Trip 12: Two Diversey Area Landmarks

Date: April 18, 2010

Trip: 12

No. of Landmarks Visited: 2

Landmarks To-Date: 16

Landmarks Remaining: 337

On Sunday I had some errands to run in the neighborhood, which included searching for rock candy to make my dad's cherry bounce recipe for a friend's birthday. I walked a little farther to Diversey street to see a couple of landmarks.

First I saw the Brewster Apartments on Pine Groove. It's an approximately eight story apartment building built from reddish-brown stone. It has a beautiful front entrance of polished stone, and the front corners are rounded rooms that rise up the full height of the building.

Across the street I also noticed some beautifully row houses--so much for my theory that there aren't many row houses in Chicago.

After the fact I realized that I had actually been in the Brewster building before. There is a Red Hen bakery in the building where I've gotten coffee and a snack before, but you enter from the Diversey side which is the less interesting side of the building.

Next I went to the Elks National Memorial Headquarters building that is just across Diversey. It's a huge building that resembles the Jefferson Memorial in DC. It's a round, stone building with a dome that's surrounded by a ring of columns. I didn't go in the building on Sunday, but it is open to the public and I have walked through it before. The interior is pretty impressive. There are marble columns of different types of marble from around the country.

An interesting thing in the basement is that they have maquettes of old Rose Bowl parade floats. Apparently, the Elks sponsor a float every year.

The building is flanked on either side by large bronze sculptures. Those are included in the pictures above. There are also two large elk sculptures out front, but because of the angle of the sun I couldn't get shots of those.