## 2. Milwaukee Avenue and Chicago Avenue Intersection, Looking Southeast, 1910, Chicago Avenue in the Foreground

Around most intersections of major streets a local or regional shopping district sprang up. Emanating from these intersections were dense ribbons of commercial structures. This photo was taken at the peak of the area's recorded population; in the next decade it declined measurably, though still maintaining a large number of foreign born.

(Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.)

## 1. Air View of Carl Schurz High School, Milwaukee Avenue and Addison Street

When the Milwaukee Avenue and Irving Park Road street car lines were extended into this area in the first decade of the twentieth century, a building boom ensued. In 1905, the Chicago Board of Education appointed Dwight H. Perkins as its chief architect, "and thus pioneered in the adoption of a modern American architecture." In 1909, Perkins' design was incorporated into the Carl Schurz High School; it has been called his "masterpiece." A highly functional design, "the spreading plan and the placing of the building well back from the streets on spacious lawns represent a happy solution to the problem of orientation for light and air and reasonable freedom from the noise of traffic." This picture was taken in the 1930's and captures the surrounding neighborhood setting of the school, with its mixture of three-story apartments, double-deckers and single-family dwellings.

## 3. Milwaukee and Ashland Avenues, Northwest, 1911

Further out from the downtown was this intersection, within a predominantly Polish area, and only two blocks from St. Stanislaus Kostka church and school. Though the Poles constituted the major ethnic group, there still was a general cosmopolitan air about this area with its restaurants and social clubs representing many nationalities.

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Figure 1.5
Plan of North Michigan Avenue, Plan of Chicago (1909); Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett, architects. Reprinted from the Plan of Chicago (New York, 1970).