Community Area: Lincoln Square
Neighborhood: Ravenswood
Type: Residential
Visit Date: 9/14/2021, evening
Leland Ave between Ashland and Ravenswood Ave is a quiet residential street. I hesitate to say that it’s nondescript, as there are a few big landmarks here. But for the most part, once you head away from the noisy traffic of Ashland, it’s two blocks of sleepy residential buildings with typical Chicago architecture. The main feature of this neighborhood is the excellent tree cover, which keeps the neighborhood feeling cool and serene, even in the summer. Urbs in Horto indeed. As an aside, was about 80F during my walk, even in the middle of September.
Starting on Ashland Ave heading west, the first thing you notice is the massive church on the south corner. Though the street address is actually on Ashland, the facade faces north towards Leland. Our Lady of Lourdes is a stunningly beautiful Catholic church in the Spanish Renaissance style, built in 1916. During summer, the doors are often open and you can peek into the cathedral: it’s almost as beautiful inside as it is outside. Fun fact : this church was originally located on the east side of Ashland, but it was actually cut in half and moved when the avenue was widened during the Depression. Here’s more on their website.
Moving west down the block, there isn’t much to report. There are a few apartment buildings, but you see mostly the sides as they face Paulina.
Crossing Paulina, there’s a bit more character. The north corner has a beautiful red stone building, and the south corner has a very interesting residential building. It’s four units in what looks like a cross between a manor for a poor English lord and a frat house. Very beautiful shrubbery though!
It’s a good time to mention a few things I notice on this block. The first is, as it’s a summer evening on a shady street, the cicadas are quite loud. 2021 has hosted not only the Covid pandemic but the emergence of “Brood X” cicadas. For a while, they were littered all over the sidewalks and falling out of trees around you as you walked like a horror movie. They’ve thinned out a bit now, but are still very present.
Second, this must be a dog-person’s kind of neighborhood. It’s about 6:30, so folks have just gotten home from work, and there’s about 5 dog walkers on my side of the street at any given moment. A woman was training her black lab how to sit and stay underneath the rooftop patio with the Chicago flag, I had a to wait a moment so she could continue on before snapping the pic.
Continuing west, this section has an interesting mixture of home styles.
On the south side of the street, the siding on these homes definitely sticks out. If they haven’t been converted to apartments, they must be huge inside.
Here’s a typical Chicago balcony system on the southeast corner of Leland and Hermitage. The gardeners are the star here.
Speaking of a green thumb, the northeast corner of Leland and Hermitage has some more beautiful balcony gardens.
Crossing over Hermitage, the south side of the street is dominated by a row of 60s style apartment homes. There are a few examples of apartments in this style around the neighborhood, all with the yellow and orange brick. These have a nice back garden and a fire pit set up in their front “yard” area. Across the street, there isn’t much to see. It’s a privacy fence with lots of tall shrubs.
As you can see in the above pic, there are a lot of people passing through. They’re most likely on their way to the Marianos on Lawrence or towards the Damen Brown Line stop. Again, it was an abnormally warm day, maybe one of the last few ones before fall starts hitting, so they may just be out for a walk. I think people know they need to get out and enjoy it while they can.
Up ahead is a bit of a revitalized industrial complex. The south side of the street is an auto repair shop that specializes in imports, so it’s not unusual to walk by and see 5 or so Porsches of different models all parked outside.
The view on the north side is very typical of the industrial buildings along Ravenswood Ave, but while a lot of those have been repurposed as commercial space, this one is being used as temporary storage for the Metra station construction. It does look like there’s a permit to do some kind of work to it though.
The last sight on this block before passing over Ravenswood is the Ravenswood Metra stop construction. I’ve only taken this train once, but from what I can tell, it seems like they may be building a second platform, maybe expanding the existing one.
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