Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative

A unique conjoined cottage, but now one of the triplets has gone rogue

Dusk view of a Pilsen workers cottage with a rustic black & white permastone facade

Friday night sodium streetlights spotlighting today’s #FlintstonesFriday Permastone facade cottage

Developer A.J. Stone letter to the editor printed in the April 14, 1895 Chicago Tribune titled "Sly Dig at Deserters" who moved to the fashionable South Side after the Columbian Exhibition

A.J. Stone was committed to the West Side: "I have lived here twenty-seven years, and find congeniality and sociability to be the features of the West Side of the city."

Dilapidated cottage with broken window, boarded up doors, crumbling brick, and random patches of brown paint. Originally red brick, which is visible at the left, the facade is covered in tan and orange Permastone, which has been painted white on the first floor.

Pencil drawing of the building in the previous photo, done with varying degrees of success.

I drew a thing.

Some of the group of 28 handsome gambrel-roof cottages built in 1906-1907 for developers A.J. Stone & Co.

House with circular staircase up to an attic door.

Pulaski

dang pour one out for this lil cutie

Milwaukee workers cottage in a summer daydream

Dusk view of a workers cottage lit up by colored lights at the back of a sunken yard with an icy snowbank

A bit of lingering snow and Christmas lights while we are waiting for spring

worker’s cottage built 1881, photographed in 2016

1880s worker’s cottages, photographed in 2018

survivors of the original village of Central Park, settled after 1873 opening of C&NW railroad shops (from "Block by Block: Neighborhoods & Public Policy on Chicago's West Side", Amanda I. Seligman)

1870s unique worker’s cottage once stood here at 4236 West Carroll Avenue, demolished after 1984, and was Orange-rated in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey. Details like Gothic windows, overhanging eave and rectilinear window hoods.

Two 1.5-story brick cottages. The one on the left has a Dutch gable roof. The facade is clad in brick in various shades of gray. There is an arched window in the gable with two small rectancgular windows on either side. There are crowned with a stone arch with a central medallion. The house on the right is red brick with a classic gable roof. The windows in the gable are similar to those on the house next door, although the stone trim has been painted white.

Two store brick residence or light orange brick. There are small arched windows in the gable and three larger arched windows on the second floor. There are all trimmed with red brick arches and there are stripes of red brick in the very peak of the gable. There is a Greek-style portico, featuring a pediment and two Ionic columns, painted white.

1.5-story orange brick cottage with a gable roof. All of the trim, the stairs, and the portico are painted maroon. There is a cornice with brackets and dentils running along the gable.

Brick cottages in Lawndale and Little Village, Chicago.

If This Cottage Could Talk: What stories can your house tell you? house history workshop on April 4, 2026, 2pm at McKinley Park Library community room

Have you ever wondered who lived in your house in the past? Come to our free workshop to learn how to research the history of Chicago houses, with a focus on workers cottages. RSVP at workerscottage.org/events.html

I adopted my dog here.

Dusk view of a brick workers cottage underneath an enormous billboard

Hidden behind Whirlyball and under a billboard is the last survivor of a group of 10 cottages built in 1882 by developer James M. Allen

1-story brick workers cottage below street level surrounded by taller houses and apartments in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood

Shorty hiding behind a fence in Pilsen

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Cottage house beneath a streetlight surrounded by empty lots on a winter night

Built in the early 1880s, this cottage on Elston once was surrounded by cottage neighbors but now stands alone

Rare photo capture of a cottage sprouting into a two-flat

The frame houses to its south were replaced by a block of apartments in the 80s, and cottage neighbors on the north disappeared one by one in the 2000s, but this lone cottage still stands proud

1.5-story orange brick cottage with a bay on the left. The best part is the stepped parapet wall, which zigzags upward to an arch.

Do you like my crown? 1326 S. Homan, Chicago. Built in 1902.

A one block snow covered street lined with leafless trees during a snowstorm. Bungalows and 2 flats are on each side. Cars covered in snow are parked on both sides of the street and tire tracks are visible in the middle of the road. A person is snowblowing the sidewalk on the right.

W 34th Pl, Chicago
#scape #cityscape #Chicago
#ColorADay #BWFri

#FlintstonesFriday with an H for Hubbard Street

The cottages in the foreground were torn down to build a gas station by the 1940s, later the whole block was replaced by Kingsley Elementary in 1967

Street corner with a manhole cover in the lower right that says "Chicago sewer." A row of brick cottages with gabled roofs vanishes into the distance at right. The street signs say Karlov and Augusta.

#ManholeCoverMonday Chicago

Google Streetview of the property with PIN10 1609204016: 4846 West Superior Street

4846 West Superior Street

Built 1879

Ferdinand Street is one of my favorites in Chicago, and will probably be the name of my next pet or first-born child (also considering Haddon, Stetson, and Ontario lol)

Wonder what the original woodwork trim looked like before it was covered by siding

A cottage with a nervous grin. What's it been up to? @pareidolia.bsky.social