The Chicago Historic Resources Survey
Between 1983 and 1995 the City surveyed every building in Chicago put up before 1940 — on foot, street by street, across fifty ward areas. Surveyors rated each property on its age, its physical integrity and its possible significance, and recorded the result in colored pencil on outline maps. Preservation Chicago digitized the whole of it and published it on ChicagoLandmarkReports.org, where the book is searchable to the page and the hand-colored field maps are bound into the community area pages.
Why it still matters. A red- or orange-rated building that is not a landmark can still be given a 90-day hold on a demolition permit — the window in which a case for it can be made.
A rating is not a designation. The survey stops at 1940 and was finished thirty years ago; buildings have been altered, restored and demolished since. And absence is not a verdict — the survey missed a great many buildings, and one that does not appear has not been judged insignificant.
Read the survey
- The complete survey — the book in full, searchable to the page
- Search the text — every page of the survey and of every designation report
- Every Chicago Landmark — the designation reports, A–Z
The survey by community area
Each of the City’s 77 community areas has its own page on Chicago Landmark Reports, carrying that area’s survey chapter, its hand-colored field maps, and any Chicago Landmarks within it.
- Albany Park — 6 field maps
- Archer Heights — 13 field maps
- Armour Square — 12 field maps
- Ashburn — 7 field maps
- Auburn Gresham — 16 field maps
- Austin — 38 field maps
- Avalon Park — 8 field maps
- Avondale — 22 field maps
- Belmont Cragin — 18 field maps
- Beverly — 18 field maps
- Bridgeport — 13 field maps
- Brighton Park — 16 field maps
- Burnside — 7 field maps
- Calumet Heights — 17 field maps
- Chatham — 19 field maps
- Chicago Lawn — 22 field maps
- Clearing — 15 field maps
- Douglas — 13 field maps
- Dunning — 20 field maps
- East Garfield Park — 16 field maps
- the East Side — 24 field maps
- Edgewater — 16 field maps
- Edison Park — 11 field maps
- Englewood — 15 field maps
- Forest Glen — 4 field maps
- Fuller Park — 5 field maps
- Gage Park — 14 field maps
- Garfield Ridge — 21 field maps
- Grand Boulevard — 6 field maps
- Greater Grand Crossing — 16 field maps
- Hegewisch — 25 field maps
- Hermosa — 6 field maps
- Humboldt Park — 22 field maps
- Hyde Park — 16 field maps
- Irving Park — 7 field maps
- Jefferson Park — 12 field maps
- Kenwood — 11 field maps
- Lake View — 27 field maps
- Lincoln Park — 25 field maps
- Lincoln Square — 17 field maps
- Logan Square — 25 field maps
- the Loop — 14 field maps
- Lower West Side — 21 field maps
- Mckinley Park — 10 field maps
- Montclare — 7 field maps
- Morgan Park — 19 field maps
- Mount Greenwood — 14 field maps
- the Near North Side — 14 field maps
- the Near South Side — 11 field maps
- the Near West Side — 36 field maps
- New City — 19 field maps
- North Center — 16 field maps
- North Lawndale — 10 field maps
- North Park — 13 field maps
- Norwood Park — 7 field maps
- O'Hare — 5 field maps
- Oakland — 11 field maps
- Portage Park — 19 field maps
- Pullman — 9 field maps
- Riverdale — 1 field map
- Rogers Park — 16 field maps
- Roseland — 27 field maps
- South Chicago — 27 field maps
- South Deering — 45 field maps
- South Lawndale — 29 field maps
- South Shore — 21 field maps
- Uptown — 17 field maps
- Washington Heights — 18 field maps
- Washington Park — 9 field maps
- West Elsdon — 9 field maps
- West Englewood — 16 field maps
- West Garfield Park — 9 field maps
- West Lawn — 14 field maps
- West Pullman — 15 field maps
- West Ridge — 21 field maps
- West Town — 28 field maps
- Woodlawn — 11 field maps
The Chicago Historic Resources Survey was carried out by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and is a public document of the City of Chicago. The copy digitized here is from the Preservation Chicago library; the text of every page has been read so that it can be searched.