Local Blog Takes A Loving Look At 4-Plus-Ones
By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 9, 2010 8:40PM
If you live in Lakeview or points north, you're probably familiar with the four-plus-one apartment buildings. These buildings, much maligned for their design, popped up like cold sores from the 1950s through the early 1970s. They were designed to maximize revenue for the property owner while providing minimal amenities. In their way, four-plus-ones were the precursor to the recent condo boom.
The author of the local blog "A Chicago Sojourn" makes a case in favor of four-plus-ones as a product of their time. The buildings, then and now, are typically associated with transient dwellers - single folks new to the city in need of an apartment immediately. Back when four-plus-ones were the norm, that connotation also carried more thinly veiled assumptions.