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Old Chicago Photographs

773K views 879 replies 165 participants last post by  Hudson11 
#1 ·
Here's some old pics of Chicago to start out this thread. Hopefully people can dig up some classic pics!

Courtesy of the CHS:











 
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#128 ·
UrbanSophist said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHdatHvdd-g&search=chicago

Seeing the streetcar system kinda makes ya sad...
That 1948 clip was great. The hairstyles and styles of that era are not on too many film/video images of Chicago. The streetcars look terrific also.

By the way, that clip starts on the west side of Clark Street, just north of Randolph, in front of the Sherman Hotel. They briefly direct the camera north on Clark Street to show the Clark-Lake Elevated station one block to the north.

Of course, State of Illinois building (i.e., the Thompson Center) is now on this site.
 
#130 ·
That is a beautiful photograph from 1966. It shows that part of Streeterville immediately before a lot of redevelopment.

The view is to the northwest from the south side of the Chicago River, shot over the river so you don't see it.

In the distance, you can see three large hotels from left to right, each built in the second half of the 1920's. These are the Hotel St. Clair, the Hotel Eastgate, and the Allerton Hotel. All three of these buildings are still standing and are still operating as hotels.

In the middle distance, you see some of the industrial buildings on the north side of the river that stretched to the east from the "back" of Tribune Tower.

You can count six black cylidrical water towers perched above these buildings, giving you an idea of how these water towers created the exclamation points for the mid-rise-skyline that circled the loop.
 
#131 ·
After the Great Fire of 1871, hundreds of the wooden tanks were installed atop commercial and apartment buildings to guarantee a supply of water for firefighting. Mechanized pumps made them obsolete, and only about 130 are in use.

Jonathan Fine, president of Preservation Chicago, a non-profit group, says that when he sees water tanks in skyline views in movies or TV shows, "you know instantly that it was shot in Chicago."

more http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-18-chicago-landmarks_x.htm
 
#132 ·
UrbanSophist said:
Here are few more tidbits about this photo.

The photo, which is a view to the northwest, was shot from roughly the location of Wacker Drive and Columbus. It is thus shot from the south side of the river.

In the area where you see the word "Tribune" and slightly beyond is the current location of NBC Tower.

The three hotels that I mentioned in my previous post are currently operating as follows:

(1) the Hotel St. Clair, located at the northwest corner of Ohio and St. Clair is operating as the Inn of Chicago,

(2) the Hotel Eastgate, located at the northwest corner of Ontario and St. Clair is operating as a Red Roof Inn

(3) the Allerton Hotel located on Michigan Avenue, is currently operating as the Allerton Crowne Plaza.

The Allerton will probably always have "Allerton" as part of its name because the huge neon sign on top is permanently protected by the buildng's landmark designation.
 
#136 ·
NWside said:
Are my eyes deceiving me, or is that an Arbys in the first pic. NearNorthGuy?
Yes, indeed, that is an Arby's, located on the South Side of Chicago Avenue roughly where the American Girl store now stands.

I occasionally ate at that Arby's, walking up to enjoy the view of the Water Tower and the Hancock from the Arby's second floor seating area. This Arby's remained open until roughly 1992.

On the subject of that exact Arby's, in the summer of 1980, my family in Oak Lawn was visited by Architecture students from Amsterdam. They had met my brother, who was living in Boston, and who had arranged for them to stay with my family for a few days.

Guess what these Architecture students had? An architecture book with a photograph and architectural drawings of that Arby's on Chicago Avenue! It was shown as an example of remodeling an older building with a modern design. It was a very old building that had been gutted and refaced in glass.

By the way, in my opinion, they should have left the old building the way that it was. But what did I know! So....there's all I know about that Arby's!
 
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