Sarah Buys & Sells
  • Real Estate
  • Client Reviews
  • Real Estate & History Blog
  • Architectural Photography
  • Website Design
  • Video Design
  • Contact

Real Estate
&
History Blog

What is Modern Interior Design...in 1947.

2/24/2016

0 Comments

 
I love this booklet.  It was from a Museum of Modern Art's 1947 exhibit, Modern Rooms of the Last Fifty Years.
Picture
Here is what is not modern interior design but maybe at their respective times, maybe they were considered modern:
What do you think about these now?  
0 Comments

What do these two have to do with each other?

2/17/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
As you may know, I have a thing for real estate trivia and humor.   So fasten your nerd hat on your head and check this out.   

Look at the aerial photo on the left.  First, see that helicopter?  That is a commuter helicopter service that used to go between Winnetka, Meigs Field, Midway Airport and O'Hare....but that's not the story here.

The important part of the photo is what's missing around the Prudential Building?  Lot's of things like the Standard Oil Building (now AON Building), the Blue Cross Blue Shield Building, Illinois Center plus a zillion new condo buildings.  Instead in their place are parking lots and tons of train tracks.  How did all those buildings get built where the tracks are? 

The man on the right is Arthur Rubloff, literally a Hall of Fame Member of the Illinois Association of Realtors.   He had the vision of air rights.  He decided that he could negotiate to purchase the space above a space to build on this upper level.  It happens all the time now but not then.   This was way out there. 

Rubloff negotiated with the city and state to basically build a huge platform above all those tracks and parking lots.  They didn't have to move at all.   Rubloff just made it possible to build thousands of square feet of office, retail and residential space in thin air.  

Pretty powerful realtor, huh?
0 Comments

What the heck is that doing here?!?!

2/15/2016

1 Comment

 
So say you're driving down Cermak Rd just west of  Chicago around Cicero Avenue.   You'd see something you can see basically all over America - a big strip mall with a Taco Bell, a dollar store and lots of similar businesses.  
Picture
BUT wait a sec - what the heck is a medieval tower doing behind it?!?!
Picture
Picture
Picture
Let me explain.    You are looking at the tower that once belonged to the enormous Western Electric Hawthorne Works.   (Guess what the name of the strip mall is today by the way?   Hawthorne Works Shopping Center.)    Anyway, around the late 1920's and early 1930's, this plant was where most of the country's telephone equipment was made.  The plant covered 200 acres and employed thousands.
Picture
Western Electric Hawthorne Works
Picture
And here we see that the tower was the plant's water tower.
1 Comment

What the heck is an airplane hangar doing in Northbrook?

2/2/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
455 Anthony Trail, Northbrook Today
Northbrook might be the place to head to go shopping or to play golf but usually I don't think to go there to go fly in an airplane.  If it was 1929 though I really could.
Picture
The same building in 1929.
Picture
The same building in 1937.
Funny story - during training for WWII, many a Glenview Naval Air Station trainee pilot would mistake Sky Harbor's runways for the naval base's, just south east of here.    When this happened, most often the plane was too large to safely take off from Sky Harbor's runways.  So mechanics from GNAS would have to drive over to Sky Harbor and strip the plane of nearly all fuel and all its armament to lighten it for a safe takeoff.
Picture
THEN:
Picture
NOW:
For more great information on Chicago's old airfields, go to www.airfields-freeman.com.   It's an amazing site!
0 Comments

    Archives

    February 2024
    August 2023
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    January 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    Categories

    All
    Evanston
    Glencoe
    Highland-park
    Kenilworth
    Lake Bluff
    Lake Forest
    Morton Grove
    Skokie
    Wilmette
    Winnetka

    Author

    Sarah Rothschild, Realtor & Architectural History Nerd.

    RSS Feed

Picture
Sarah Rothschild reviews
Picture
Picture
[email protected]
847/361.9057
© 2025   Sarah J Rothschild
Photo from Danijel J
  • Real Estate
  • Client Reviews
  • Real Estate & History Blog
  • Architectural Photography
  • Website Design
  • Video Design
  • Contact