We took a little advice from Horace Greeley the other day and headed west, all the way to Austin. Then we drove east, nice and slow, down Jackson Boulevard, soaking up the street block by block between South Austin and Tri-Taylor. As you can see from the graystones above, many of the historic buildings built along the boulevard – including an impressive array of graystones west of Pulaski – still stand, some thoroughly rehabbed, others clearly distressed.
We found the condo development above at the corner of Troy and Jackson. The new-construction building is masonry and perhaps a good sign for this part of East Garfield Park, which has seen a lot of appreciation in recent years. The size and configuration of windows, in a style that might be called Modern Siege, however, gives some clue to the hurdles still facing residents.
Just east of the new condos, the row of quaint workers cottages above would look right at home in Bucktown.
And farther east, just south of Jackson, overlooking the Eisenhower Expressway at Western Avenue, is a row of generic new-construction condo buildings whose parapet walls were designed by a company that manufactures table cloths for Italian restaurants. Let’s hope that reviving blocks to the west doesn’t mean more of this stuff.