Black-trimmed homes, tiny libraries and other signs of gentrification

[FromSD]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Chicago's streets aren't mucked up by the more sordid realities of life like trash/recycling collection, car storage (and its inherent curb cuts, driveways, and garage doors), overhead utility lines, etc. All that shit happens out of sight in the alley in back.

I agree that alleys make all the difference in the world. In San Diego, pre-war neighborhoods typically got laid out in a grid with alleys running down the middle of the block, which gives those areas all the advantages you listed. Not so in the curvilinear street developments after WW II. In those neighborhoods all you see driving down the streets is telephone poles and power lines. And since the telephone polls are only on one side of the street, you have power lines crossing the street every 50 feet or so. And it has gotten worse over the years with all the additional wires for cable TV and internet. These post war neighborhoods also tend to have fewer street trees because they interfere with the power lines. After the mid-'60s or so, the city required developers in new areas to put utilities underground, but the areas built between 1945 and 1965--a large part of San Diego--still have power line-dominated streetscapes.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by FromSD

Yes, that was definitely the ugliest of the four. The worst part to me was the roof line--they went with a barely pitched hip roof. Maybe that saved them some money on roof joists, but that roofline just didn't fit well with the rest of the house. Other than that, I didn't find it that objectionable.

And combined with the almost total lack of an eave overhang, along with the lack of a street-facing dormer, it looks like a freaking garage roof.

To see how much a well proportioned eave overhang and dormer can help a low pitch hipped roof, just look at that example's vintage neighbors that haven't been pop-topped.

Also, the transition from original brick to the new siding above is clumsy AF. And zero attempt was made to relate the new windows above (fucking sliders???) to anything on the original house below.

Altogether, it's just an extremely LAZY effort, if you can even call it an "effort".

And the saddest part is that they wouldn't have had to spend that much more money to vastly improve it. They just needed to hire someone who was going to spend more than 5 seconds thinking about how the finished product was going to look.


Unless butt fucking ugly was what they were going for.

"We own a humble, but handsome enough vintage Chicago brick bungalow. Can you make it look like we parked a trailer home on top of it? Is that kind of design challenge in your wheelhouse?"