Bryn Mawr Avenue Historic District (Additional Documentation)

Bryn Mawr Avenue, between Sheridan Road and Broadway in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood, forms a dense streetscape of twenty-three buildings and a four-track elevated railway bridge. Most are brick and terra cotta, rising from one to nineteen stories, and nearly all have shops at street level. Many combine stores with apartments, a hybrid form that became unusual in Chicago as commercial and residential districts were separated. Early walk-up store-and-flat buildings from the late 1890s sit alongside 1920s elevator apartment hotels. Styles include Tudor Revival, Late Gothic, Italian Renaissance, Art Deco and Moderne. Notable examples include the 1908 Manor House by J. E. O. Pridmore and the nineteen-story Edgewater Beach Apartments by Benjamin Marshall. Zoning in the 1920s allowed mixed uses on only a few streets, encouraging this development near Lake Michigan and the elevated line. The district was recognized for its architecture and its role in community planning, with a period of significance from 1897 to 1935.