Tawdry Temples

Often I see a new home in Bucktown and immediately think: No one, not even the most persuasive architect or developer, will ever convince me this building is beautiful and improves the neighborhood. (It’s a gut reaction, but that’s a rough English translation.) This pair of homes at 1935/37 W. Dickens Ave. is a case in point:

Unusual doesn’t necessarily equal creative, and creative doesn’t necessarily equal attractive. The developer of these buildings (who perhaps also designed this building?), the facades of which blend together into one rectilinear edifice, got drunk on masonry and reflective glass. But we have to deal with the hangover.

No other buildings in Bucktown I’ve seen announce themselves so blatantly and ostentatiously. These aren’t homes — they’re temples for those who wish to scream “I’ve arrived.” I wish I didn’t have to notice. (While staring at the temples, I feared their residents would notice me and confiscate my camera.)

[The corner home, featuring a whopping 6,000 sq. feet, is currently listed here for $2.99 million — hat tip to “Pro-Gentrification Yuppie” for leading me to that site in his comment below.]

Brilliant detail in front of the corner building’s rear, a battered old car reminding me that function is always more important than form:

Despite what grizzled Chicago veterans say, the Bucktown of yesteryear is not quite dead.

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Jeremy Gantz

Jeremy Gantz, web editor of In These Times and a freelance writer,  can’t quite seem to sit still. A 2008 graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, he has lived in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Washington D.C.

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