I’ve looked at the side streets of Lafayette Square before, and I returned to them again to look at the houses that are often forgotten in favor of the more famous one around the park.
What fascinates me about the houses above is their similarity to a row of houses I have photographed on the Near North Side that are now in danger of falling apart. How location can lead to a different fate is interesting to me.
There are also many of the Italianate-Second Empire hybrids, as I call them.
On the east side of the neighborhood, there are newer houses that look to be from the 1890s, and reflect the period when the upper class began to move out, and more middle class and working class moved in. They show the arrival of the Romanesque Revival after the Italianate and Second Empire began to fall out of favor.
Then there are even narrow streets with this unique Second Empire house.
At the northeast edge of the neighborhood, much of the original housing stock was destroyed, but there are still some survivors, such as the two buildings below.
Then, the rigid barrier of the Truman Parkway separates the neighborhood from the Clinton-Peabody Housing Projects.
