Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Hup-town Hup-date

We've always admired the Egyptian/Art Deco building that houses Nick's Uptown (on Sheridan just north of Irving Park), so we were delighted to find out that it was an auto showroom in a former life. The building's been there since 1920, and it was where our Uptown ancestors went to buy their merry Hupmobiles. Read all about it here.

8 comments:

  1. A real treasure of a building. They just don`t make like this anymore.........

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  2. Is/was it in any way connected to the Reebie Storage/Moving building around Fullerton and Clark? It has the same Egyptian theme. And the building I used to work in on South Michigan ave (old Chicago Defender building) was also a former car dealership and also has some Egyptian touches to the building. What gives with the car dealerships and the Egyptians? Or were they all owned by the same guy?

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  3. P.S. I realize you probably don't have all the answers to this. Just asking...

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  4. Treasures from King Tut's tomb started to come to light in the 1900s and 1910s, and the tomb itself was discovered in the early 1920s; those events set off a worldwide fascination with Egyptology. (Same thing happened to a limited degree when the Tut Tomb museum exhibit toured the country in the 1970s and 1980s.) I'd imagine all the Egytian themed buildings that went up around that time reflected that fad. Take a look at the tombs in Graceland Cemetery to see more of the same... pyramids, obelisks, columns, etc.

    [taking history nerd hat off now]

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  5. It's amazing to discover the long-ago history of Chicago's automobile business. The Fine Arts Building was once the Studebaker Co., South Michigan Ave. once contained auto makers as well as dealers, and many Chicagoans are barely aware of the Ford factory in the Southeast side a/k/a Tenth Ward.

    And I'm amazed at how many newcomers to the city are unaware of Western Avenue's place in our history as the "go to" street for car dealerships! Sadly, many of them have been lost including the famous Z Frank (where I got a great deal on a used car in the 90's).

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  6. The Marmon Wasp once won the Indy 500 and featured the first rear view mirror. The Hupp Co. made cars until the depresion put them out of business. There is I think another former car dealership on Broadway near Gordon Terrace that was once a mechanics shop, it featured a circular ramp to the second floor as does (did) a building on the north side of Foster west of the el, as I recall - I stored a car there years ago.

    Gayle is right about South Michigan Ave. and I didn't know that about the Fine Arts Building, thanks. Years ago I photographed S. Michigan, there were still some of the great old buildings standing and one active Cadilac dealership. I think that EL Cord, the owner of Cord, Auburn and Dusenburg had a showroom down there.

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  7. In the 1930s, the building housed a restaurant known as Kristensen.

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  8. Before it was Nick's there was a liquor store/lounge that was so creepy it was funny. There was an surly asian woman who tended bar, a couple of pool tables, and a big screen showing porno films(!). The place was popular with latinos, who called it "La Redondo" maybe because it had a big circular lit recess in the ceiling.

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