PDF Download: Preservation Chicago’s 2008 Chicago 7 Most Endangered Booklet
Old Norwood Park, located on Chicago’s far Northwest Side, was designed to be a park-like residential neighborhood with large lots, wide streets and elegant single-family homes. Its curvilinear street pattern, unusual for Chicago, surrounds several large parks. The early Victorian homes were joined over time by Tudor, American four square, bungalow and ranch-style homes, many designed by noted architects such as Frost & Granger, George C. Nimmons, William C. Jones, George F. Lovdall, William Presto, Dewey & Pavlovich, Gustav Pearson, Benedict J. Bruns, Lyman J. Allison, Axel Teisen, Theis J. Reynertson and Olsen & Urbain. A long-time cornerstone of the community is the threatened Norwegian Old Peoples Home designed by Giaver & Dinkelberg. The Chicago Historic Resources Survey lists 271 Norwood Park buildings as significant with 81 of them rated orange. During the building boom of the mid-2000’s, Norwood Park’s large lots and older housing stock provided a perfect recipe for tear-downs and new construction.
Update:Although demolitions have abated somewhat due to the recession, the area remians unprotected. A decades-long effort by the community to create an historic landmark district has never come to fruition.