Old Town, Chicago
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| Old Town Triangle Historic District | |
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| (U.S. Registered Historic District) | |
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| Location: | Chicago, IL |
| Built/Founded: | 1872 |
| Architect: | Multiple |
| Architectural style(s): | Italianate, Queen Anne, Other |
| Added to NRHP: | November 08, 1984 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 84000347 [1] |
| Governing body: | Local |
Old Town (sometimes called Old Town Triangle) is a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, bounded by Lincoln Avenue on the north, Division Street on the south, Halsted Street on the west, and Clark Street on the east.[2] It sits inside the community areas of Lincoln Park and the Near North Side, and is part of Chicago's 43rd ward.
It was settled in the 1850s by German immigrants and became a center of hippie culture in the 1960s. It is now an affluent gentrified neighborhood.
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[edit] History of Old Town
[edit] Early History
The land known as Old Town originally served as a home and trade center to many Nations including Potawatomi, Miami and Illinois.[2] Following the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, most of the indigenous people were forcibly removed, and the land was then settled in the 1850's by German-Catholic immigrants in the mid to late 19th century. Clark Street is a leftover of the culture, it being an old road which followed the high point next to Lake Michigan.
Old Town is today considered an affluent and historic neighborhood, home to many of Chicago's older, Victorian-era buildings. The neighborhood is also home to St. Michael's Church, originally a Bavarian-built church, and one of 7 to survive the path of the Great Chicago Fire[3]. Many of the streets and alleys, particularly in the Old Town Triangle section, predate the Great Chicago Fire and do not all adhere to a typical Chicago grid pattern.
In 1927, sculptors Sol Kogen and Edgar Miller purchased and subsequently rehabilited a house on Burton Place, near Wells Street, into the Carl Street Studios. Through the 1930s, an art colony emerged in the neighborhood as artists moved from the "Towertown" neighborhood near Washington Square Park.
[edit] Hippie Years
During the 1960s the neighborhood was the center of the yippie and hippie counter culture in the midwestern United States. This was mostly due to the fact that by the 1950s and 1960s many of the original families that had settled in the neighborhood had moved to the suburbs during white flight, leaving older, victorian buildings with storefronts available to rent for cheap. This dense storefront-laden area (Wells & North Ave.) became the nexus of hippie culture, (as well as the newly emerging out-homosexual culture) and gave rise to the boutiques (Crate and Barrel for example) in the neighborhood today. Seed Magazine was a literary staple of the neighborhood at the time.
| “ | There is a little piece of Chicago Real Estate, west of Lincoln Park, that is the pride of urban conservationists and the despair of bulldozers. It is a community widely known as Old Town...Old Town is full of conflict, full of life; a sometimes maddening but always exciting place to live...It is important to stress that there is no such legal entity as Old Town. Old Town is where you make it. | ” |
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— Richard Atcheson, Holiday Magazine March 1967
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The violent events that took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention transpired around the convention center, Grant Park, Old Town, and Lincoln Park, adjacent to Old Town.
| “ | I pointed out that it was in the best interests of the City to have us in Lincoln Park ten miles away from the Convention hall. I said we had no intention of marching on the Convention hall, that I didn't particularly think that politics in America could be changed by marches and rallies, that what we were presenting was an alternative life style, and we hoped that people of Chicago would come up, and mingle in Lincoln Park and see what we were about. | ” |
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— Abbie Hoffman, from the Chicago 7 trial
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The film The Weather Underground has a scene on La Salle Avenue in Old Town, which describes the Zeitgeist of the era.
During the 1960s and 1970's Old Town became the center of Chicago folk music featuring singer-songwriters such as Bob Gibson, Steve Goodman, Bonnie Koloc, and John Prine playing at several clubs on Wells Street, such as The Earl of Old Town, Somebody Else's Troubles, and the Quiet Knight. The Old Town School of Folk Music was closely associated with these artists and clubs.
As of 2006, a few of the institutions from the 1960s era still exist, such as The Second City, the Old Town Ale House, Bijou Video, the Old Town School of Folk Music (which moved after the 1968 riots), the Up Down Tobacco Shop and the Old Town Aquarium.
After the Martin Luther King assassination, and the subsequent riots [4], the neighborhood experienced a tense racial division during the 1970s and 1980s which left a de facto segregation between Old Town north of North Ave. and Old Town south of North Ave. In the early 2000s this trend has begun to shift towards a gentrification of the area south of North Ave. on Sedgwick, Blackhawk, Hudson and Mohawk streets, near the Marshall Field Garden Apartments. The area to the west of these streets, near the North and Clybourn Red Line stop has been dubbed "SoNo" by real estate developers.
[edit] Old Town Facts
- The Old Town Art Fair is one of America's oldest art fairs, having started in 1950.
- Portions of the film Return to Me were shot at Twin Anchors in Old Town.
- The Illegal Blues Brothers Bar operated in Old Town.
- A portion of The Hunter starring Steve McQueen was shot in Old Town at the Ravenswood El Station
- The Old Town Triangle area was designated a Chicago Landmark District in 1977
- Vi Daley is the current Alderman of Old Town
- Old Town has one Brown-Purple Line El station at 1536-40 North Sedgwick Avenue. It is one of the oldest standing stations on the 'L'.
[edit] Photo Gallery
 The intersection of North Ave. and Wells in 2006 |
 A building in Old Town built in the 1920s |
 Loews Theater at Pipers Alley |
 Home of a 19th century network engineer |
 A Marker |
 The Midwest Buddhist Temple [1], with St. Michael's visible in the upper right |
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 The exterior of the Up Down Tobacco Shop |
 A window display at the Up Down Tobacco Shop |
 The sign outside The Old Town Aquarium |
 A Plaque about Carl Street Studios on the Building itself |
[edit] Quote
'If you can hear the bells of St.Michaels, then you are in Old Town'.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ Old Town Merchants and Residents Association
- ^ Atcheson, Richard: "The Spirit of Old Town", page 67. Holiday Magazine, The Curtis Publishing Company, March 1967
[edit] External links
- Photos of Old Town
- Old Town Merchants and Residents Association.
- Abbie Hoffmans testimony at the Chicago 7 trial
- City Of Chicago landmark of Old Town
- Chicago Reader article about Old Town and gentrification
- The Old Town School of Folk Music
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