Larry Shure

A watercolor painting of a blue door inset in a wall of peach colored brick. Parts of the brick wall are covered in fading and chipping white paint. Two pay phones are mounted on the wall, though only one of them still has a phone. A sign hangs above the door and reads “No Loitering by order of Chicago Police” in fading letters. A sliver of a larger garage door is seen to the right of the blue door.

Nationwide Hand Car Wash
3006 W Roosevelt Rd.
Chicago

Pen and watercolor illustrations of twelve homes in Chicago in a grid pattern.

More Tudor-revival style homes of Chicago...The series no one demanded!

Three of these illustrations were developed from black and white photos, so the colors are my best guess (and also based on surviving examples).

These were built by the City of Chicago in working class neighborhoods where a hot bath or shower wasn't guaranteed. The second-floor apartment was for the bath house attendant.

Rendering of a 1930 Skokie storage building, a Google photo from 2018 showing the same building worse for wear, and a 2025 Google photo showing the demolition site.

Scully Storage and Transfer Building over the years... 8105-8107 Skokie Highway. Rendering from irm-cta.org/NSL/Highball...

Color digital illustrations of four Chicago townhouses. Late modernist. Kinda angular. Originally published in the Ultra Local Geography Blog in 2019.

Some 1960s Chicago townhouses. Top to bottom: Pei & Weese (1969), Anderson & Battles (1967), Keck & Keck (1969), Tigerman & Koglin (1964).

Pointillist pen drawing of a Chicago electrical substation stone panel depicting a lightbulb with emanating rays.

Pointillist pen drawing of a Chicago electrical substation stone panel depicting four lightbulbs within a geometric grid, each emanating rays.

Pen drawings of Chicago substation stone details. Left is at 2950 E. 80th, and right is at 6910 N. Glenwood (now the Lifeline Theater).

Chicago commuters waiting under a bus shelter at the Grand and Central overpass in 1977.

This 1977 CTA publicity shot may not have made Chicago transit look as welcoming as intended...

Watercolor illustration of a small home.

Watercolor illustration of a small home.

Watercolor illustration of a small home.

Watercolor illustration of a small home.

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

No.

Watercolor paintings of multi-family housing in Chicago's Rogers Park and West Ridge neighborhoods along N. Ridge Blvd.

Mid-century housing in Chicago's Rogers Park and West Ridge neighborhoods. Watercolor and pen. #chiarchitecture

I think your theory is a good one, but I can’t identify the architect/developer. These were first advertised along with a few others in the late 60s and early 70s. The most similar one remains at 856 W. Lill. A few others look like they were replaced or altered.

Looks like an inexpensive version of the fortress townhouse! What street?

If you see this, post something orange.

An oil painting of the side of a grocery store. The words Pulaski Market hang above a row of windows filled with advertisements for aguacate, queso, and corn chips. The front of a red pick is visible along the curb, and a man in an orange shirt stands on the roof of the entrance, doing some work on the building.

North Pulaski Fresh Market
3850 W North Ave
Chicago

Creating a Historic Preservation starterpack! Comment or DM to be added, or let me know if I missed anyone.

go.bsky.app/D9w1NYJ

I’m always reserving space at our library. Something about working in one of those fishbowl rooms keeps me honest.

'warm wishes' written in the corner of a blue & white linework pattern of snow-day gear: puffy coats, sleds, hats, mittens, boots, hockey pads, ski's, coffee, bonfires, snowflakes, etc.

Alright, finally making the leap... (pic to test/send holiday wishes.)

The National Register nomination is basically 3 pages long! And zero historic images. Ah, the 1980s…

That’s a great idea! Although it seems to me the Kleenex should always be coming out of a chimney.

Partial elevation of the Forest Park Terminal in grey tones.

I just named a file "reversed floor plan probably not going to work out.psd." I guess I'm ready for the holiday break...

Black and white rendering of a conceptual design to replace the Loop 'L' tracks with new tracks and structure combined with a partially enclosed pedestrian mall.

Architectural section drawing showing the configuration of the new tracks, stations, and pedestrian mall/mezzanine.

CTA's "Aerial Galleria" considered in their 1974 Chicago Central Area Transit Plan. irm-cta.org/Documentatio...

Stumbled upon a streamline utopia in Riverside yesterday. All these plus a couple more within about a block of each other. Had there not been a depression/war to interrupt housing construction, perhaps we’d have whole neighborhoods of these all over.

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Probably. It was an inexpensive way to make a building a bit more imposing. But very susceptible to deterioration, so I’m sure many were lost or removed.

That’s a pretty unusual treatment in Chicago. There’s a similar false front at 1501 N. Milwaukee.

Not best practice. I’m guessing this is roofing material run up the back of the parapet and over the coping. It likely traps even more water in the brick…They could have just flashed under the coping to a drip edge at the back.

Georgian-style postwar homes in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago. Color and texture added digitally to ink drawings.

Some Georgians of West Ridge.

Aerial and perspective drawings of a triangular building in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood

Flatiron Buildings of Rogers Park, #3.

fingers crossed this is how the new chicago housing and economic development bond will work