River West vs West Loop - are they one and the same?

[Chi-town Native]

I mostly want to know what is *really* Greektown nowadays. It seems to have been stripped down to a few blocks on Halsted with the ascendancy of the West Loop moniker.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

I mostly want to know what is *really* Greektown nowadays. It seems to have been stripped down to a few blocks on Halsted with the ascendancy of the West Loop moniker.

That and the decline of actual Greek residents.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by It'sAutomatic

They've had people living in them at least since the city was founded, so they're not new at all, but sure they have a lot of new construction. West Loop in particular has a pretty rich history.

In the context of existing urbanity a "new neighborhood" is shorthand for a "newly or renewed residential neighborhood," which most of those areas are. Kingsbury and Fulton areas have been highly commercial - even industrial - until 15 years ago or so, and have only gained significant residential populations in the past 10 years or so.

[snoylekim]

Yes .. my part ( Southeast West Loop) was industrial and service since the late 1800s , based on the Sanborn Maps and other historical docs I could find . Originally, it was a cottage community large enough to found and sustain Old St.Pats Church. but had become industrialized after the fire and with the expansion of Union Station . The SRO 'hotels' that would later serve as the residential foundation for skid row were originally built for railroad workers . South of Van Buren, there was a very large residential area , primarily Italian, that disappeared when the expressways were built . The Cushman collection of photographs has some excellent Kodachromes of this community in its later days . The area has undergone 2 or 3 major transformations in the last 150 or so years . What's now the West Loop was more a patchwork of smaller areas with distinct characteristics .

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

I mostly want to know what is *really* Greektown nowadays. It seems to have been stripped down to a few blocks on Halsted

That's all I've ever known it to be. What were the old boundaries of Greektown?

[It'sAutomatic]

Originally Posted by emathias

In the context of existing urbanity a "new neighborhood" is shorthand for a "newly or renewed residential neighborhood," which most of those areas are. Kingsbury and Fulton areas have been highly commercial - even industrial - until 15 years ago or so, and have only gained significant residential populations in the past 10 years or so.

...after losing a large portion of them ~90 years ago, and more of them ~50-70 years ago. Residential buildings were the first to go when blight hit. Here's a whole lot of houses facing Union Park at Ogden and Washington in 1936, and there are still similar ones standing in the area:





Throop Street at Adams: