Wicker Park, Chicago's Other Gold Coast
Avenue; July 31, 2009 /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
Many neighborhoods are called "Park" with nary a park in sight nor anywhere nearby.
Wicker Park is actually a small triangle of green on Damen Avenue at Schiller Street, in a densely-packed community of late 19th and early 20th century homes. Originally built by German and Scandinavian immigrants, eventually purchased by their assimilating Polish neighbors, then inhabited by a largely Puerto Rican Hispanic population, gentrified by artists, and now occupied by a growing number of young, upwardly mobile hipsters. This is the story of many a neighborhood, in many a city, all across the country.
Some of the earliest housing was built in the 1870s, and in a remarkable tale of survival,
many of the Italianate and Second Empire homes still stand along Hoyne Avenue.
Image & Artwork: designslinger]
Many years ago, my best friend David and I (we became pals while attending IIT) set out
to be urban pioneers and scoured the streets of Wicker Park for a cheap building with tons of charm. We were going to rehab old buildings, and jump start our careers as two old house fixers. We came up with this scathingly brilliant idea to video tape our experiences, which we would then use as a marketing tool to rake in future clients. But New York beckoned, and although rehabbing and decorating Park Avenue apartments was fulfilling, a couple of years later when we watched the first episode of This Old House, we wondered if we had been on to something that would have been far more lucrative!
When Dave and I ventured onto the streets of Wicker Park, I didn't come into the
community as a stranger. My father's parents emigrated from Poland, and the first place they came to settle into their new lives in their new country, was in this neighborhood. My uncle's family owned an apartment building on Damen Avenue for over 60 years, where they operated their corner grocery store. We spent many a Thanksgiving holiday, with all the relatives packed into a small apartment of a typical Chicago 6-flat, as though our real-life scene had appeared in the movie Avalon.
When my father knew that Dave and I were scouting properties up and down Hoyne
Avenue, he told us how his parent's generation had admired the large, fancy homes on Hoyne, Pierce and Schiller Streets, and dreamed that someday they would be able to own a piece of the Polish Gold Coast. It would mean that they were living the American dream. It was the ethnic version of Chicago's famously wealthy, glittering, WASPy-ish, old family, "other" Gold Coast neighborhood.
So matter how cool, hip and regentrified the area becomes, I will always remember this
ever changing community as the place where my grandparent's hope and dreams are still wrapped in brick, stone and marble.
You've just finished reading our 300th post! Wow. Thanks for following along with us.
Posted by designslinger at 8/11/2009 4:05 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Chicago neighborhoods Poilsh community German and Scandinavian immigrants
Categories: Architecture, History, Preservation
Tags: Chicago neighborhoods Poilsh community German and Scandinavian immigrants
So, here's the thing. You need to be thinking about your book. Seriously. Your posts and photos on Chicago would make a great one. And, I'm still depressed. Your site is FAR better than anything I can do. Congratulations on the big 300!
A book may be in our future, but it could be in the FAR future. Just need to keep at it, piling up the pics and posts. And, we all have something to contribute, especially the compelling information contained in Chicago History Journal. Thanks for the good wishes on #300 - can't quite believe we're there! Oh, by the way, know any publishers??!!
Congratulations!! 300 posts is quite an accomplishment. And I agree that a book is in your future. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the support. Maybe a book will appear someday, stranger things have happened. Who would have ever thought we'd be living in Chicago!
I am enjoying your blogs so much! Old Chicago homes (in particular apartment buildings) has been a passion of mine for some time and it is rare that I find any information, let alone something as beautiful and informative as you post. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the great compliments and for visiting designslinger. We make every effort to keep up the good work, in the hopes that readers like you will keep coming back!