Lincoln-Belmont
The Lincon-Belmont retail and entertainment district developed
around the intersection of three of the North Side's busiest
thoroughfares: Belmont, Ashland, and Lincoln Avenues. During the 1920s
and 1930s, retailers and amusement promoters were attracted to the area
because of its convenient transit connections to both local and more
far-flung neighborhoods, as well as the growing affluence of the city's
so-called Bungalow Belt, a ring of semi-surburban housing developed
during this period. Bungalow homemakers often preferred shopping in
outlying business districts like Lincoln-Belmont rather than trekking
all the way downtown, a trip almost twice as distant and increasingly
time-consuming due to growing central-city streetcar congestion. In the
1930s, local retailers dubbed the area "Nortown." Though the
area declined during the 1960s and 1970s, a recent wave of residential
and commercial investment has begun to revitalize the area. To learn
more about the area during the Jazz Age, click on the sites below. |
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