9 posts from May 2009

Here: The Uptown Theatre in Chicago, in a way not a lot of people see it -- from the backside, that is. Magnolia and Lawrence, Uptown neighborhood.

Here: One of the still-existing gateways of the old Essanay Studios, pretty much the most famous movie studio Chicago had, back befor the movie industry was based out of Hollywood. Believe it or not, from 1908 to 1915 this nondescript area of Uptown was where hundreds of America's first feature-length films were shot (back when this was little more than rural wilderness), including all the early films of Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and Bronco Billy. The studio even built a luxury hotel down the street to house all these studio people, a shot of which can also be found in this 2009 bike blog; simply check out the placemark directly to the right (east) of this one.

Here: The Berwyn red-line el stop at dusk on a warm spring day.

Here: Epworth United Methodist Church, in Edgewater. Yeah, freaky and cool, right? People have been worshipping on this spot constantly since 1888; the unique Romanesque/Arts & Crafts building you see here was created in 1891, from a design that was donated to the church by noted architect Frederick Townsend. A bizarre and great addition to this odd, cool neighborhood.

I'm determined this summer and fall to finally finish up the series of customized Google bicycle maps I've been talking about doing for years, but only a handful of which actually exist at this point; and that's had me doing an overhaul of the entire plan in my head this spring, dropping some older ideas and adding some newer ones, and consolidating some of the previous ideas into bigger mega-maps. And lo and behold, tonight I finally put aside a couple of hours so I could sit down and make a new master map of it all! That's it you're seeing above, and of course to find links to all the maps currently available, you can simply stop by jasonpettus.com/maps. Anyway, here below is a description of all the routes I plan on covering by the end of the year...

1) Lakefront Path: Lincoln Park North. Part 1 of my five-part guide to Chicago's 18-mile uninterrupted lakefront bicycle path. This map details the northern half of the seven-mile Lincoln Park, one of the oldest and largest urban parks in the nation, built in stages from literally the 1860s to 1960s.

2) Lakefront Path: Lincoln Park South. Part 2 of my lakefront guide, this time detailing the older southern half of Lincoln Park, the location of its more famous landmarks including the zoo.

3) Lakefront Path: Lincoln Park to the Loop. Part 3 of my lakefront guide, this time detailing the sometimes tricky turns between the southern tip of Lincoln Park (at North Avenue) and the northern tip of the Loop (at Randolph Street, which is also the northern tip of Millennium Park).

4) Lakefront Path: The Loop to Hyde Park. Part 4 of my lakefront guide, this time detailing the newest section of the path, from the Museum Campus in the South Loop to Promontory Point at the northern tip of Hyde Park.

5) Lakefront Path: Hyde Park to the South Shore. Part 5 of my lakefront guide, this time detailing the Hyde Park neighborhood, Jackson Park (site of the Museum of Science and Industry), and the South Shore Cultural Center.

5B (blue): The Neighborhood Parks of the Chicago River. Part 1 of a related three-part guide to the hundreds of small neighborhood parks on Chicago's northside. Here, a detailed look at the five miles of interconnected greenways spanning the Chicago River from Belmont to Peterson, a century-old plan originally conceived by the German and Swedish families who lived in this area during the Victorian Age.

6) The Pre-City Parks of the Far North. Part 2 of my three-part guide to the northside's hundreds of neighborhood parks. This map looks at the large parks on the far north edge of the city, most created long before this area was officially a part of Chicago, containing such surprising elements as lagoons, sledding, prairie wild-growth experiments, and an official city zoo that hardly anyone even realizes exists.

7) The Neighborhood Mini-Parks of the Northside. Part 3 of my three-part guide to the northside's hundreds of neighborhood parks. Here, a day-long trip that meanders among the dozens and dozens of tiny "mini-parks" and designated playlots on the northside -- some created by activist locals in the Victorian Age (long before the city provided official parks), some created out of vacant slum lots in the 1960s and '70s using federal aid. Plus detailed instructions for joining up with the lakefront path at its northern terminus.

8) Burnham's Boulevards and the West Side Parks. As part of the "City Beautiful" movement in the early 1900s, it was recommended by legendary city planner Daniel Burnham that Chicago create a "green ring" of connected extra-wide boulevards through what at the time was the city's most congested working-class neighborhoods, creating not just a city-spanning avenue for pedestrians and bicycles but also a swath of nature within what at the time was a very polluted urban area. This was then combined with a series of grand public parks on the city's west side, some of the first urban parks on the planet to be landscaped in a unstructured, wild-growth manner. My map covers the northern half of this still-existing green network, starting at Diversey Boulevard near the lakefront and ending at the Garfield Park Conservatory. (The brown part of the route shown above, then, is technically the southern half of this boulevard/park system, but is not recommended: it not only passes through several high-crime areas, but the parks along the way are badly maintained, part of the pervasive inequality in city resources between the north and south halves of Chicago that has existed since the city's founding.)

9) Historic Neighborhoods of the Near South. Did you know that there are half a dozen nationally important historic neighborhoods all butting against each other in Chicago's Near South Side? There are! Here, a map detailing them all, including the IIT campus (home of a dozen architecturally famous buildings), Bronzeville (Chicago's first rich black neighborhood), Prairie Avenue (Chicago's first rich white neighborhood), the Museum Campus, Chinatown, Printers Row and the South Loop.

10) The Bike-Friendly Southside. A look at the bike-friendly areas of what is sometimes a sketchy Chicago southside. The route starts at the Douglas Tomb on 35th Street, traveling south down Drexel Boulevard to Washington Park (proposed site of Chicago's possible 2016 Olympics bid), then through the University of Chicago campus to Jackson Park (home of the Museum of Science and Industry), then across the old World's Fair Midway to the 55th Street el station.

11) The commuter bike lanes of the northside. The city is constantly encouraging downtown workers who live on the northside to actually bicycle to their offices in the morning instead of driving or taking the bus; in that regard, they've created a series of clearly-marked, extra-wide urban bike lanes among a multitude of streets from Rogers Park to the Loop, including nearly the entire lengths of Clark, Southport, Halsted, Elston, Lincoln Avenue and more. Here, a collective look at all these inner-city paths, along with tips for making these rides as safe as possible.

12) Chicago's Downtown. The four neighborhoods making up Chicago's "downtown" district -- the Loop, the South Loop, River North and River West.

Anyway, as regulars know, I'm going out once a week right now and shooting photos for yet another section of yet another one of these maps; and like I said, hopefully by the the time 2010 rolls around, everything you see above will be finished and in the Google Maps database, for people to randomly stumble across whenever they do searches on specific places. (For those who don't know, Google now includes user-created placemarks in search results over at Google Maps.) Wish me luck!

Here: One of the benefits of the admittedly sometimes scary experience of riding in the Loop -- you get views like these while bicycling. Dearborn Street looking north, the "official" northbound street downtown for bicyclists (i.e. the one northbound street in the Loop with a designated bike lane). The city provides four streets like these downtown for bicyclists, one heading in each compass direction.

Here: The locally famous chess pavilion at the North Avenue Beach, which like Washington Square Park in New York is constantly filled with semi-pro players battling it out over small wagers. It was built in 1957 from a Mid-Century Modernist design by Maurice Webster, including Modernist king and queen sculptures on either end by Boris Gilbertson; the whole thing was paid for with a $90,000 donation from Laurens Hammond of the Hammond Organ Company.

Here: The infamous "open gate" in the east wall of Wrigley Field, where one can technically watch Cubs games for free from the sidewalk outside, down at the actual field level. Ironically, although the whole thing is designed to look like some nostalgic historic quirk from the century-old stadium, the Cubs only made this a doorless gate three years ago.

Here: The north wall of Wrigley Field, four blocks from my apartment, technically the back side of this historic stadium; but since it's one of the only sports arenas left in the United States still located in a residential neighborhood, technically all four sides of the structure receive regular foot traffic at all times.

Here: Although they're becoming rarer by the year, you can still randomly spot all the time here on Chicago's northside a plethora of retail stores that still have their original Art Deco signage from when the place first opened in the Early Modernist era, and with the signage still in pretty good shape too. Here, Granville Pictures, at the corner of Granville and Broadway, with signs that according to their website first went up in the early 1940s and have never been replaced.

So, one of the goals I have this year is to actually bike this northside-to-Loop trip and back once a week, every single week all summer and fall; the excuse I'm using, then, is so that I can visit downtown's Harold Washington Library, to pick up the latest Nelson Algren book I'll be reading that week, in that I'm doing a special summer essay series this year at my arts center CCLaP, where I'm reading the entire ouevre of the Chicago literary titan for the first time, one book a week all summer, in honor of his 100th birthday this year. And since I'll be making this trip every week all summer and fall, I only need to take detailed photos of just one small part of one of these commuter maps each time I go, which I'll just slowly keep adding to the commuter map until the whole thing is really full and detailed by the time October rolls around. This week: The tricky overpass for bicycles downtown, that goes over the Chicago River and connects the River North neighborhood (where the Magnificent Mile is located) with the Loop (where Millennium Park is located). It's pretty easy once you understand how the system is laid out, but can be highly confusing at first; and that's because the trail actually splits into two on both sides of the river, one branch curving out to the lakefront park for more nature-oriented rides, the other traversing the Chicago River along the lower level of the Lake Shore Drive Bridge, right next to the normal vehicular traffic crossing the river as well. Here below, a reprint of the nine-part photo series I just posted to my Google map on the subject; the photos as you see them below line up directly with the placemarks in the map above, as they run from north to south.

Here: The trail at its original northern split, looking south towards the river. To your immediate left in this photo is Navy Pier, which you reach by staying on the left side of the trail; take the right fork to get to Millennium Park and the Loop.

Here: The view from the north side of the bridge, looking south towards the Loop. Immediately to your left in this image is Navy Pier; stay to your right, however, to get on the Lake Shore Drive Bridge that will take you across to Millennium Park.

Here: The view of the special bridge trail ending, on the north side of the river looking north. The left branch seen here will take you on a western lane running parallel to the river itself; taking the right branch will get you back on the main lakefront trail.

Here: The view while actually on the lower level of the Lake Shore Drive Bridge, here on the north side looking south. Both directions of bike traffic stay on the same side of the bridge here; just keep moving forward from this point to go across and into the Loop.

Here: The view from the actual lower level of the Lake Shore Drive Bridge, here on the north side looking north. This is technically where the bridge detour ends; just hook a right where my finger is indicating to get back on the main lakefront trail.

Here: The view from the actual Lake Shore Drive Bridge, as one makes one's way across it between the Loop and the Magnificent Mile.

Here: The view from the actual Lake Shore Drive Bridge, as one makes one's way across it from the Loop to the Magnificent Mile. That's Navy Pier you're seeing in the central background.

Here: The view from the south side of the bridge detour, looking south towards the Loop. Not much more confusion at this point, once you're actually past the bridge; just stay on the obvious trail to keep heading downtown and into Millennium Park.

Here: Once you've crossed Lake Shore Drive, the city recommends jumping on Randolph Street and heading east if wanting to bicycle into the actual Loop. That takes you at first through a massive underground complex, HIGHLY intimidating to casual bicyclers, but don't worry; this is merely a quarter-mile straight shot, which then quickly pops you back outside and right next to Michigan Avenue. Just don't make any turns while you're under the skyscrapers here, and you'll be fine.

Trip description:
In the late-Victorian civic-minded period of the 1880s to 1910s, it suddenly became very trendy for Chicago neighborhood associations to create their own private park districts, charged with purchasing up vacant lots in the area and turning them into beatific additions for the locals, long before the city government did such a thing as a tax-supported public service. One of the most well-known private systems back then, in fact, stretched in broken pieces up and down the north branch of the Chicago River, funded and maintained by the middle-class Germans and Swedes who dominated this area of the city back then, as a way to 'reclaim' this riverfront space from the dirty, polluting factories that once dotted the shore all the way to the city limits. During the Great Depression, then, all these private park systems were taken over by the newly formed Chicago Park District, with the city continuing to fill in the gaps between the old parks whenever possible; the entire system now exists as an unending chain of riverfront green spaces from Belmont all the way up to Granville, at which point the North Shore Channel Trail begins and runs all the way to the far northern suburbs. It makes for a great day-ride, for those looking for something interesting to do on their bikes here on a weekend.

Here: A map of the entire interconnected system, from Belmont to Granville (although note that there are still a few gaps in here where one must get back on an urban street for just a bit); a total of 4.5 miles or 6.5 kilometers, a perfect day trip for a family on a Saturday, or a round-trip for younger singles looking for some exercise. My own visit last week (constituting the 43 images in my photostream following this one) was only from Montrose to the north end, or in other words the top two-thirds of the line you're seeing here; later this summer, then, I'll go back and take detailed shots of the bottom third, a trip I made last summer as well, when all I had was my crappy cellphone camera.

Here: As mentioned, the way that Chicago's first big parks came about was actually from rich and large neighborhood associations, which would collect money from all neighborhood residents in order to buy up block-long parcels of land whenever they'd come up for sale. But what to do when you're the Ravenswood Manor & Gardens neighborhood, whose entire borders extended back then only a quarter of a mile, and whose revenue stream was practically non-existent? Well, you end up establishing four "micro-parks" in your neighborhood, tiny plots that would otherwise normally be used for a private home --  Jacob Park (created in 1915), Ravenswood Manor Park (1916), Sunken Gardens Park (1917), and Buffalo Park (also 1917).

I have to admit, these micro-parks immediately charmed me, when I first came across them during research for this map; in reality they are not much more than extended backyards, found smack-dab in the middle of quiet residential areas, and obviously only benefit a grand maximum of a few dozen people over the course of a year. Yet the Park District, bless its soul, takes these tiny parks just as seriously as the hundreds of others under its control, and all four are filled with beautiful landscaping and a plethora of flowers despite none of them being bigger than a simple home plot. I love living in a city that takes such tiny little neighborhood parks so seriously, versus so many other cities that would've let the space deteriorate back into a dirty vacant lot decades ago.

Here: Rockwell Street, halfway between Montrose and Lawrence, the only place in the entire city where the CTA rapid-transit system runs not above the street, not below the street, but right at street level itself. Because of its ingenious underground construction system in the Victorian Age, in fact, there are almost no street-level train crossings on the entire northside of Chicago; I have to admit, it's bizarre as a local bicyclist to run across a series of automated guardrails like you do along this section of the brown line.

Here: As mentioned, these parks first started coming about because of the large middle-class German and Swedish neighborhood associations that used to dominate this area, from the mid-1800s (back when this neighborhood was rural farmland) all the way to the 1950s when most of these families fled to the suburbs; they were one of the first big residential swaths of an Industrial American city, in fact, to really embrace the idea of cooperative neighborhood civic beautification, a really hot issue among educated immigrant urban families of the Victorian Age. Seen here, for example, along Rockwell Street in this neighborhood, each and every corner-street home owner has a custom-built street sign in their front yard, originally stretching all the way back to the dawn of the 20th century; even more astounding, every single one of them still exist and are all in great shape, here at the dawn of the 21st century, even with fresh flowers in all of them. It's one of the things I really love the most about Chicago, is the chance in almost every neighborhood to stumble across weird, cool, historical details and touches, still lovingly maintained by neighborhood locals; sadly, in so many other large Midwestern cities you visit these days, such touches have turned into crumbling post-apocalyptic ruins among completely abandoned neighborhoods.

Here: A panoramic shot of what the actual Chicago River looks like here along the strip of parks on the northside, seen here while on the Montrose bridge looking north. Do you see why it was so important for these neighborhood residents back in the Victorian Age to 'reclaim' this riverfront from all the polluting factories that used to line the area you're looking at? In my opinion, these civic-minded utopians from a hundred years ago would really freak out if seeing how successful their plans have gotten implemented here at the dawn of the 21st century; it's a great testament, I think, to Chicago's dedication to a long-term vision of civic engagement, and one of the many reasons I love living here so much.

Here: Ronan Park, officially the last of the northside riverfront parks actually created, the only one created from scratch by the city itself, after it took over the formerly private system during the Great Depression; in fact, it's a joint effort between the Park District and the Water District, who technically not only owns the land but also the grandiose sewage-pumping station straight across on the other bank. When it was created in the mid-1960s, it finally provided the final piece to making this entire section of the river an uninterrupted green space, 50 years after the goal was first envisioned by Victorian-Era locals. The "top" level of the park is nothing spectacular, just a series of landscaped spaces and play fields for neighborhood residents; do absolutely go to the "bottom" (riverside) level of Ronan Park if you ever visit there, though, where an ingeniously designed modern hiking trail winds through a half-mile of unstructured wilderness. Who knew you could find views like this in the middle of urbanized Chicago?

Here: River Park, the largest of the six parks formerly maintained by the River Park District; it was originally dedicated in 1920, although it wasn't until 1926 that a formal plan was created for its layout (by board member Jacob Crane, a noted semi-amateur landscape artist of the period). In 1929 it was joined by a formal fieldhouse, designed by the inventive Clarence Hatzfeld who designed many of the park fieldhouses found in this section of the city. Once taken over by the city, then, a new swimming pool was added in 1948, a new bathhouse in 1970, and a professional-level soft-surface running track, that attracts serious runners from all over the region. What is most striking about this particular park, however, is that they offer facilities for such normally rural activities like fishing and rafting; the Park District is also in the process of constructing a major new boat launch and river walk along the west edge of the space, between the athletic fields. It can be jarring to come across such rustic activities in the middle of such a large urban space; it's an enjoyable surprise, though, one I would've never thought available through the Chicago Park District, and something I highly recommend everyone checking out if they're ever in the area. Oh, and a little trivia: Although the majority of this extra-long park consists simply of unstructured leisure areas for locals (complete with easy access from the ends of residential streets), it also has one of the only regulation field-hockey courts found on the entire northside.

Here: The city has in recent years added a brilliant element to this system of parks, in order to make it the true uninterrupted miles-long green space it was always envisioned to be; they've built sturdy, safe underpasses beneath every major east-west vehicular street, so that pedestrians and bicyclists don't have to bother in any way with car traffic from going from one small park to the next. Seen here, the underpasses at Foster and Bryn Mawr.

Here: Legion Park, the first of the six parks created by the old River Park District, after having the land rights leased to them by the city's Sanitary District in a civic effort to create a greenspace out of the area. Yes, this park is named in honor of the American Foreign Legion (otherwise known as "US Expeditionary Forces"), which a lot of people don't realize even exist. And a little trivia -- one of the last holdouts when this park was expanded by the city in the '80s and '90s was the owner of a dilapidated transient hotel and community eyesore; when the park district finally acquired its lot in 1999 and tore down the slum, neighborhood residents were so grateful that they raised the money for an insanely grandiose fountain, now sitting on the building's old location.

Here: Technically the northern terminus of the northside riverfront park system; the bike trail at this point switches over to a city street, and then just a block north from here one can turn on Granville if they want, to go east and west on a city-approved bike lane. Crossing the river here at Peterson, then, will take you to the southern terminus of the North Shore Channel Trail, a highly important piece of northern Illinois' extensive nature-trail system, and one that extends all the way to the far Chicago suburbs and beyond.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed this, and make sure to check back in a few days for my next bike-map entry (done early this week, because the Pilcrow Lit Fest will be eating up my time on Saturday and Sunday this week): it'll be a new detailed guide to add to my existing "Lakefront Path" map, showing exactly how to get on and off the very urban Michigan Avenue Bridge lower-level bike lane (getting you across the Chicago River from the Magnificent Mile to the Loop), and then from there onto Randolph Avenue and west into both Millennium Park and the heart of downtown. It's a little intimidating, but nothing to be scared of, once you understand the layout and how traffic flows down there; hopefully this little coming guide will help others navigate the confusing layout themselves. And meanwhile, of course, I'll keep reposting my 2009 bikeblog entries here as well, each time I have a new one to share. Hope this all makes up for the lack of snotty funny pop-culture entries recently that usually fill up this VOX blog of mine.

I'm trying something new this year, possible for the first time because of Google Maps recently adding RSS feeds to every customized map made there; I call it a "placeblog," consisting of photos and write-ups of various random locations around Chicago I visit on my bicycle this summer and fall, only instead of presented by date they're all plotted on a city map, so that you search and browse by location instead of age. I'll be reposting most of the entries here as well, so that people can follow along in a traditional way if they want; and then you can click here for the actual placeblog/map, or click here for the RSS feed, or simply stop by the main headquarters for all my Chicago bicycle maps at [jasonpettus.com/maps].

Here: The national headquarters of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, one of those bizarre semi-Masonic American civic groups from the early 20th century. In fact, this entire building first came about because of a suggestion for a memorial for all the Elks who died in World War One (over 70,000 Elks fought in that war, in fact); designed by Egerton Swarthout, the building itself finally opened in 1926, with additional structures on the sides denoting each war since. The interior features a stunningly ornate rotunda, plus astounding frescos and sculptures found throughout the complex; the building itself is free to enter and open to the public, and in fact the staff maintaining this headquarters is always very excited and happy whenever receiving visitors. This plus the entire section of Lincoln Park where it's located gets a big recommendation from me, as far as things for tourists to do while here that are off the usual beaten path, and that give them an idea of the places actual locals visit here on the weekends for fun. (And P.S., this is less than two miles from Navy Pier, making it a perfect destination for tourists renting bicycles from that location for the day...and less than three miles from the Loop's Millennium Park, making it a perfect destination for people starting out from there too.)

I'm trying something new this year, possible for the first time because of Google Maps recently adding RSS feeds to every customized map made there; I call it a "placeblog," consisting of photos and write-ups of various random locations around Chicago I visit on my bicycle this summer and fall, only instead of presented by date they're all plotted on a city map, so that you search and browse by location instead of age. I'll be reposting most of the entries here as well, so that people can follow along in a traditional way if they want; and then you can click here for the actual placeblog/map, or click here for the RSS feed, or simply stop by the main headquarters for all my Chicago bicycle maps at [jasonpettus.com/maps].

Here: The pedestrian mall in the heart of the Lincoln Square neighborhood, an entire area of Chicago with a fascinating history. Originally settled as rural farmland by Swedes and Germans in the 1830s, it was home back then not only to the nation's largest pickle company but was also known as the "celery capital of the United States;" then in 1906 what is now known as the CTA brown line was first constructed, turning this sleepy rural area into essentially Chicago's first middle-class suburb (still mostly dominated by Swedes and Germans), eventually annexed into the city itself in the 1920s. The pedestrian mall you're seeing here was constructed in 1978, in an attempt to boost the neighborhood's retail potential and to reinforce its German heritage (in fact, a famous historical lamppost was imported from Hamburg just to adorn this mall); how ironic, then, that German businesses only constituted a third of the new new retail spaces when this mall first opened, the other two-thirds split between Greek and Asian restaurants. Oh, and a little trivia as well: the Krause Music Store building, also found in this pedestrian mall, was the very last Chicago building designed by famed architect Louis Sullivan.

I'm trying something new this year, possible for the first time because of Google Maps recently adding RSS feeds to every customized map made there; I call it a "placeblog," consisting of photos and write-ups of various random locations around Chicago I visit on my bicycle this summer and fall, only instead of presented by date they're all plotted on a city map, so that you search and browse by location instead of age. I'll be reposting most of the entries here as well, so that people can follow along in a traditional way if they want; and then you can click here for the actual placeblog/map, or click here for the RSS feed, or simply stop by the main headquarters for all my Chicago bicycle maps at [jasonpettus.com/maps].

Here: The Aquatania, at Argyle and Marine Drive in the Uptown/Margate Park neighborhood, which has a fascinating history: It was owned by George Spoor, otherwise known as the "S" in the pre-Hollywood Essanay movie studio (originally located just half a mile west), built in 1923 to house his employees, including early cinema stars Gloria Swanson and Charlie Chaplin (and it just so happened that Al Capone's lawyer lived in the building back then too). It's named for the famous ocean liner, and used to be on the beachfront until the city literally created extra land in the '40s and '50s so as to build Lake Shore Drive; you can find out a lot more at the building's official website, 5000marine.com.