Uptown Square Historic District

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Uptown Square Historic District
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LocationRoughly along Lawrence Ave., and Broadway, Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates 41°58′05″N87°39′26″W / 41.96806°N 87.65722°W / 41.96806; -87.65722 Coordinates: 41°58′05″N87°39′26″W / 41.96806°N 87.65722°W / 41.96806; -87.65722
Area38 acres (15 ha)
NRHP reference # 00001336 [1]
Added to NRHPNovember 8, 2000

The Uptown Square Historic District is a commercial historic district encompassing parts of Broadway and Lawrence Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Primarily developed between 1900 and 1930, the district was Chicago's largest commercial and entertainment hub away from downtown in the early twentieth century. The opening of Wilson station on the Northwestern Elevated Railroad spurred the area's development, as the transit line made Uptown's beaches an accessible tourist destination for the rest of the city. Many stores, restaurants, theaters, and clubs sprang up to cater to the area's new tourists, and it soon became a destination for young, single Chicagoans seeking entertainment. The district includes several prominent entertainment venues, including the Balaban and Katz-run Uptown Theatre and Riviera Theatre, the Aragon Ballroom, and the Green Mill nightclub. [2]

Broadway is a major street in Chicago's Lake View, Uptown, and Edgewater community areas on the city's North Side, running from Diversey Parkway to Devon Avenue. Originally called Evanston Avenue, the name of the street was changed to Broadway on August 15, 1913 as part of 467 road name changes enacted on that date. The new name was taken from New York City's famous theater district. The street runs at a mostly southeast-to-northwest diagonal direction between Diversey Parkway and Lawrence Avenue. Between Lawrence Avenue and Devon Avenue, Broadway runs in a north-to-south direction and becomes 1200 West in place of Racine Avenue. The north-south section of Broadway is located a half-block west of and parallel to the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line and Purple Line elevated train tracks. Broadway carries U.S. Route 14 from its terminus at Foster Avenue to the intersection of Ridge and Bryn Mawr Avenues. Broadway is the only street in the city of Chicago that does not have a suffix. It is neither Street, Avenue, Road, Boulevard nor Parkway; known simply as Broadway.

Uptown, Chicago Community area in Chicago

Uptown is one of Chicago, Illinois’ 77 community areas. Uptown's boundaries are Foster Avenue on the north; Lake Michigan on the east; Montrose, and Irving Park on the south; Ravenswood, and Clark on the west. To the north is Edgewater, to the west is Lincoln Square, and to the south is Lake View.

Chicago city and county seat of Cook County, Illinois, United States

Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,705,994 (2018), it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the US, with portions of the northwest side of the city extending into DuPage County near O'Hare Airport. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland. At nearly 10 million people, the metropolitan area is the third most populous in the nation.

The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 8, 2000. [1]

National Register of Historic Places Federal list of historic sites in the United States

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.

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Paramount Theatre (Denver) United States historic place

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Villa District United States historic place

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Uptown Broadway Building United States historic place

The Uptown Broadway Building is a historic three-story building at 4703–4715 North Broadway in Uptown, Chicago. Built in 1926, it was designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager and is known for its ornate terra-cotta facade, depicting ancient gods, rams' heads, shields, helmets, birds, fruits, and trophies. Lynn Becker of the Chicago Reader has called the exterior "a riotous, Spanish-baroque-inspired hallucination". According to unconfirmed local legends, Al Capone operated a speakeasy in the building's basement.

Andersonville Commercial Historic District United States historic place

The Andersonville Commercial Historic District is a historic district in Chicago, Illinois. It runs from 4800 North Clark Street to 5800 North Clark Street in the city's Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods. The area was once home to a heavily Swedish American community, which settled there in the years following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

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West Argyle Street Historic District United States historic place

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Grand Hotel (New York City) United States historic place

The Grand Hotel is located at 1232–1238 Broadway at the corner of West 31st Street in the NoMad neighbourhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1868 and was designed by Henry Engelbert in the Second Empire style. Englebert designed the hotel for Elias S. Higgins, a prosperous carpet manufacturer and merchant, who had also utilized Engelbert's services to put up a marble-fronted warehouse on White Street near Broadway, and would go on to employ him to design the Grand Central Hotel as well.

There are 67 sites in the National Register of Historic Places listings in West Side, Chicago, out of more than 350 listings in the City of Chicago. The West Side is defined for this article as the area north of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, south of Fullerton Avenue, west of the Chicago River and east of the western city limits. One site, Logan Square Boulevards Historic District, spans a border and is included also in listings on the North Side. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Historic District extends through Cook County west of Chicago, DuPage County and Will County to Lockport.

Logan Square Boulevards Historic District United States historic place

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Buena Park Historic District United States historic place

The Buena Park Historic District is a residential historic district in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. First developed in the 1890s, the district was originally planned to be an upper-class suburban neighborhood of Chicago with spacious homes. Development in the early twentieth century made the neighborhood denser, and while it was still a wealthy neighborhood by 1930, it featured many apartment buildings as well. The district's houses reflect Chicago's architectural development at the turn of the century; while its nineteenth-century homes have Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival designs, its twentieth-century houses exhibit newly popular styles such as the Prairie School and Classical Revival. The district's apartment buildings were designed in part to match the character of its houses, as doing so portrayed a sense of luxury and domesticity to its affluent residents; as a result, they largely used the same styles as the twentieth-century homes and often included courtyards to replace lawns.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
  2. Britton, Marge; Kaarre, Doug; Meyers, Diane; Schlater, Angela; Tangora, Martin; Connors, Jennifer (June 9, 2000). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Uptown Square Historic District" (PDF). Illinois Historic Preservation Division . Retrieved November 9, 2019.