"Chicago has faced its fair share of adversity in its 184-year history, but the city has always risen from the ashes, both literally and figuratively. Its most remarkable renaissance came in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The inferno killed 300 people, left another 100,000 homeless, and cost a jaw-dropping $222 million (equivalent to $4.7 billion in 2020), but it also gave birth to a beautiful new city, built with brick and better than ever.
Sadly, one iconic building style, the workers cottage, which flourished both before and after the Great Fire, has recently been falling victim to urban developers whose visions just don’t jibe with historic lot sizes or bygone architectural styles. As demand grows for apartments and other higher-density housing, many of these humble dwellings are at risk of being razed." -bobvila.com
On this tour you will see 40 or more of these delightful cottages and the different styles they were designed and constructed in. Also, you will see some very rare instances where there are several cottages in a row or in one case an entire block of cottages on both sides of the street!
Stops called "NOTABLE PROPERTIES" are not worker cottages but historically notable for the neighborhood.
I’m Ronnie Frey creator of the popular Instagram account @doorwaysofchicago. I welcome you to follow me there and all my other socials like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube with the same handle @doorwaysofchicago. I also give in person tours and private tours and those can all be found on my website doorwaysofchicago.com. If you would like to reach out my email address is ronnie@doorwaysofchicago.com and you can also join my email list using the form at the bottom of each page of the website.
Additionally, I would love to invite you to visit my website: doorwaysofchicago.com for other tour offerings including live, in-person tours and private tour offerings. I also have all my eATLAS app tours listed with links to each one. Once there you can read my story and see my offerings of photography prints, greeting card collections, and even my curated interior design furnishing collections. I’m an interior designer by trade and during the pandemic, I started my Instagram account as well as these walking tours to be able to share more of my passions with you!
I’m constantly on the search for wonderful architectural content to share with you as well as anything vintage, especially planes, trains, and automobiles…after all, they all have doors too!
Thank you, and as I always like to say, “See you out on the trails!”