The trend towards municipal parking in North American cities began around 1950, and can be regarded as an effect of postwar prosperity and increasing automobile use. Off-street parking, which until this time had been a private enterprise, was likely taken on by cities as an extension of and a supplement
While other large old cities (especially New York) seemingly have many remnants from different eras of street signage, the “city that works” has been relentless in replacing old street signs. Before the 1970s, Chicago’s street signs were awash in a distinctive yellow color with black text. These well known
This page focuses on the variety of old telephone numbers that begin with two and three letter prefixes. In theory, there are smaller four and five digit telephone numbers that would have been used prior to 1892. I highly doubt any of those will be floating around. From 1892 to
Modern day Chicago’s streets and alleys consist primarily of asphalt pavement. Numerous examples in older parts of the city can still be found paved with Belgian block from the late 19th and early 20th century. However, before Belgian block became common, there were many different pavement methods with wildly
In the 1970s, Chicago and the State of Illinois embarked on a plan to place parks on undeveloped land remaining after the creation of the expressway system. Under the so-called Expressway Property Development plan, the city leased sites along expressways from the Illinois Department of Transportation to create parks. While