Wicker Park District

“The first extensively built-up streets in the Wicker Park development were Evergreen Avenue, Damen Avenue south of Schiller, and Schiller Avenue west of Damen. The earliest structures are generally consistant in size, scale, and design with those found in the immigrant laboring-class neighborhoods to the south and east, characterized by cottages and small apartment buildings (Figures 4 and 5).”

“The historic ethnicity of Wicker Park is one of the most pervasive and distinguishing elements of the area's architecture. Within the formal stylistic grammar of the late nineteenth century, area builders constructed houses which bear the unmistakable imprint of the German and Scandinavian immigrants who first occupied them.”

“Developed later than the larger West Town area that surrounds it, the physical character of Wicker Park reflects the gamut of the social and economic attainments of first-and second-generation immigrants to the United States.”

“He invested heavily in the Dakota Southern Railway and by 1876 was president of the company, Charles G. Wicker died while overseeing a development project in Newport, Florida, on December 26, 1889.”

“In Wicker Park, one example of Classical Revival is the large limestone-fronted house at 2134 West Pierce, built in 1904 by Dr. Joseph R. Noel. The building's massiveness is offset somewhat by the porch's stone columns and crowning balustrade, the second-floor window keystones, and the dormers ornamented with triangular pediments.”

“Wicker Park reached residential maturity sometime around the turn of the century. At the time, it was the affluent center of a large and lively network of immigrant neighborhoods that were densely populated and ethnocentrically active.”

“The house built by wood milling executive Hans Runge at 2138 Pierce in 1884 is better known as the Paderewski House in honor of the concert given on its porch by the famed Polish pianist and statesman in 1930 when the house served as the Polish Consulate in Chicago.”

“Victorian architecture of the type found in Wicker Park lent itself to diverse interpretation. Generally employing a variety of textures and colors, asymmetrical compositions, and picturesque rooflines, the architectural styles of the late nineteenth century are loosely based on medieval and classical elements.”

“Round corner towers are common. The medieval character of Romanesque architecture had a natural appeal to families in Wicker Park. O.A. Thorp, an import-export merchant and one of the principal developers of Caton Street, built the mansion at 2156 Caton in 1891, a typical Romanesque essay in its rusticated greystone, rounded corner turret, and expansive front gable (Figure 17).”