why are there so many modern "infill" homes in lincoln park? (Chicago: real estate, renters)

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

So those houses built in the late 1800's with Greek and Roman details are authentic representations of those ancient styles? The reality is that the 19th Century saw one "revival style" after another, and American builders made no qualms about mixing styles or architectural elements in ways that would have never passed muster in Europe.

What? I thought all those neoclassical houses were built based on 2000+ year old blueprints found in a Roman catacomb.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by paytonc

Not always:
What made Lincoln Park go from a "bad" area to a "yuppie" area?

I happen to have a 1942 book on housing conditions in Chicago sitting around, and it's amazing to see numbers like this:
% of structures in good condition
Chicago citywide: 45.4%
Rogers Park: 68.8%
Lincoln Square: 47.6%
Woodlawn: 42.4%
Lincoln Park: 24.0%
Near North Side: 18.3%
West Town: 13.8%

At the time, Rogers Park and Woodlawn had newer housing stock and were more desirable. The working-class housing in inner-ring neighborhoods like Lincoln Park, much less the outright slums near the river on the Near North Side and West Town, had fallen into disrepair even by 1942.

In all fairness, is that really surprising? Twelve years of the Great Depression followed by two years of war time rationing? That means that there was nearly no new construction and few opportunities to rehab. It also meant that the available housing was quite taxed with a growing population.

What would be interesting is the motivation for the production of the report ...

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by oakparkdude

What? I thought all those neoclassical houses were built based on 2000+ year old blueprints found in a Roman catacomb.

Your sarcasm is duly noted...

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by Drover

Which ones look like they were airlifted from Naperville??

Is it not obvious?

[uicgrad]

Boy is this an old thread. Original poster mentioned he thought that Lincoln Park was "always ritzy". I don't think that is true at all, but I'm no expert on Lincoln Park. However, I seem to remember my father telling me that parts of it were rather seedy, working class in the 60s and 70s as was some of East Lakeview. Was he wrong? To me that would explain some of the claims of rundown housing stock in this thread.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by uicgrad

Boy is this an old thread. Original poster mentioned he thought that Lincoln Park was "always ritzy". I don't think that is true at all, but I'm no expert on Lincoln Park.

It's not. This was noted earlier in the thread.

Originally Posted by uicgrad

However, I seem to remember my father telling me that parts of it were rather seedy, working class in the 60s and 70s as was some of East Lakeview. Was he wrong?

Nope, he was right.

Originally Posted by uicgrad

To me that would explain some of the claims of rundown housing stock in this thread.

Yep, I'm pretty sure that was the point being made by that poster.

[Lookout Kid]

The ironic thing about this post is that central Naperville seems to have fewer teardowns of historic housing stock than Lincoln Park. Of course that quickly gives way to post-war subdivisions, but Naperville in some way is doing a better job at protecting it's historic character.

More than a decade ago I lived in a perfectly nice 19th century brick building in Lincoln Park. My fiancee had found the apartment, and was unaware that we were renting from a developer. They informed us about halfway through our lease that they were going to tear the building down, and wouldn't be renewing any leases in the building. We put a Preservation Chicago poster up in the window, and the landlord threatened us. We refused to take it down, as our lease explicitly permitted such displays. The old two-flat rental building was reduced to rubble, and the house built in its place sold for $3.8 million.

There was nothing wrong with our building other than the fact that it sat on land that was extremely valuable. A few years after our building was torn down, we noticed a "code Orange" building called the Pilot House get torn down. This "Second Empire" style house on a corner lot was worthy of landmark status, but the land was apparently too valuable for a mere 4,000 sf rehabbed house. Boom, gone. Along with dozens of other perfectly solid brick structures from the late 19th Century that were in decent shape. I worry it will happen again once the real estate market picks up. Chicago does a HORRIBLE job of preserving it's historical buildings.

http://www.preservationchicago.org/u.../sheffield.pdf

[It'sAutomatic]

I'll admit I like about 15% of newer homes, but most are ugly crap that are either over-the-top or look like cheap garbage to me. I absolutely love older buildings, and while many of them have problems regarding windows/lighting and layouts, I've seen very few newer buildings that actually address these issues, making the new buildings mostly a waste that don't uglify a street and improve nothing except the wallets of developers who sell to idiots who think "new" means "quality".

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by Standard111

Ok, so you must not be looking at the posted streetview pic, and you must have never visited Lincoln Park because this entire post is completely wrong.

1. The new homes clearly have driveways and garages, and the old homes clearly don't (you know there were no cars in the 1800's, right?)

That doesn't mean they haven't been added since. I lived in Rogers Park in a home that was more than 100 years old that got turned into multiple apartments, and there was a garage that connected to the alley behind the house. A large number of the homes in the area were of a similar age, and many of them had a garage in the back as well. It's not like this is a new thing.

I also don't see what the big deal is having the garage in the front of the house or in the back of the house. In many cases it's still going to be there, so what does it matter if the home takes up one lot regardless?

2. The new homes are often oversized faux-historicist, and the old homes aren't (you know there were no concrete and stucco homes with great rooms and media rooms in the 1800's, right?)

The majority of the newer homes I've seen on the north side are typically taking up the same amount of space as the older ones. And if someone wants to buy a home, demolish it and or gut it in order to start over, then that's their prerogative.

3. The new homes replace multiple homes, and the population in those census tracts has dropped (you know that birthrates have dropped, we have Census stats, and 1 home is less dense than 2 or 3 homes, right?)

This can also come from a 2-3 unit apartment buildings being turned back into single family homes though. My old apartment in Rogers Park, for example, was in a building that had been a single family home up until a few decades ago, and it could easily be turned back into with little effort relatively speaking.

[pantin23]

My main question is, where is the huge preservation movement?