Some photos along Augusta Boulevard, very near the building that houses the Museum.  Courtesy of Rosalie Bock

1) This is the “Count”  in front of 1339 W. Augusta. 

Behind him is 1337 W. Augusta, the leaner. 

Followed by the Garden and PRCUA. 

 2) Robert on steps of 1341 W. Augusta Blvd.

3) This is little Joe.  He escaped the Russians by jumping off a moving train.  He was about five feet tall, but big of heart.  I am including this photo so you can see the Garden, the pole in front of our door, and the beautiful one in the background.  The lights were globes that looked like moons.  This photo came from the early forties.

4) This is Busia giving Jerome a bath.  Then came Andrea, etc, etc.  in the yard next door to my house.

5) My Dad with his 1938 Dodge.  Standing in front of 1337 Augusta, looking West toward Noble Street where you can see the Settlement on the right.  (I am trying to give you a perspective of the street. )

 6) The “Urchin” at about 9 years old.  I am amazed that my knees are not all scabbed over….

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(Note: I will be posting some new photos below of the same perspectives as they appear today.

Rich)

Compare to 3) above.

Compare to 5) above.  Note house on the corner (left) with old street light and new street light in the same location.  Not seen in this photo are the two buildings on the far right in the old photo.  Both still exist and the one farthest to the right has an address of 1344 Augusta.  The PRCUA building was finished in 1913 and so is 40 or more years newer than the houses and buildings around it.

In the old photos you can see that the original first floors of the houses are below the sidewalk to varying degrees.  This area of Chicago was originally quite wet if not swampy.  In the 1870's, when the city tried to install sewers and water mains, they found that the water table was so high they could not put the devices in trenches under the original street level.  Instead, they leveled out the original streets and laid the new pipes on top, then built-up the street level the required amount.  This put the street level higher than the original first-floors of most of the houses.  Some people raised the houses and businesses, if they could afford to do so, but most did nothing.  Instead, many found ways of using the space under the sidewalk as storage.  The position of the first floor of the houses relative to the street level is one way of quickly estimating a building's age.

RK

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