Thursday, September 1, 2011

House on South State Breaks the Conformity

One of our favorite residential areas in the entire Sloop, is the area with single frame houses starting at the corner of Roosevelt and going South to 13th. The lay out and sizes of the houses are all very similar, but the painting and decorations make each one unique.

A reader recently snapped the picture below and was surprised that these houses (specifically the third house from the right) were allowed to build an addition on top of the house:

It was surprising to us as well. Anyone have the back story on this?

(Hat tip: TS!)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really surprised they were allowed to do that.

Aaron D said...

That house had some kind of fire back in January, (http://i.imgur.com/GaRtH.jpg) and the fire crew had to cut a bunch of holes in the roof to allow smoke to escape (standard practice, I believe).

The homeowner must have decided that if they're going to tear up the roof to finally repair the damage (it had just been covered with plastic), they may as well add another room or something.

Anonymous said...

Im shocked this was allowed!

BRENDAN said...

the house caught on fire a looong time ago and has been boarded up for some time. It looked awful.... almost as awful as " those awful prison walls of the evil dearborn park 1 and 2 that are desecrating our neighborhood and ruining the grid system for our childrens futures

oh the humanity...

Anonymous said...

Who says they are allowed to do this? If you have the address you can check if they got permits for this... Not exactly uncommon in Chicago to do major work without going through the proper channels first...

Anonymous said...

Brendeen, please chill the glib-ocity dude.

Anonymous said...

yeah Brendeen... god forbid people share their opinions about their neighborhood on this neighborhood opinion blog.

BRENDAN said...

sloopy got torched yesterday for sharing his opinion on the CTA worker(s) at Roosevelt.

My comments are my opinion and yours are your opinion.

--"dude"

Mr Downtown said...

After the fire, the owner sought and got permission from his homeowners association to add a third floor. Building permits and inspections documented here.

Josh said...

Sloopy, I totally agree with your admiration of the homes.

Back in the mid-90s I worked briefly at police HQ at 1121 S. State in communications. Those homes were up then, and they were like a little jewel in otherwise misused territory. Two SROs on Wabash (the St. James and another I can't recall) were the only places where anybody else lived south of Roosevelt, and they were also the only places where any murders occurred in '95 or '96 or whatever. Since torn down. Those homes are still some of the most attractive structures in the hood.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mr Downtown...do your research before you speak kids, people like you make the Sloop look bad

Anonymous said...

So typical of residential developments. In 20 years all of the single-family homes will be altered... hopefully!