Continuing today’s obsession with Northbrook…It is places like the Landmark Inn tavern, and the 163-year-old Northbrook Garage, across the street, that come closest to defining the character of the northwest suburb.
But the Cook County village is also home to the regional shopping center Northbrook Court, and the corporate headquarters of Underwriters Laboratories, Allstate Corporation, and the retail home furnishings giant Crate & Barrel.
Since at least the mid-1990s the push has been on to clean up the aging downtown area, near Shermer and Meadow.
“About 10 years ago the village wanted to condemn the whole block,” says Jay Lorenz, the fifth-generation owner of Northbrook Garage, founded in 1843 as a wheel and wagon repair shop. Looking out the front window of his shop he is pointing to where old buildings once stood, including the town’s hardware store with its knotty pine floors. “At the town meeting 250 people showed up and complained.”
What remains today are some charming old building with new facades, thanks to a $1 for $1 matching funds program offered to local business owners by the village. Lorenz’s shop has seen its fair share of improvements over the years (including an addition in 1928, and another in 1955), but his place needed nary a sprucing up–it’s been pretty tidy all along–so he passed on the matching funds.
Nonetheless, the downtown was saved to an extent. A few buildings were lost but it was not a wholesale demolition in favor of the megamall, or newer developments along Skokie Boulevard. Traffic might be another issue, though. With Shermer as the town’s main east-west thoroughfare running directly through downtown, Lorenz sees plenty of traffic throughout the course of a day.
“People are trying to get from one side of town to the other,” he says, “and this is the best route.”
We’re guessing he doesn’t mind the traffic; the more they drive, the sooner they bring their cars to him for service.