West Argyle Street Historic District (Additional Documentation)

Seventy-three buildings make up this Uptown district, about six miles north of Chicago's Loop. Contributing buildings date from 1898 to 1938 and include Chicago flat buildings, courtyard apartments, apartment hotels, and one- and two-part commercial blocks, mostly brick with limestone and terra cotta detailing. Most rise one to three stories, while the twelve-story 5050 Sheridan Building of 1929 is the tallest. Styles range from Classical and Renaissance Revival to Tudor, Spanish Eclectic, Late Gothic, Queen Anne and Art Deco. Development was driven by the elevated railway, which reached Wilson Avenue after property owners petitioned in 1900 and later served an Argyle Street station. Single-family houses gave way to flats, and then to apartment hotels and storefronts clustered around the station. The district was drawn around the most intact surviving group of these buildings. Alterations are mostly to storefronts and windows, and later construction is limited and mostly matches the historic scale.