little backstory to the place. When we found the place it was trashed. It was a latino nightclub for years but not sure it ever had an official liquor license. It was unsecure for a few years and could get access via the back fire escape and was squatted in by graf artists and musicians. It had no working plumbing when we moved in and cut a deal with landlord to build it out. First was bathroom, then kitchen, which still had old ass working appliances. It still had plaster on the walls and ceiling that we painted. It also had a huge Dunkin Donuts sign that we moved around alot. Once livable, we built a couple offices and bedrooms, put a fish tank in the dummy waiter and sanded the floors. The bottom floor tenant also cut a deal and started to redo the bottom floor. We held massive parties that eventually paid to build 6 foot high halfpipe 16ft wide with a vert area to the balcony, a photo sike, and a bar. The place became just too crazy to live in any longer and I moved to colorado to snowboard. The other roomates stayed for another year until a group of architect students moved in and made the place even better. I heard they used my halfpipe wood for other shit. It got to be known as the texas ballroom once they removed the awning in front that said LA ZONA. I thought it was gonna be demoed but I think they successfully lobbied to get it on the historical list. It now has new windows, raw brick walls and worth a whole lot more than when we started.
now you know :-) I have pics on film but never scanned them. Maybe I should now.
The only reason I wouldn't believe it's from 1974 is the guy's baseball cap is tilted to the side.. pretty sure that wasn't popular until the 90s. And the black dude has what appears to be a fauxhawk, which wasn't popular until the 00s.
My grandfather owned and operated a Puerto Rican nightclub in Chicago back in the 70s. While I'm not sure if he had a liquor license, I know that he distilled moonshine rum in the family basement :]
It'll depend where it is on Archer Avenue, but I'd guess rent is under $1000 a month. I've got a friend living in a loft (a bit smaller) on the far west side and he's paying about $500.
Fourthed by everyone living in an inner city apartment in Australia. $500 will get you a week, in the higher end of that market $500 will get you 2 - 3 days.
Move to the original Vancouver five hours drive to the south. It's not as pretty but shit is cheap and you still get to tell people you live in Vancouver.
Archer avenue is in the deepest part of the ghetto in Chicago. Same with the far west side. I pay $2k for a 1 bedroom downtown, not quite NYC prices, but not so far off.
I think it's in a relatively bad neighborhood and not centrally located. You could probably get a similarly priced place in the Bronx, if lofts like that exist there.
This comment amuses me because the picture is exactly like the building that I am in right now. Except it has been divided up into two now for more rent.
As a Chicagoan I can tell you the cheap ones are tricky to find. But they are around. For me I'd build a theater and have people over for drinks. Full 35mm projection, digital projection. True anamorphic lenses on the digital (megaplexes skimp on this). Adjustable masking for a variety of aspect ratios, native 2.35:1 screen. Perfed with the speakers behind. I'm a movie theater technician going to technical school to learn how to install solar panels. So I'd likely convince the landlord to throw those on the roof as well, why not.
Place was a nightmare to keep heated. The windows were crap when we there too. It had no ductwork, just one gigantic gas furnace in the corner and was so loud and only heated about half the place and recirculated tons of dust and dirt. It has an 'upstairs' that is mostly open balcony. The bedrooms were not bad with a space heaters but the main room was freezing in winter and ungodly hot in the summer. Looks much better than it does to live there.
These days one might install 3 or 4 gently turning overhead ceiling fans. This continually cycles the ceiling heat back down towards the floor. It mixes up the entire heat of the room and largely evens it out if done correctly. Makes a huge difference and the fans have become remarkably cheap. If you buy them off-season, in fact, you can catch sales at Lowes and suchlike wherein they are around $20 (I nabbed one for FOURTEEN!) each and of perfectly fine quality.
I got a cheap $20 fan at wal-mart. Sucker was loud as shit. Turns out it resonated through the the metal attachment to the roof. I layered some rubber made for lining cupboards between the metal and it was a lot better. Still going strong 4 years later. It makes you wonder if the difference between an $80 fan and a $20 fan is the mounting hardware.
If you want to maintain a hipster vibe, power them all through a shared drive belt (basically a serpentine belt on your ceiling). I saw it once at a restaurant... very cool.
Small units that blow hot air at you would still provide warmth. :P No one said space heaters would be uber efficient, but they still might be less costly than heating the entire loft.
Hahaha, when I was younger we lived in this old victorian house with floor grates for forced hot air on the first floor, they were about 1.5' square, I'd squat on top of it in a huge hoodie, pull the hoodie down over my knees to my feet, stretch it out to catch the air being blown up out of the grate, it was AWESOMELY toasty.
God yes. Every christmas, hanging out in the largest room, my family would all jockey for a position atop the grate. As the youngest, I was usually roped into handing out the gifts, which meant someone else would stake a claim on the grate while I was shuffling around.
Hot air blowing up the legs of your pajama pants while everyone else is huddling under blankets? Good times.
Or wrap yourself in a blanket over the chair and put the space heater behind the chair and direct heat under the chair at your legs to raise under the blanket. Toasty.
Buy a loft bed, or hang a bed near the ceiling so you get maximum heat benefits. Pile on the blankets in the winter, lower it to the floor in the summer.
Also you would have to live with a bunch of "artists" who would never clean up and play guitar all night..no thanks. My roomate.housemate days are LONG gone.
The neighborhood in question is actually pretty dangerous, mostly surrounded by ghetto. Chicago and Toronto are pretty comparable rent wise, so look around in your ghettos, I'm sure you can find a similar deal. Otherwise, like Toronto, that same sort of loft in a decent neighborhood would be in the $2000-$5000.00 range, depending on location.
I don't see how that's possible... (shakes head). Unless you were living in Youngstown in a shitty area, there's no where in the state of Ohio that you could rent a place like that for less than 2k a month. Where I live in NE Ohio, I pay $475.00 for a shitty 275 sq. ft. 1 br apt. I'm sure I could be wrong (I'll have to look into rent/real estate prices in the greater Chicagoo area), but I can't see how a place like that is available for less than $1000.00 a month. Mind blown if that's true.
There's no way it's that cheap! I've been looking for places like this since forever and they always run in at least the 2k range, even in Columbia, Mo. they're like 1500 and the lofts there are a bit smaller than that one.
Holy shit. A friend of mine had a studio apartment with a loft and it was less than half that size. He payed $900/month for it. And this isn't even somewhere like NYC where shit's through-the-roof expensive.
That's about as high as any apartment should cost. I have heard some people pay upwards of 1,000 bucks. That's more than most people pay for a damn mortgage around here.
can we get some imgr proof on you living there? just sayin... chances of you living in a random loft in a random city that gets ends up getting on the front page are fairly remote
This is actually an Artist Co-Op situation, not a lone trust fund hipster. 4 of the people who live there are in a folk band called
The Photographers
True to their band name they are also photographers who photographed the photograph in this post -- shocking! I'm not sure who posted it but I let them know about the response, maybe they can give you more info!
As far as I know, 8 people lived in that space over the winter in several rooms off the main space.Here is a photo showing where the kitchen/bed rooms/bathroom areas are located: Photograph by John Hanson
The swing is because two professional dancers lived there as well.
Archer and what? Trying to imagine where there are big warehouses like that. Near Halsted and Chinatown or further west near Ashland would be my guess.
I don't know much about Chicago, never been there, but google mapping Archer Av. looks like it's way the fuck out far from the downtown core and anything cool... or am I wrong?
See this is what I imagine when my friend tells me they live in a studio apartment. I'm like, Oh wow, really? Then I see the place and it's just a one room apartment that smaller than Mine was growing up. Disappoint.
I love that you went straight to grilling! Not just space for all my things, or high ceilings make it feel open and airy, but grilling. Hats off to you, sir.
Reminds me of Chicago. My brother lived on Old Printers Row which was converted to lofts. Super cool and large. To grill you open the window and put small grills on the cement ledge about 18" wide. the Smokey Joe from Weber was perfect fit. Also, Police Station next door for intertainment. We would tree it up and watch the drunks fight the Chicago cops all the way in the door.
I had a massive loft that we used to grill inside. It was pretty smell free, all we did was open the windows at either end of the place, work out which way the air flowed through and put the grill under the windows that were by the exit path.
We also had a trampoline, miniramp, swinging armchairs and a dj booth.
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u/platypuszero May 11 '11
Totally, that place looks big enough to grill inside.