wow, another shot of a streetcar! 

Oldest Chicago monument! #TBT

Illinois-Indiana Boundary Marker

 As I continue to peruse the posts of Chicago History Today to find old photographs of sites on the south side, I wanted to share this with you.

Did you know that on the south side near the lakefront is a marker noting the divide between Chicago and Indiana. Here's some history from J.R. Schmidt:

In 1833, as Chicago and the Midwest were starting to grow, Congress ordered a new survey of the boundary between Illinois and Indiana. When the survey was completed, a 15-foot high limestone obelisk was put in place on the shore of Lake Michigan, straddling the state line.

Civilization gradually engulfed the boundary marker. The shoreline was extended north by landfill. Multiple railroad lines came through. Commonwealth Edison built a huge generating plant. The South Park Commissioners laid out Calumet Park.

By the 1980s the marker was isolated and neglected among the rail yards. Allen J. Benson, a ComEd executive, convinced the company to sponsor its restoration, in conjunction with the East Side Historical Society and other interested groups. In 1988 the marker was moved 190 feet north to its present location, just outside the plant gate. A new base was added at that time.

As Schmidt states this monument is very difficult to find, however, you will have to read the rest of his post to see how to find this monument if you're interested in looking for it. Perhaps you can lobby the city to put up some signs to find this monument.

Perhaps I might document the time where I tried to find this obelisk!

Chicago History Today: 115th/Michigan then & now #tbt

This time a shot of 115th/Michigan from 1895. And here's another shot from 1934 of the same corner and the scene doesn't look much different from today. The top shot you will find from J.R. Schmidt's Chicago History Today blog which was published last year. You will also see a shot from that corner from last year also.

Hopefully it'll look much different once the red line extension is built.

RELATED: What would you like to see at 115th/Michigan