December 17, 1905 –
Looking
back over the preceding year, the Chicago
Daily Tribune reports that in 1904 the city erected “the equivalent of over
forty-seven solid miles of buildings, single frontage, costing approximately
$62,000,000.” [Chicago Daily Tribune,
December 17, 1905] Additionally, the real estate transactions for the year
totaled approximately $140,000,000. The
construction of apartment houses was double that of 1904, and “despite all
these new buildings, builders and agents having them in charge report that they
are being filled as soon as completed.” The
southern portions of the city lead the building boom which, the article points
out, “simply goes to show what must be accepted as a great sociological fact,
that the foreign elements of Chicago’s population, which predominate in the
northwest division of the city, are greater home builders and are more attached
to the individual home than the more well to do native born element which
predominates n the south division.”
Leading the city as far as factory and warehouse construction is the new
Sears, Roebuck and Co. plant on Harvard Street on the city’s west side. In the central business district there were 71
real estate transactions, 30 more than in 1904 and “there is no doubt that they
have strengthened greatly, especially in the choicest section of the business
district,” where Joseph Leiter refused a $60,000-a-year rental of a small lot
at the southeast corner of State Street and Jackson Boulevard which “at the
present time … is a trifle startling, to say the least.” The above photo shows the Sears complex on the west side, designed by Nimmons and Fellows, and begun in 1905.
December 17, 1936 – The Chicago Park District announces a project that will hopefully streamline the traffic flowing through Lincoln Park while providing a new bathing beach and bathhouse for the area as well. A $1,100,000 grant from the Works Progress Administration is still needed to get the plan going, but when fully funded the project will carry Lake Shore Drive past North Avenue for another half-mile while La Salle Street will be extended from its terminus at Stockton Drive to meet that new section of Lake Shore Drive. Additionally, a breakwater will be built 1,500 feet from the shoreline at North Avenue, and sand will be used to fill the space between the new breakwater and the shore, creating a new beach. It is hoped that the new plan will reduce the congestion that has plagued the two lanes of Stockton Drive as it winds through the park, carrying rush hour traffic from both LaSalle Street and Lake Shore Drive south of North Avenue. The 1934 photo above shows Stockton Drive to the left, winding north past the statue of Abraham Lincoln that today stands below and south of the La Salle Street extension.
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