Those Places Thursday: East Side of 6900 block of N. Ridge Boulevard, Rogers Park, Chicago, 1927-28

Here is a short clip from the 1927-1928 home movie I found in my father's belongings a few months ago.  One of the women walking is my grandmother,  Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), and I believe the other is her best friend, Marian Udelhofen (1904-1939).  But the reason I'm doing this post is to explain how I figured out the setting for this clip.





The background is the 6900 block of N. Ridge Boulevard in Chicago, specifically the east (Rogers Park) side of the street.  It took some trial and error with initial incorrect guesses to figure this out, but here is my process.

First, I captured some still images from the movie.  Here is one, from about 10-11 seconds into the clip:

There are three houses in the background.  Here's a zoom-in (from a bit further back in the clip) of the first house on the left:

You really can't see enough of the house in the clip to be sure, but I believe it is this one, at 6979 Ridge, which was built around 1918 (photo below from Cook County Assessor's Office website):

I did not feel confident about this until I identified the next three houses in the clip.  Here are the first two of those again, in a little closer view:

And again, a little closer still:





I feel the first house, on the left, is the one pictured below, which is 6975 Ridge, built about 1909.  The roof lines match, as do the number of windows on the upper floor, and the chimney.  It looks like the front part of the house was perhaps a covered porch in 1927-28 that may have since been turned into a room, with the entry door moved forward.

Here are some closer views of the next house down.





Note that this house appears to have its main entry on the side.





Also note that there is a significant space between this house and the next one on the block.





I think this third house is the one pictured below.  Unfortunately the landscaping around this house is rather overgrown, but again, rooflines, windows, the third level dormer, and even some of the wood trim match up.  This house is 6971 Ridge, built about 1915.

In this view, it is easier to see the entrance area on the right side of the house, as in the 1927-1928 still photo.

I mentioned earlier the space between this house at 6971 Ridge and the next one in the home movie, pictured below.  There is a house between these two today, at 6969 Ridge, but it was built about 1956.

Here is a pretty clear still shot of the next house on the 1927-1928 block, at 6963 Ridge:

Here is a photo of 6963 Ridge taken in August 2008 for the Cook County Assessor's Office.  I feel confident this is the same house, even though the Assessor's records indicate it is only 72 years old - thus built in the late 1940s.  Real estate sites imply the same, that it was built anywhere from 1944 to 1948, but some of those also describe it as ranch style, which it is not.  Other real estate sites indicate there is a smaller garden apartment in the building - perhaps it was remodeled in the 1940s to create two units, and that might account for the discrepancy.  You can also tell from photos at the sites linked to above that the front porch was enclosed sometime between August 2008 and March 2015, when the most recent photos were taken. Still, the light-colored details in the masonry (particularly the downward-pointing isosceles triangles on the posts) are the same in all the photos.

My grandmother Elizabeth and her friend Marian continue walking down the block.  There is another house in the home movie, but it is long gone.  To the right of 6963 Ridge there is an apartment building today (at 6959 Ridge), built about 52 years ago.  But by this point I was confident I had figured out where this clip of the home movie was filmed.

There was another vacant lot or two on Ridge after the house formerly at 6959 Ridge, and at that point in the clip, my grandmother and her friend had turned and started walking towards the camera.  Note the two houses in the background, though, in the next block east.

I think those are two of the three houses on the property belonging to Marian Udelhofen's parents, at 1962 W. Morse Avenue in Rogers Park.  But that is a subject for a future post.

© Amanda Pape - 2018 - click here to e-mail me.