John Coughlan House
[John Coughlan House (ca. 1872) /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
The John Coughlan house sits at the corner of Lytle and Lexington Streets on the Near West Side of Chicago. In 1871, the year before the businessman bought the property and built his Italianate, two-story with basement, single family home, the Great Fire had started just blocks away on DeKoven Street.
[John Coughlan House, 1254 W. Lexington Street, Chicago /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
The house sat on what was then known as Macalaster Place overlooking a small park. In the 1850's Philadelphian's Charles Macalaster and Henry Gilpin bought large tracts of land at the western edge of the 20-year-old city. They laid out a street grid, placed a park at it's center, and donated the small greenspace to the city in 1860. The street bordering the southern boundary of Vernon Park was called Gilpin Place, and at its northern border, Macalaster Place. Coughlan purchased lots 24 and 25 of Block 5 of Macalaster's subdivison of the Vernon Park Addition in 1872.
[John Coughlan House /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
In the intervening years as the population soared, the neighborhood became one of the city's major immigrant Irish enclaves. Macalaster morphed into Macalister, Coughlan's address changed from No. 41 to number 1246, the neighborhood became heavily Italian and part of the city's Little Italy community, and the street name was changed to Lexington. In 1980 as the area joined in a burgeoning gentrification movement, Leonard Currie, Dean of the School of Architecture and Art at the nearby University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus purchased the old Coughlan house and renovated the 90+ year-old building. Vernon Park was renamed Arrigo Park in honor of life-long resident and Italian-American activist Victor Arrigo, and the old Italian neighborhood is now dominated by residents affiliated with the ever expanding university, or by people who just want to live in a thriving urban community.
See more of Coughlan and Macalaster Place at: William J. Onahan Rowhouses.
Posted by designslinger at 9/12/2011 3:37 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History
Tags: Near West Side Italianate architecture Irish American community Italian immigrant community
Categories: Architecture, History
Tags: Near West Side Italianate architecture Irish American community Italian immigrant community
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