Let me bring you along for today's Sunday obsession: trying to determine the original owner of this unusual house at 76th & East End in South Shore. It appears to predate its brick bungalow neighbors by about 50 years, it's substantial in size, and there's very little info about it online.

RELIEF VALVE ON

After baseball, I passed through downtown Benton Harbor, which has seen better days. The former House of David Hotel, which the colony ran from 1931 to 1974, was reportedly under contract to a developer earlier this year.

University of Chicago, 1927

wrote about the color line at oak woods cemetery and the try-everything activist approach that finally desegregated it, featuring marshall bynum, helma mcbowe, and a.r. leak plus, harold washington’s gravesite as a prize www.postcard-past.com/chapel-crema...

Lancer Clothing Store (1970s; 1980s) 752 Franklin Ave. E Source: Hennepin County Library

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because i am an insufferable weirdo i decorated my dining room with a bootleg diy lewitt

Windy City La Villita, Chicago

2-flat at 4229 N. Winchester in 2024 and yesterday. They're making it *more* goth neoclassical, right? (nervously) Right?

This may be the house featured in this 1912 Chicago Examiner ad by Mills & Son which built nearly 400 cottages in the blocks west of Pulaski between Chicago & Division around 1910-1914

The adorable Hurlburt Towers of West Ridge. Described in the Chicago Tribune in 1929 as "suggestive of an English castle with turrets and other medieval paraphernalia" by a writer apparently sick of coming up with new ways to describe Tudor stuff. Architect: Edward Nordlie & Co, 1930

4901 Searle Parkway, Skokie IL. 1941, Herbert Banse

If you're in or near Minneapolis and need a break from *gestures broadly* I'd like to recommend going to the Mary Sully: Native Modern at MIA. It's gorgeous and admission is free and I've been thinking about it for almost a week now. It closes on the 21st, so don't put it off.

A lot on my mind lately

Ignored the Bears game and took a stroll through the Lakeview Arts Fest on a sunny fall afternoon.

Current* conditions near Empire, MI:

Same color combo brilliant in terra cotta too. 5354-58 N. Kimball (Edward P. Steinberg, 1928-29)

lake forever problems for now

More of the same. This was a popular pattern around here in the 20's, this time in cream green and pink.

Another Elgin gem

Lil' half-timbering treat for the weekend, 1315 W. Albion (ca. 1911, Harry E. Stevens)

The 1893 concession stands were an incubator for businesses and the arts for 70 years in Hyde Park and created a community of creative support. When people say the Hyde Park Art Colony, they often mean just them and they were indeed an essential element in forging the colony.

2115 S. Millard, Chicago. Probably built in the late 1880s. It reminds me a bit of the Cicero Hine cottages on Berkeley and Claremont, but the architect for this one remains a mystery to me. Map is from 1896 when the address was 952 Millard.

While lost in the suburbs (default suburban mode), stumbled upon the otherworldly St. John Brebeuf, designed by Gaul & Voosen, opened in 1966.

Some fancy sparrows have a nice little A-frame at the CTA depot on Foster in Chicago.

Delgado Shoe Store 3504 W 26th Ave. Chicago

This block of Artesian south of Ardmore is a pretty flawless example of classic Chicago two-flats

2265 CHICAGO, DETROIT, MI, 48206

Heroic stuff going on in Beverly

Motor Row is full of the brick & motor ghosts of brands that blazed bright for a moment, then disappeared. Marmon required this gorgeous building to showcase their luxury vehicles for just a few short years before being felled by the Depression. Architect: Alfred Alschuler, 1922 📸 buff.ly/K0kQtpV

Pledging fealty to the castle at the end of 4230-38 S. Michigan (1916-17, Paul F. Olson)

Trade catalog illustrations “Elevator Cars / Elevator Entrances” The Tyler Company Cleveland, Ohio 1927 These images (and many more): Association for Preservation Technology via @archive.org; archive.org/details/Elev...

Chicago, Ukrainian Village, Sept 2025

Storefront for the modern condition.

Chicago, an exquisite ballroom full of beautiful architectural outfits

It's quite beautiful and the stone carving is amazing.

Will always post the Fish Furniture Building on Lawrence

Some mid-century homes in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood rendered in watercolor and ink.

Real nerds know that this downspout/bay configuration is a signature of Guske & Foster, who designed this beaut at Artesian & Rosemont during Peak Chicago Tudor Revival, in 1929.

Trying to draw @dennisrodkin.bsky.social out of Bluesky hibernation with the bathroom at 6628 N. Bosworth, permitted in 1914. www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

Happy birthday, Daniel Burnham! His grave in Graceland Cemetery is on the left. The glorious St. Gabriel's Church at 45th and Wallace in Chicago is at right. Built in 1888 by Burnham and Root. It was even more glorious before the tower was shortened.

Hey, curvy buddy! 1020 N. Kolmar in sketch w/ 1938 article announcing huge factory for Chicago Molded Products Corp., designed by industrial architects extraordinaire Howard F. Colburn & Associates.

I was excited today to receive my copy of “Jun Fujita: Behind the Camera” by Graham Harrison Lee, a beautiful new book about the groundbreaking Chicago photographer. hatandbeard.com/products/fuj...

Visiting an old friend in Albany Park.

16739 SHAFTSBURY, DETROIT, MI, 48219

Chicago forever problems for now

Marvelous midcentury staircase at 216 Madison St., Waukegan (1965).

Architects Max Cable & Alexander Spitz are best known for a bunch of bangers in the Tudor Revival stronghold that is the far north side, but they also brought their magic to South Shore in 1928.