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This house in the southwest part of Pilsen dates to 1892. The dripstones above the doors and windows are painted to bring out the ornaments etched into the stone, a common feature in buildings of this vintage. I know little else about the house, but the street it's on is a curiously short block of Seeley, which exists here only between 23rd Street and the alley paralleling the diagonal Coulter to the south. Indeed, this short and narrow little street used to be known as Kroll Place before it was changed to Seeley to provide more citywide grid consistency. When built, this house bore the address 22 Kroll Place. This is the first time I've ever successfully looked up an old address on a street that also changed names. Unfortunately, none of its past addresses turn up in Tribune files. [blogged]

dripstone detail

This elaborate terra cotta house stands at 5652 North Virginia, where Hollywood runs into the North Shore Channel. Oversized windows and elaborate ornamentation differentiate it from other nearby houses in the Peterson Park neighborhood (part of the West Ridge community area). It is prominently visible from the North Shore Channel Trail and adjacent parks, with its central tower commanding attention.

Unfortunately, I can learn little about the house. The Chicago Historic Resources Survey, which rates the house orange (potentially significant), doesn't fully identify the architect, and almost certainly reflects the wrong date of construction. The architect is listed simply as "Klafter." There seem to have been two architects working in Chicago around the same time by that last name, David Saul Klafter and Joseph H. Klafter. I have found relatively little about either, including whether they were related. The database also indicates that the house was built in 1938, which seems unlikely for a number of reasons. Tax records reflect a much more plausible date of construction, 1928.

[blogged]

detail

Built 1940