Inland Steel Complex, East Chicago.
Time to pay another brief visit to Chicago in the early ’70s, a city we have paid a couple of visits to in the last year (Previous posts, HERE and HERE). Once again, the images belong to the UIC (University of Illinois) online collection and were taken between 1971-1975.
As for an intro to the images and city, how about borrowing these words about Chicago from CC reader VanillaDude:
“HOME! I can smell those bus fumes, hear the CTA tracks rumble, squeak and roar, feel the cold wind on my face and hear the crunchy black snow as I try to cross the streets! I can also hear the occasional metallic hum of studded snow tires…
As to autos, they were shades of Avocado green, rattled like a road train, and were made in either Detroit or Kenosha. They were rear drive and easily stuck in snow. The cars were low, wide, long and sported battering ram bumpers. Lots of the cars burned oil. Lots of cars leaked oil and anti-freeze. Lots of cars were missing mufflers or had rusting exhaust pipes tied with wire coat hangers… Chicago was ripe for an auto brand that stayed screwed together.”
Does that sound like Chicago in the early ’70s? Sure it does!
Gately’s People Store (blue sign), on Michigan Ave.
Loyola and Sheridan Station, North Sheridan Road.
Parking lot, Linden CTA Terminal.
Sedgwick Street and Sedgwick CTA station.
Prairie Shores Apartments, looking north along South Martin Luther King Drive.
West Loyola Avenue.
South Commercial Avenue and Immaculate Conception Church.
W. J. Saunders Office Supply Store on Ashland Avenue.
Paulina Street, north of Howard.
Downtown Elmhurst, from the Chicago and North Western Railroad station.
In the Sedgwick Street photo, the house right next to the tracks looks like the house Carol Hathaway on “er” bought .
Also love the Simca 1000 in the Linden CTA lot photo!
Yes, who was driving a Simca in 1970’s Chicago? Probably a pretty interesting person.
I visited the 1967 Chicago Auto Show as a kid, and I distinctly remember that Simca had a pretty large display, so I guess there was a “market” of sorts for them here…
Someone who worked for Chryco and got a *steep* employee discount when the sales push didn’t go as well as hoped, then?
Well, my family was driving one in 1970s Maryland and North Carolina. So why not Chicago? It was great in the snow!
The gray two flat, I lived there for three months after getting out of the Corps 1965, Born and raised on the South side; Chatham Grand Crossing Avalon Park.
Photo #1: We were talking about Jean Shepherd the other day; Shep worked at Inland Steel as a kid. Note the older cars in the parking lot–they were known as “mill cars”, i.e. old, virtually worthless cars that no one really cared about. They ran well enough just to get you to your job at the mill and back. Mill cars were known for their patina of surface rust caused by fallout from the steel mill’s smokestacks.
Photo #6: South Martin Luther King Drive (like Prairie Avenue) was once one of Chicago’s finest streets–it was originally called Grand Boulevard, then South Park Way, then MLK Drive. A few of the grand old Victorian mansions remain. Photo below is South Park Way & 37th in 1930s.
Opel in front of a Vega in front of a Bug on West Loyola. Bug seems to have been rode hard and put away wet. Three different approaches to small car design. Which would you choose ?
Interestingly, in this era I knew *three* people who had Renault 5’s aka “Le Car”… these were all “academics”… and the cars did not last very long in “rough” Chicago…
“Le Cars” didn’t last long in “not rough winter”, areas.
There’s an interesting Wikipedia history of the Gately’s Peoples Store in the southeast side Chicago Roseland neighborhood. When we were in St. Ethelreda Catholic grammar school in the 1960s on the southwest side of Chicago, Gately’s was the official place to buy our school uniforms.
The once – thriving Roseland neighborhood is now very much de – populated, it almost resembles streetscapes from the 2009 series “Life After People”… whole blocks have reverted to a wild “rural” milieu, a few ruined structures dotting the landscape:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People
“Life After People is a television series on which scientists, mechanical engineers, and other experts speculate about what might become of planet Earth if humanity suddenly disappeared…
The series’ episodes thematically offer examples of urban and biological decay. The focus is on specific locations such as skyscrapers, religious icons, bridges and dams, and government buildings, and the fate of certain related objects, such as artifacts, documents and human bodies…”
Second photo, camper top on a 67/72 straight side Chevy pickup, I would think that was unusual for down town Chicago.
The “Paulina Street, north of Howard” view is still largely the same, even that Certified grocery store on the left is still there. Years ago I worked at the Howard Area Community Center, which occupies the (now) converted storefronts beyond the “Auto Service” busines on the left (IIRC that business is still there). The street is now devoid, though, of most other businesses, as these have been replaced by homeless shelters, religious missions, Section 8 housing, and the like. This is now a *very* high – crime area, with gang shootings, drugs, etcetera even during weekday daylight hours – I once witnessed a gun murder around the corner on Howard Street on a sunny Spring Friday afternoon! So, not a safe place, and a major reason I sought emplyoment in a safer milieu (just to the north, in Evanston). IIRC many years ago this area was a major hub for Jewish – owned businesses and life…
At the time of the picture I worked at 1607 E. Howard St. It is depressing to think about what the area has become.
I moved to Chicago in August 1978, after finishing college, moving to the “East Lakeview” area just north of Diversey & Broadway. Of course, soon followed the infamous “Winter of 1978/79 Blizzard”, which paralyzed the city for weeks (and the inaction of then – Mayor Bilandic in dealing with the crisis led to the election of Mayor Jane Byrne)… travel by car was impossible for many days, as the snow was piled many feet high all over the place… even public transportation stopped for several days…
These pictures remind me of how “rough” much of the city then seemed, cars especially took a beating in the weather, and a shiny new car could turn into a rusty beater in a very short time…
Since then, a number of formerly “rough/working class” areas have gentrified, e.g. Wicker Park, Logan Square, “Boy’s Town” (formerly East Lakeview), even parts of Lincoln Park that were “sketchy” are wildly expensive. In the late 70’s even The Loop was declining, then by the 90’s it started to rebound, and became a showcase, with many thousands of affluent residents. The formerly grotty industrial West Side/Fulton Market area is now a frenzy of shiny new business/residential construction…
And I rarely see any rusty vehicles anymore; another thing I notice is that unlike in the late 70’s, there is now almost a total lack of rubbish on the streets/sidewalks… Chicago generally is just a much cleaner – looking place…
I agree. I first saw Chicago in 1979 and it impressed me as being very much like NYC in the 1970s. Gritty, trashed, and in many spots full of trash.
It’s been reflected upon here before, but most major American cities in the 1970s were decidedly beat up and run down and barely recognizable compared to their gentrified and cleaned up versions nowadays.
Loyola and Sheridan Station, North Sheridan Road:
There is a sign in the top left for First Commercial Bank auto loans of 1971. I would image the rate was just over 10% for a four year loan. Don’t think there were too many 5 or 6 year loans till later in the decade.
GM- I vividly remember that 78/79 winter. One of the most terrifying things I witnessed in that first winter was a city garbage truck with a v-plow flying down an alley with snow, ice, and anything else in the street flying in all directions at high velocity. I’m sure numerous vehicles were damaged as a result.
One things always been certain since the debacle that claimed Bilalandic’s mayoral career. The city ever since then has learned how to get rid of snow.
Yeah, that storm was SO tough on cars, many were buried for weeks, damaged by snow plow equipment, etc…. a few people simply abandoned their cars, as those older cars were pretty much totally trashed anyways… large parking lots were filled with these towed trashed vehicles…
That fall of ’78 I sold the ’75 Plymouth Duster I drove to Chicago with, as having a car was simply not worth the cost, and I could take the CTA anywhere I needed…
And Chicago now does an excellent job with snow removal. Remember, another dumb thing Bilandic did was stop CTA “L” and bus service to the poorer South Side Black areas becaue the tracks/streets were not plowed, this was enraging, and Byrne really, REALLY, harped on this failure… in a way it even led to Harold Washington’s election as the first Black Mayor a few years later….
Like the “ole Chrysler”, parked on “sth MLK Drive”. The shiny “stang” is beautiful!
Never mind the cars, these photos are all such a treat. I walk past the site of the Loyola Station at least a few times a month. To see that picture is such an amazing throwback. A Dodge Shadow I had written about here last year was photographed right under that same underpass / overpass.
I thought sure someone would mention that East Chicago is actually a city in the extreme northwest corner of Indiana. My law school roommate had worked as a union laborer at Inland Steel before he decided to go on to college. I looked just in case his red 70 Coronet or his red 75 Mustang II was there the day that picture was taken. 🙂
I was honestlty confused by that photo’s caption on the UIC collection, that seemed to refer to a Chicago train without making it clear if it was in Chicago. I almost didn’t include it, but I just couldn’t resist the Matador and the two Hornets on that shot.
Also on the Southside were the Frank’s Department stores. My mother would make one CTA trip a fall to thee store at 79th and Halsted. Many of her generation did so, out loyalty their reasons was that Franks was one of the few general merchandise stores which would take Depression Scrip at face value during the worst years of the depression.
https://chicagohistorytoday.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/chicago-then-and-now-halsted-79th/
https://geo.coop/articles/surviving-depression-community-money
Never knew about Depression Scrip till you mentioned it.
My dad’s family made it thru the depression because they has a small grocery store. Yet, he never mentioned Depression Scrip.
Thanks for the heads up!
Nice pictures and even better stories =8-) .
-Nate
That bank in Elmhurst with the giant clock on the front lasted into the early 2000s.
We’ve been having Arctic weather in Central Illinois this month. All it did was remind me of the joy of freezing in the Loop. Wool feels so good. Hot soup feels so wonderful. Exhaustion from shoveling for hours feels so comfortable. The bright sun refecting on the snow banks, the crisp icy blast of zero degree air, brings back wonderful memories of growing up on the South Side. Driving in Chicago back then required remarkable skills few kids have today. Cars didn’t start without cursing and prayers. Cars didn’t stop without sliding. So many winter driving skills I grew up using are totally foreign to my high schoolers today.
My grandma worked at Gately’s People Store. There was nothing else like it around. Goldblatts was cheaper, Fields and Carson’s was costlier, but Gately’s hit the bull’s eye for the good affordable stuff. It was our store. Seeing Grandma there was exciting. She was a great clerk.
The Chicago I knew is no more. The steel, the factories, the 24/7 punch clock shifts, the trains, the pollution, the smells are no longer. Sadly, nothing replaced them. It was good when America made American stuff. I hope to see that again. People need jobs.
Prairie Shores Apartments! I spent part of my early childhood there, between 1972 and 1976 when my dad was doing his residency at MIchael Reese.