Renovation of Historic Bridgeport Theater Starts
We’ve been fans of the Ramova Theater ever since we first caught of whiff of its funk while walking down South Halsted one autumn day in 2004. The stench of decay and hopelessness made us look up from our Bridgeport News, cross the street, and spend a few minutes standing in the sun-crisped leaves sizing it up. Our summary at the time: She’s a character actor of architecture. One of those pieces that looks a dog’s...
Bridgeport Church Seeks Preservation, While Lincoln Park Holy Site Heads to Demolition
The news about the dwindling number of Chicago holy places is mixed this week. On Thursday (June 3, 2021), the Commission on Chicago Landmarks will consider two proposals related to the city’s religious history. Monastery of the Holy Cross (via Apple Maps) In Bridgeport, the Monastery of the Holy Cross is up for landmark status. It’s the former Immaculate Conception Church on the corner of 31st Street and Aberdeen that...
Ramova Rebirth Gets Real With Round of City Paperwork
In what is perhaps the best thing to happen to Bridgeport since free range gluten-free beard conditioner, plans have been filed with the city to resurrect the Ramova Theater. The Ramova Theater (courtesy of Artefaqs stock photography) The Ramova is one of dozens of old performance spaces scattered across Chicago that were formerly hubs for their neighborhoods, providing entertainment, information, and places where people could go...
Bridgeport’s Spiegel Building Back in Play: People Out, Business In
We’ve spent many a frozen winter’s eve standing at the corner of West 35th Street and South Morgan Street waiting for the #35 bus to carry us home. Being in that place, it’s hard not to look at the handsome, yet abandoned, Spiegel Catalog Administration Building with the same admiration that our mothers had when leafing through the actual catalog way back when. For a building forsaken as long as it has been, Herr...
A Cold Bridgeport Welcomes Studio Gang’s Hot Boathouse
On a cold Sunday morning, Bridgeport and the 11th ward welcomed two firsts: the first snow of the season, and the shiny new Eleanor Boathouse. The metal clad boathouse stands out as a new public icon in the ever-changing South Side neighborhood. Located in a brand new public park, Park 571 (2860 South Eleanor Street), the boathouse is intended to create new connections between the Chicago Parks District, Chicago Public Schools...
A Closer Look at Bronzeville’s New Pedestrian Connection
Editor’s Note: Earlier this month we told you that CDOT opened a new suspension bridge linking Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood with the Lake Michigan shore. For a closer look a the project, we turn to Chicago Architecture’s resident bridge expert, Patrick McBriarty. You’ve probably seen him on TV or heard him on the radio lately, as there are few people who know more about the city’s bridges. The long...
New Boathouse May Be the Beachhead Bridgeport Needs
When any neighborhood starts to turn around in Chicago, it needs a beachhead. A physical symbol of the future of the neighborhood so large and so impressive that it signals a point of no return. Think Aldi and Target in Uptown. Or 1K Fulton in West Town. Or Kingsbury Plaza in River North. In Bridgeport, that beachhead may well be the Studio Gang-designed boathouse now under construction at 2754 South Eleanor Street. It’s the...
White Sox Hang Up on U.S. Cellular, Score Points With Mortgage Company
Four years after U.S. Cellular exited the Chicago market (but still kept its headquarters here), the mobile phone company’s name is going to come off of the White Sox’ ballpark. Effective November first, U.S. Cellular Field becomes Guaranteed Rate Field, named for the mortgage company that ponied up untold millions of dollars for the naming rights to the south side stadium through 2029. Removing the U.S. Cellular...
Another Residential Growth Spurt Coming to Bridgeport
For the last few years we’ve been telling you about the Lexington Homes development in Bridgeport. It’s been taking vacant, formerly industrial, land around West 37th and South Morgan Streets and transforming expanses of concrete slabs and weeds into a very nice looking single-family neighbrohood. This is an area on the edge of what used to be the infamous Chicago Stockyards, and was laid out as block after block of...
Historic, Abandoned Bridgeport Spiegel Building Turns a Page
The former Spiegel Administration Building may get a third shot at redevelopment, according to a recent report in DNAinfo Chicago. We first became interested in the building at 1038 West 35th Street several years ago when we picked up an architecture photography client within sniffing distance of Bubbly Creek. On the way back to the office from long days of shooting we often found ourselves contemplating the building as we stood...
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Fulton River District In Line For Another Skyscraper January 30, 2022 -
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