A tour bicycle leaning on the railing above the Chicago River with the massive Art Deco limestone and red painted steel Lake Shore Drive bridge.

Five more photos from the CBA Division Street map

Division Street, Studs Terkel’s first collection of oral histories, was published in 1967. 70 Chicagoans from all over the city recount their relationship to the city and its people through interviews with Studs. Check out the Division Street Map to find the sites below and 130+ others mentioned in the book.

Contact CBA for custom guided rides and gift certificates, use The Map to plan your own ride, run, or walk, or check out the blog for more pics and maps.

Eva Barnes

56 year old bar owner

A tour bike leaning on a late 1800s corner three story storefront and flats with Gaelic knot designs.
NW corner 31st & Halsted in Bridgeport, 8/18/20 – And I said, “Well, I got a place on 31st and Halsted, my old neighborhood, lot of people know me there.”
This is the only corner left with an of-era building at this intersection. The storefront was longtime occupied by a drugstore, shown on the 1911 and 1950 Sanborn Maps. In the Polk’s 1928 Directory the store was run by a Jason P Crowley.

Terence Ignatius Boyle

45 year old born and raised Chicagoan

A tour bicycle leaning on the railing above the Chicago River with the massive Art Deco limestone and red painted steel Lake Shore Drive bridge.
Outer Drive Bridge at the mouth of the Chicago River, 9/18/24 – In 1937, the President of the United States came here to open the bridge.
As part of the opening Franklin Roosevelt gave the “Quarantine the Aggressor” speech, which called for the quarantining of aggressive nations from the international community. HistoricBridges.org has a lot of great technical info on the bridge. This is also on the CBA map Movable Bridges.

George Drossos

66 year old Greek school principal and teacher

A tour bicycle standing near a dark brown brick and white Mid Century Modern Greek Orthodox large central dome church.
Former Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Belmont-Cragin, 5/23/24. Studs sets the scene, “[George] sits near the window of a small Greek pastry shop, on the Far West Side of the city. He seems out of place in this area…”
After the 1950s demolition of Old Greek Town for UIC, the Greek community/school moved here, WindyCity Greek. In 2019 the church was sold after foreclosure and the community moved to the suburb Schiller Park. Currently, it is a Universal Church location.

Harriet Behrens

66 year old White public housing resident

A tour bike at the curb with an open field of grass and trees where apartments used to be.
Former LeClaire Courts on the far Southwest Side, 11/5/21. When we first moved in at LeClaire, we had a Negro family across the hall from us and a Negro family upstairs.
The complex was demolished in 2011. You can read about former residents reminisces here and the fight for return of some (2016). In 2021 there were plans for development and ground breaking is now planned for Spring 2025.

Bill Dellakamp 

55 year corporate vice-president with conflicted feelings on Martin Luther King in Chicago

A tour bike standing in front of a modern tan three story apartment tan brick and glass building with yellow extended square window sills
Dr King Legacy Apartments in Lawndale, 8/25/19. Studs, “…Dr King set up residence on the city’s West Side to lead a campaign for decent housing…”
Dr and Coretta King’s original building was demolished in 1991 and the Legacy Apartments opened in 2011, dnainfo

Contact CBA for a custom guided ride that includes some of these sights and for gift certificates for the cyclists in your life. This map is one of the many layers on The Map, where you can plan your own ride, run, or walk around Chicago

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