We aren't sure of the exact date of this photo, but assume its from the 1940s. The vantage point is Broadway looking north from the L tracks that cross at Leland. You can see the Uptown Broadway Building being constructed on the right, and the now vacant building that housed the Uptown Snack Shop on the left. (photo credit: Chicago Daily News Archives)Update: Looks like this photo is even older than we thought. The Uptown Broadway Building was constructed in 1926 and it clearly is not finished in this photo. We can assume that this is sometime in the mid 1920s.
Awesome pic, but I am guessing that this has to be early 30's.
ReplyDeleteYou may be right anonymous. A quick google search shows that the Uptown Broadway Building was constructed in 1926. We can then assume that this pic was made in the late 1920's. Even earlier.
ReplyDeleteMake that mid to late 1920s.
ReplyDeleteWasn't the Uptown Broadway Building built by Al Capone as his new headquarters before he got sent to prison?
ReplyDeleteI am sad that all traces of the Uptown Snack Shop are gone...gone...gone!
ReplyDeleteAn elderly man I used to work with remembers taking martial arts lessons at the old Buddhist temple at Leland and Racine as a kid, then everyone trooping over to the Uptown Snack Shop afterwards. Pity it's gone and esp. that nothing is there in its place.
ReplyDeleteA couple things strike me about this cool photo: LOVE the Riv's vertical marquee. And even though the old Hotel at the NW corner of Leland and Broadway had to be torn down for the new complex, it looks like Freed did a great job of replicating the old exterior.
Cool picture! Ooh, the gridlock! ;-)
PS -- is that a big sign advertising an UNDERTAKER at the Uptown Broadway Building!?
ReplyDeleteas an old movie house fan, i too am loving the vertical sign on the riv. it also appears to me that there is some sort of scaffolding where the uptown theatre was built, so i'm guessing that the pic is from sometime before the theatre opened in 1925.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't scaffolding, it's the rooftop sign seen in these two photos:
Deletehttp://i.imgur.com/gN6oQJd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2qZSHtJ.jpg
What appears to be scaffolding on the Uptown Theatre is the framing for a sign on the roof that faced south. I think the theatre had been finished when this photo was taken.
ReplyDeleteIf you type in 'Uptown Theatre' in google images, there is a picture on the second page that shows a huge sign spelling out Uptown the top of Uptown Theatre. What a beautiful image that must have been upon entering the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteAre all these historic images you're posting from the Wilson Avenue: Uptown Union Station book?
ReplyDeleteNo, this particular photo is not. It was sent to us by a reader who said they found it on the Chicago Daily News archives.
ReplyDeleteThe Uptown Theatre opened in August of 1925 and the Broadway building was built in 1927. The Plymouth Hotel, where Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson stayed when they were filming at Essanay Studio, was renamed the Uptown Hotel in 1926. So, I would venture to guess that the photo was taken sometime in 1926 or in 1927 before construction began on the Broadway building.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing photos of 1920s Uptown. I'm especially fond of printing them and comparing them with how the same spot looks now.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing to notice is that the Uptown Bank building was shorter. The additional floors had not been added.
ReplyDeleteI think you are wrong about the building on the right being the Uptown Broadway Building. I think it is a little further south. The buildings immediately to the south are in the space now occupied by the bank drive through and the parking lot.
I'm pretty sure the building with the "Klaner, Undertaker" sign is where the Uptown Broadway Building is now. Then there's that little road just to the north of it that's now between the UBB and the parking lot of the bank. In the picture, there's a little round-corner building there that's gone now. That's where the drive-through is for the Bridgeview Bank.
ReplyDeleteIf you blow the picture up (my browser lets me go up to 400%), you can see the bank building has a sign on top that says "Sheridan Trust and Savings Bank Building." I'd always known it as Uptown Bank, so it's cool to know it had another name long before it was Bridgeview.
Even then the bank building had that slab side facing south, where the giant blue B is painted now.
It makes me wonder if the photographer was standing on the el tracks over Broadway, at Leland, to take the picture.
I love all the cars with their spare tires strapped to the backs. ;-) Just a cool, cool piece of Uptown history.
I was wrong about the Uptown Broadway building being farther south. I just went by there and you did correctly identify the location.
ReplyDeleteThe Sheridan Savings Bank was originally in the building that is at the end of the Borders at the intersection of Sheridan and Racine. The top of the building had quite a large cornice. When they rehabbed the building, they found it out at a farm I believe, but the owner wanted way too much so no cornice piece was reinstalled.
If you go into the main entrance of the Bridgeview Bank building and look up at the grill work, you will se an S that identified it with the Sheridan Savings bank before it became Uptown National Bank.