There Goes the Neighborhood

Tawdry Temples

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:36:52 -0500

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:

There Goes the Neighborhood

something out of nothing

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:35:02 -0500

A few blocks southeast from the Blue line’s Western stop, a glimpse of Bucktown’s future - ? :

A motley assortment of colors, designs and materials. Can’t say I like these building facades side-by-side (or at all), but seated as they are across from empty lots tracing the Blue Line’s Milwaukee corridor, they do offer El riders something of aesthetic interest.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Nice Condo! Who's your architect?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:32:00 -0500

A recent NY Times article explores and critiques that city’s current “boomlet” of high-flying residential buildings designed by big-name architects. Ouroussoff is ambivalent about the designs of the “preening, sometimes beautiful, sometimes obstrusive towers,” and much of what he writes, I think, could and should also apply to Chicago:

There Goes the Neighborhood

Bungalo Bookends

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:30:22 -0500

Side-by-side contrasts have a way of crystallizing neighborhood architectural trends:

There Goes the Neighborhood

Sorting the hate mail

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:23:15 -0500

Since There Goes the Neighborhood began in January, it's been gratifying to hear from readers about some of the condos I've highlighted in posts. But it’s been decidedly ungratifying to discover some of those readers think I’m a reactionary philistine addicted to negativity. So herewith, responses to some recurring criticisms: I hate new buildings and want everything to stay the same.

There Goes the Neighborhood

McDonald’s new neighbor

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:38:58 -0500

Every morning, as I will myself toward the Blue Line's Western stop and the Loop, I encounter this building

There Goes the Neighborhood

Cubic confusion

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:54:42 -0600

While not hideous (let's call it...unorthodox), this boxy building seems to be straddling the old and new architectural trends found throughout Bucktown and other quickly developing Chicago neighborhoods: If new condos are your guide, bricks seem to have become passe, passed over for masonry and glass. But here at the intersection of North Leavitt Street and West McLean Avenue (just north of Armitage Avenue), brick, glass and stone are jumbled together into cubic confusion.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Old meets new

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:25:26 -0600

Bucktown's old two-floor houses aren't glamorous, but they do bear themselves with quiet dignity. Sandwiched between two homes on the 1600 block of N. Wolcott (across the street from the "Urban Sandbox" mentioned in the previous post) is this new home: I love - and hate - these juxtapositions peppering Bucktown and other neighborhoods throughout the city: gentrification is rarely so clearly displayed. What are the neighbors thinking?

There Goes the Neighborhood

Would you live in this sandbox?

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:13:28 -0600

While walking down North Avenue this week, I glanced up Wolcott Avenue and spotted this bleak mid-winter scene: So many of the new homes being built in Bucktown have either too many windows or too few. This white, nearly finished building at 1611 N. Wolcott just has oddly placed windows, which for some reason the architect paired with large orange rectangles. It's as though the developer said, "This home needs some flair!" and the architect obliged with a few dashes of color.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Awkward triangulation

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:44:06 -0600

Modernist architects, as far back as Chicago's own Louis Sullivan, like to note that "form follows function." But just as often, I think, form follows lot size. This family jewel at 1865 N. Wilmot Ave. (at the intersection of Oakley and Cortland) makes the best of a narrow triangle: Unusual, but not particularly unpleasant to walk by from this angle. I like the front cylindrical component - it makes the lot seem much less angular.