An Abridged Architectural History of Old Suburban Chicago

By Lucy Dillenbeck, 17, Illinois

The Queen Anne never tries to hide, 

slyly aligning herself

to the eyes of mindful passers-by:

she is tall and bold, 

she is a ‘modern woman,’

she is a relic of oil barons and lumber gods,

Carnegie’s jeweled offspring.

She is a capitalist, 

she is a corrupted mirror of the past, 

she does not cry when her paint is stripped,

only when her walls are empty.

The American Foursquare is not

particularly unique nor creative.

It is the flagrant ‘childhood home,’ 

it is exactly as it sounds, four walls,

gabled roof, stucco and plaster.

The trim is white like the town 

around it, the backyard fenced,

the children rowdy and the teenagers restless.

Oftentimes it pretends

to be a visionary.

The Chicago Bungalow

is squat, homely, crouching low on crowded streets,

lowly, lowlife, brick and mortar.

It knows no peace, only tangles and thickets,

fountains and foliage

and legend says its popouts

never get as warm as the rest of the house.

It dreams its shallow 

homemade dream, 

a kitchen filled with smoke, a red door slammed,

a splintered-wood windowpane.

The street signs point the wrong way 

and it is too easy to get lost here. 

Cars whistle past without thinking. 

No one pulls over,

no one fixes the streetlamp when it

starts to flicker. We are beautiful and desecrated—

we can almost see the stars from here, 

even light pollution

forgets we exist.

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I love old buildings. My hometown is filled with them—they are just beautiful. Being an architecture student, I know they really “just don’t make them like they used to”. Old houses especially fascinate me and the irreverent nature in which I often see them treated brings out the worst in me. Please, do not remodel your 1894 Victorian mansion into another white and grey shiplap farmhouse. With this piece, I wanted to convey the disillusionment that comes from living in a small town that is so clearly past its prime, but all of the history is still right there in front of you.

Instagram: @lucy.dillenbeck

Photo by Neal Kharawala