Edgewater

Introduction:

Edgewater’s most signature building, the pale pink Edgewater Beach Apartments, tells a story about the neighborhood’s rich past. During the early twentieth century, the peak of Chicago’s industrial period, the Edgewater Beach Apartment building was the defining feature of the neighborhood. Among a gray city filled with concrete, steel, and smog, stood the Edgewater Beach Apartments, a glimmer of beauty and luxury in the dark urban environment. On the doorstep of the building were sandy beaches, and the bright blue waters of Lake Michigan; Edgewater was the place to be. It was a retreat from the roughness of the city for lucky Chicagoans and a home for the luckiest. Overall, it was more than just a residential neighborhood, it was a destination. Edgewater has been a place of tumultuous change in the time between the early twentieth century and the present, a time period where the neighborhood has undergone a complete change in its image. The pink Edgewater Beach Apartments along the shore of the lake and the stately mansions throughout the Lakewood-Balmoral district stand as a testament to Edgewater’s luxurious past, yet the otherworldly appeal Edgewater once boasted has changed slowly changed to indifference.

Living in the shadow of its past, Edgewater is now but another north-side neighborhood with quiet streets and all-American storefronts. However, if nothing else, Edgewater’s history stands as evidence that it has the ability to be one of Chicago’s most unique and magical neighborhoods, even today. The premise of this project is to bring back the Edgewater that excited and enticed so many people and to create an environment as unique as the pale pink Edgewater Beach Apartments, a symbol of paradise within an urban jungle. This project will build on the remnants of the old Edgewater that still remain and use these strengths to make the neighborhood the destination it once was. Through the recommendations of this project, Edgewater will become a place where people want to live and spend their time, and where people from all over Chicago will come again and again. Edgewater may have quieted down in its last 100 years of existence, but the neighborhood it once was has not yet vanished and will provide a strong basis for the existence of this neighborhood in the twenty-first century.

Edgewater's Strengths:

Density:

By many standards, Edgewater has amazing potential to be a very strong Urban neighborhood. The first element of potential concerns the neighborhood’s uncharacteristic population density, which is actually one of the highest of any area in Chicago despite its distance from the city’s center. Edgewater’s density is measured at 37,163 residents per square mile, and as seen in the figure below, this is far denser than the city of Chicago as a whole, as well as the northern region of Chicago. The figure below also shows how several census tracts in Edgewater (the area within the red square) stand out among other north-side regions and are grouped within the same range of population densities as Lincoln Park, Streeterville, River North, and other high-density regions found close to Chicago’s downtown. It becomes clear that Edgewater is a hidden gem of Chicago when it comes to population density, as this neighborhood lies far from the regions of the city that are traditionally dense.

Figure 1: Population Density (per sq. mile). Data provided by socialexplorer.com/

This density is very crucial to Edgewater’s potential as a neighborhood. Jane Jacobs notes that one of the key factors to a successful neighborhood is the density that Edgewater exhibits. Jacobs’ writing suggests that density creates a chain reaction of important neighborhood features such as safety, diversity, equity, reduced car dependency, and neighborhood resilience. This proves that Edgewater’s density is a strong indicator of its potential to be a successful neighborhood.

Diversity:

Accompanying this population density are similarly strong housing, economic, and racial diversities. Edgewater exhibits a wide range of housing types from high rises accommodating 50 residents or more, to single-family homes with nearly everything in between. The figure below shows images taken from Google Earth of this variety of housing.

Figure 2: Housing Diversity in Edgewater. Image source: Google Earth.

This diversity attracts a wide range of family types to the neighborhood, as well as economic classes and races given the wide variety of accommodations and housing prices available in the vicinity. The benefits of diversity to a neighborhood are countless, including increased economic vitality, equitable distribution of resources, the elimination of concentrated poverty, and many more. Diversity is an undeniably important aspect of a healthy urban environment, and Edgewater’s strength in this area further solidifies the neighborhood’s prospect as a strong neighborhood.

Figure 3: Racial Composition. Data provided by socialexplorer.com/

Bryn Mawr Avenue:

Edgewater’s demographic strengths are some of the most unique and important aspects of the neighborhood, however, the neighborhood’s strengths extend beyond just demography. One of Edgewater’s great strengths is Bryn Mawr Avenue, an east-to-west running street in the neighborhood that exemplifies what a good commercial corridor in Edgewater could realistically look like.

Figure 4: Bryn Mawr Avenue streetscape. Image source: Google Earth.

Bryn Mawr Avenue is the oldest commercial street in Edgewater and has served as the center of the community since its founding. This street houses both local businesses and high-density developments, it is home to historic buildings and architecture, and it is relatively friendly to pedestrians in terms of safety and enjoyment. For these reasons, this street is a great example of what commercial thoroughfares in Edgewater could look like if more investment was placed in creating meaningful thoroughfares. This street was a topic of the Red and Purple Line modernization project bolstered by various city agencies, with a special focus on the preservation of this street as a historic pedestrian thoroughfare. Regulations kept historic buildings from being torn down, from new developments having setbacks, and from the strong mixed-use nature of the street from being compromised by zoning laws. These regulations were incredibly helpful in preserving this important public space and show that Edgewater has the regulatory capacity and desire to have successful pedestrian streets like Bryn Mawr Avenue.

Edgewater's Weaknesses:

Edgewater’s main weaknesses as a neighborhood revolve around its main boulevards, North Broadway Avenue, a commercial boulevard passing through the center of the neighborhood, and Sheridan Road, a residential boulevard passing through the eastern edge of the neighborhood. These streets are both in central areas of Edgewater: North Broadway is situated in the social center, and Sheridan is situated in the population center.

Figure 5: North Broadway Avenue and Sheridan Road

However, despite this, these boulevards are completely fixated on using the street solely as a means of transportation rather than a public space. These streets account for many of the problems in the Edgewater neighborhood.

Walkability on North Broadway:

More specifically, North Broadway’s problems stem from a major lack of walkability. This boulevard is the centerpiece of the Edgewater, physically, commercially, and socially. It not only runs through the center of the neighborhood, but it is also the place where many Edgewater residents go shopping, use services, and engage in other consumer activities. Despite this, Broadway does not feel like a public space. It is not a place where one can linger, mingle with fellow residents, or spend leisure time. This road is completely dominated by cars whether that be manifested in the lack of safe crosswalks, the orientation of businesses away from the street, or the sheer number of parking lots along the boulevard. Broadway is unsafe, unsightly, and loud and incentivizes the use of cars, corporate businesses, and amenities based outside the neighborhood. This misuse of this central space detracts greatly from Edgewater’s ability to connect residents and support a local economy and is one of the major problems this neighborhood faces.

Figure 6: North Broadway Avenue streetscape. Image source: Google Earth

Overpowering of Corporations:

One of the main outcomes of having a street like North Broadway Avenue is the overpowering of corporations over small businesses. Broadway is scattered with corporate businesses like Jewel-Osco, Whole Foods, L.A. Fitness, and Mcdonalds, all of which provide necessary services. However, the problem with these services is not their mere presence, but how they occupy North Broadway. The juxtaposition of corporations to small businesses is shown in the diagrams below, with the local businesses on the left side, and the corporate businesses on the right.

Figures 7-11: Broadway's local businesses in conversation with Broadway's corporate businesses. Image source: Google Earth

Along Broadway, corporate businesses occupy far more space, detract from the streetscape through building setbacks, and waste land through the use of parking lots. On the contrary, small businesses along this corridor take up far less space and are normally situated in mixed-use developments, housing multiple stores and amenities, and historic buildings which contribute to the character of the street.

This comparison shows that corporations are taking up far more space than they should be afforded, and they are undermining the presence of important small businesses which provide more to the neighborhood in both an economic and social sense. The high-speed car traffic along Broadway contributes to the success of corporate businesses as car traffic will be more inclined to utilize businesses with more robust car infrastructure. The presence of, and the contribution to these corporate businesses along Broadway is something inhibiting Edgewater’s central area from achieving the environment that it needs to truly function as a public space.

Walkability on Sheridan:

Sheridan Road suffers from similar issues as Broadway, as it is completely unable to act as a public space given its car-centric design. Separately from Broadway, Sheridan Road is situated in the residential center of the Edgewater neighborhood, but this doesn’t make the walkability of the boulevard any less important. First, high car speeds, a lack of crosswalks, and underdeveloped sidewalks outside residential areas prevent residents from venturing from their residences on foot, stopping foot traffic in the neighborhood from its source.

Figure 12: Sheridan Road streetscape. Image source: Google Earth.

Additionally, Sheridan Road is a major impediment to Edgewater residents looking to access Lincoln Park, one of Chicago’s greatest lake-front parks found in the southeast corner of Edgewater. This is the biggest and most highly used park in Edgewater, yet Sheridan Road acts as a barrier to this important resource.

Figure 13: Map visualization of the spatial relationship between Sheridan Road and Lincoln Park

Further, this street, despite its central location within the neighborhood’s population serves residential purposes almost exclusively. This is primarily due to zoning which keeps many portions of the street residential-only, keeping this busy district, a place where multi-use development would thrive, from non-residential developments.

Lack of Public Space:

Edgewater’s boulevards are unable to foster pedestrian-friendly public spaces, but the need for these public spaces along Edgewater’s boulevards only exemplifies the need for more fully devoted public spaces in the neighborhood. The map below shows how few public spaces are spread throughout Edgewater. The public spaces included in this diagram are primarily public parks which are fully public spaces, but some of the spaces shown are high schools or elementary schools which are, traditionally, quasi-public spaces only available for use by the broader public on special occasions.

Figure 14: Diagram of public and quasi-public spaces in Edgewater.

The area of the neighborhood made up of parks and public spaces is quite small, and there are areas such as Edgewater Glen and Lakewood-Balmoral that are almost completely unserved by the area’s parks and public spaces. However, not only the quantity of parks and public spaces is concerning, but also the concentration of park space on the periphery of the neighborhood in Lincoln Park, far from other potential public spaces, resources, and amenities. This park is separated from the central area of the neighborhood, and as mentioned previously, getting to this park also requires crossing Sheridan Road and passing under Lake Shore Drive making travel to this park treacherous and unpleasant.

Lack of Diverse Uses:

The final weakness of the neighborhood that I would like to speak to regards the number of Edgewater residents who travel outside of the neighborhood for work. Because of Edgewater’s location so close to the Red and Purple lines, the most highly used rapid transit lines in Chicago, and the beginning of Lake Shore Drive, Edgewater is a great location for commuters who work in other parts of Chicago to reside. According to The Chicago Metropolitan Area for Planning, 31.5% of Edgewater residents work outside of Chicago, 22.0% work in the loop, another 50% work in other areas of the city, and only 3.5% of residents both live and work in the neighborhood. This means that during the day, 96.5% of the work force that does not work from home is leaving the neighborhood, leaving the streets, shops, restaurants, and parks empty for almost the entire day. In order to have safe, economically healthy, and enjoyable streets, one of the prerequisites is accommodating usage at all times of day, something that Edgewater’s streets cannot deliver given the sheer number of workers who leave the area every day. Edgewater’s streets are a major problem for the neighborhood, as mentioned earlier, but without consolidating the workforce into the neighborhood, even successfully designed streets wouldn’t reach their full potential. Successfully designed streets need residents to use them at all times of day before they can truly be successful public spaces.

Interventions:

My interventions in Edgewater will attempt to take better advantage of the strong natural features of Edgewater detailed at the beginning of this piece. Further utilizing the uncharacteristic density and diversity which is so unique to Edgewater will naturally begin to address the neighborhood’s biggest weaknesses. The general theme of my interventions will surround the creation of public spaces along important boulevards to curate pedestrian spaces for community members to convene, new areas for small businesses to open storefronts, and places for employers to house workspaces. Edgewater is a dense area, something that makes it stand out among other neighborhoods in Chicago, and something that gives it the necessary resources to have a healthy, self-sustaining economy and dynamic public spaces. Therefore, the thematic framework of my interventions will surround the development of spaces in Edgewater that will allow residents to stay in the neighborhood during all times of the day. These interventions will also attempt to reach beyond the neighborhood and attract residents from various other places in the city to make Edgewater a destination.

Interventions along North Broadway:

My first set of interventions will concern North Broadway Avenue and the conversion of this boulevard into a pedestrian-friendly public space. The following is a diagram created using an online tool called Streetmix which documents the distribution of space to cars, pedestrians, and other features of the street. The dimensions are all to scale using measurements taken from Google Maps.

Figure 15: To-scale diagram of North Broadway's street dimensions. Created using Streetmix.

The first step to making this boulevard more pedestrian-friendly will be slowing the speed limit from 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour and substituting stop signs at each intersection for stop lights. Traffic moves too fast along this boulevard, which is one of the primary concerns for pedestrian usage of this street. Slowing the speed limit by 10 miles per hour will mitigate some of these concerns, and the placement of stop signs instead of stop lights will force drivers to be more attentive to traffic, and traverse intersections at slower speeds. In order to further incentivize slower speeds, and to make the street more compatible with the use of stop signs as a means to regulate intersections, I propose for North Broadway’s traffic to be limited to one lane in each direction and for street parking to be removed from the street. Consolidating traffic to one lane will further slow down cars and allow for the usage of stop signs in place of stop lights. Removing street parking will allow for the extra two lanes of traffic to be converted into a protected bike lane, outdoor dining space, and extra room for pedestrians. To accompany these new additions to the pedestrian experience, I also propose the addition of sidewalk extensions at each intersection along North Broadway and the addition of more defined crosswalks. Sidewalk extensions, shown below, are devices that have already been implemented in parts of Edgewater and add significantly to pedestrian safety by shortening the length of crossings and providing pedestrians with greater sightlines. These three proposals together will add to the pedestrian experience by making the street safer, and more oriented towards people, not cars.

Figure 16: Visual depiction of curb extenstions. Image source: natco.org/

It will also be important to solidify North Broadway as a place where residents can linger, relax, and mingle, as opposed to a place that is completely transitory. To promote the use of this space in this way, I propose the addition of a grassy median between the two lanes of traffic with bushes, plants, and trees. Further, I would like to add more foliage to the sidewalks as well as benches, and street lamps. These features will further enclose the pedestrian and allow them to linger night and day as if North Broadway was a public plaza or park. Given these changes to the street, the final design will look like the following diagram.

Figure 17: To-scale diagram of North Broadway's street dimensions following interventions. Created using Streetmix.

Beyond the design of the street, North Broadway needs to start building around the presence of corporations. These proposed street designs will accommodate more pedestrian traffic, but with the current array of car-centered businesses and amenities, the increased pedestrian traffic will not be able to build a strong relationship with the businesses along the boulevard. The first step in making a more pedestrian-friendly commercial environment will be writing policy that requires developments to build up to the street level. There is a place for corporations along North Broadway as many of them provide services that members of the Edgewater community need, but these corporations must be forced to orient their business toward pedestrians given the new changes to Edgewater’s pedestrian design.

Figure 18: Potential revision in North Broadway's streetscape at the intersection of N. Broadway Ave and Bryn Mawr Ave. Image source: Google Earth

Building setbacks force pedestrians to walk farther, and through undesirable locations, like parking lots making them incompatible with a street like my proposed version of North Broadway. Policy should not only require developments to build up to street level but should also incentivize developers to create mixed-use spaces. I propose the creation of tax incentives and directed government loans to developers proposing to build low-cost, high-density, multiuse buildings along the North Broadway commercial corridor. Building spaces like these accomplishes many goals, including an increased presence in small businesses, more traffic on the street at all times of day, and a healthy local economy, to name a few. Developers must be incentivized to build places that can accommodate a wide variety of needs, from offices to storefronts, to public spaces in order to preserve the health of North Broadway. These multiuse developments will be placed in vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and parking lots in order to begin building around the corporations which now overpower North Broadway. Below are three prime locations for these proposed multi-use developments.

Figure 19: Diagram documenting three areas for potential mixed-use developments along N. Broadway Ave. Image source: Google Earth

In order to mitigate for the lost space created by private parking lots, and to begin building more devoted public spaces in Edgewater, I propose the collaboration of government and private businesses to create multi-use parking lots and public spaces in existing parking lots. The following pictures show a project undertaken in the city of Milwaukee to convert two public parking lots into dynamic public spaces.

Figure 20: An example of how to convert parking lots to public spaces. Image source: Project for Public Space (pps.org)

These two important lots which had long been dead space were handed to the residents of the city to curate a public space. The pavement was painted over, seating was added, a stage was erected, and events started to be held in these previously dead areas. Through government intervention, the same can be done in private parking lots along Broadway, and these areas, which sit empty for many commercial and non-commercial hours in a day, can be activated as public spaces. Farmers markets, community concerts, fairs, and leisure time can all find a place in dynamic public spaces such as these.

Interventions along Sheridan:

The second set of interventions I propose will center around Sheridan road, the other major boulevard in the neighborhood lacking in its ability to function as a public space. Below is a similar diagram as was created for North Broadway.

Figure 21: To-scale diagram of Sheridan Road's street dimensions. Created using Streetmix.

My interventions on this street will look very similar to my interventions on North Broadway. In regard to street design, I propose lowering the speed limit to 25 miles per hour, replacing stop lights with stop signs, adding curb extensions, further delineating crosswalks, constructing benches on the sidewalk, and adding a grassy median, exactly the same as my interventions on North Broadway. I also propose to similarly limit traffic to one lane in each direction and replace the extra lane with a protected bike lane. The motivations behind these changes are similar to the motivations behind the changes on North Broadway, to make a space where pedestrians are safe, and a space that better resembles a public park or plaza than it does a road. Given that Sheridan road is the center of population density in the neighborhood, and the doorstep to many high-density developments, a pedestrian-centered boulevard is especially important to make sure residents are inclined to spend time in public spaces. These changes will attract the many people living in this area to spend more time on the street engaging with their community and fellow residents. This will also make this a thoroughfare that is easier to cross in order to reach the highly important Lincoln Park. The following is a diagram of the street following these improvements.

Figure 22: To-scale diagram of Sheridan Road's street dimensions following interventions. Created using Streetmix.

Similar to North Broadway, Sheridan Road is in need of an intervention in response to the overpowering of parking lots and other forms of automobile infrastructure. To address the parking lots found adjacent to many residential developments along Sheridan road, I will propose a new method for converting these dead, car-centric spaces into public spaces. Instead of converting parking lots into dynamic public spaces like was proposed along Broadway, I propose to convert parking lots into natural areas. This will be achieved through the government funding of buried parking lots, and the construction of public spaces above buried lots. These lots will consist of a layer of underground parking connected to residential developments, and parks built on the street level, similar to Park No. 517 found on Sheridan Road shown below. This will add appropriate public space to this highly residential area and begin to mitigate for the detriments of having parking lots on the street level while still allowing parking infrastructure to remain in the area.

Figure 23: Park no. 517 at the intersection of W. Thorndale Ave and Sheridan Rd. Image source: Google Earth

Interventions along Bryn Mawr Avenue:

The third set of interventions will concern the streets which run east to west between Sheridan and North Broadway. As they stand, these roads are very quiet, completely residential, and serve as poor connecting streets between the Edgewater Beach area and central Edgewater.

Figure 24: Important connecting roads between N. Broadway and Sheridan: W. Granville Ave, W. Thorndale Ave, W. Bryn Mawr Ave, and W. Berwyn Ave.

This is troubling, because many of the resources in Edgewater lie in the central portion of the neighborhood, while much of the population lives in the Edgewater Beach area, making an easily traversable, and pleasant connection between these two areas very necessary for incentivizing pedestrian usage of North Broadway. For residents from the western portions of the neighborhoods, an effective connection between Broadway and Sheridan is also necessary to access important lakefront parks like Lincoln Park. For this reason, I propose a redesign of these streets to create better connections between the Edgewater Beach area and the rest of the neighborhood. These improved connections will create corridors that are safe and enjoyable to incentivize the mingling of residents from all parts of the neighborhood.

Specific interventions along this street will include a complete pedestrianization of Bryn Mawr Avenue. Bryn Mawr Avenue is already a very successful pedestrian zone, something that has been remarked upon already in this piece, however, it has the potential to be an even more powerful and unique public space that attracts visitors from all over Chicago. This is especially true because of Bryn Mawr Avenue’s orientation along the Red Line, other central bus lines, and Lake Shore Drive, providing easy access to residents of Edgewater and the greater Chicago area alike. Below is a diagram of the current layout of Bryn Mawr Avenue.

Figure 25: To-scale diagram of Bryn Mawr Avenue's street dimensions. Created using Streetmix.

My proposal begins by making the street one way running towards the west. This will reduce traffic and lower speeds, making this important thoroughfare, even more, pedestrian-friendly, and will have little disruption on the automobile patterns of the neighborhood. Currently, Bryn Mawr is used as a means to access Lake Shore Drive, but Hollywood Avenue, one block north of Bryn Mawr, is a four-lane road that accesses Lake Shore Drive directly, making the need for Bryn Mawr to be a two-way street for this reason redundant. Catalpa Avenue just to the south of Bryn Mawr runs one way to the east, making the need for Bryn Mawr to be one-way obsolete.

Figure 26: Traffic flow in central Edgewater. Exisiting conditions (black), revised conditions (red).

I also propose lowering the speed limit to 15 miles per hour, removing street parking, and using the extra three lanes of traffic as an extended pedestrian and biking zone. The resulting street will be a place where cars have access, but pedestrians and bikes consistently have the right of way. This will make Bryn Mawr a safer and more effective commercial avenue, but also a true public space. Extended pedestrian areas will make room for street vendors, performers, and community events. The reduced reliance on this street will allow it to intermittently be shut down to host block parties and festivals, and other neighborhood-wide events. The resulting streetscape will look like some of the following streetscapes found in cities around the world.

Figure 27: Three pedestrianized streets found in cities around the world. Image source: Project for Public Spaces (pps.org)

The final portion of this proposal will be the addition of more trees, the construction of flower beds, the use of string lighting, and other various beautification techniques. The overall goal of this is to further define Bryn Mawr Avenue as an enclosed public space, and to carefully delineate that it is for the use of pedestrians, businesses, and bikers, but only occasionally cars. These street interventions preserves Bryn Mawr as the central pedestrian street of Edgewater and develops the thoroughfare into a unique, and effective public space that will attract local residents and residents from all over the city. The final design of the street will look like the following diagram.

Figure 28: To-scale diagram of Bryn Mawr Avenue's street dimensions following interventions. Created using Streetmix.

With these improvements to Edgewater’s main boulevards, and with the addition of many new types of public space, the neighborhood will become a unique and important place that is not only a viable destination for residents of Chicago, but, even more importantly, a suitable place to live, work, and play. Residents will have easy access to important amenities just steps away from their residences making the neighborhood convenient and accessible. These improvements will solidify Edgewater as the amazing destination it used to be 100 years ago while still maintaining it as an area where people can go about their daily lives. This will make Edgewater one of the strongest neighborhoods in the entire city of Chicago.

Edgewater Beach Hotel, 1941. Author unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Edgewater

Background::

Krier and Edgewater::

Introduction:

Edgewater Beach:

Lakewood-Balmoral

Edgewater Glen

North Broadway

Introduction:

Edgewater's Strengths:

Density:

Diversity:

Bryn Mawr Avenue:

Edgewater's Weaknesses:

Walkability on North Broadway:

Overpowering of Corporations:

Walkability on Sheridan:

Lack of Public Space:

Lack of Diverse Uses:

Interventions:

Interventions along North Broadway:

Interventions along Sheridan:

Interventions along Bryn Mawr Avenue: