N. MILWAUKEE COMMERCIAL CORRIDOR

Gladstone Park’s retail outlets and eateries can be found up and down on the N. Milwaukee Avenue Commercial Corridor that diagonals for 2-1/4 miles straight through the middle of the community. In addition, there are pockets of one-of-a-kinds on its other major thoroughfares: N. Northwest Highway on the western border, N. Elston to the northeast, as well as a few business concerns on the eastern edge on N. Central. The beauty is that many choices are within an easy drive – or even walking distance – of most residents, enhancing the quality of life in the community.

Since the great majority of Gladstone Park businesses are modestly-sized and locally-owned, there is a distinct small town feel to the community. It’s just one of the elements that gives residents the sense of having the best of both worlds…living in a major city with access to world class culture, sports, and services, all while retaining the kind of lifestyle that comes with simpler times. It doesn’t hurt that the community, along with greater Jefferson Park of which it is a part, has for four decades maintained its status as one of the four safest of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. And that its 10-11 mile distance from the Loop keeps residential as well as business properties much more affordable.

But because the main commercial corridor that supports Gladstone Park’s stores, restaurants and offices developed in fits and starts much later than the rest of Chicago, it has a very distinct appearance not seen elsewhere in the city. Its unusual physical structure makes it function very differently as well.

Part of that is due to its history. Before virtually any type of shop or pub rose out of the Far Northwest’s clayey muck, the city came in and altered the look of the community for all time. Implementing the road widening recommendations of the 1909 Plan of Chicago in one of the few undeveloped areas where it still could, it expanded Gladstone Park’s 2-1/2 mile long N. Milwaukee commercial corridor to four lanes with parking on both sides, creating its boulevard look. The widened road has a profound effect on life in the community. Unlike congested areas of the city, this stretch of Milwaukee blithely handles traffic. And despite its highway-like appearance, its speed limit is deceptively slow at 35 m.p.h.

The “broad boulevard” of N. Milwaukee that is Gladstone Park’s Commercial Corridor for all 2-1/2 miles as it runs through the middle of the community. One of the few roads in the city able to be widened to this degree based on 1909 Plan of Chicago recommendations, it has four driving lanes, a middle right/left turn lane and room for parking and bike lanes on both sides. Even though it looks like a highway, it has a posted 35 m.p.h. speed limit. Gladstonians traveling in the local community rarely encounter any traffic congestion or pedestrian road crossing problems. And since parking is so abundant both on the street and in dedicated parking lots, they do not have to put up with the parking meters so hated in the rest of the city. Photo by author.

The first wave of commercial construction in Gladstone Park occurred in the 1920s, spurred on when the 24-hour streetcar line first began operating down the full length of N. Milwaukee. Demand for goods and services came from passengers who wanted convenience as they got on or off at stops at the major crossroads in the community on the way to the big city or when returning home. Sensing opportunity, budding businessmen erected modest two-story brick buildings at those nodes following the architectural styles then popular in Chicago: a pastiche of eclectic forms ranging from neoclassicism to Art Deco. Often the small offices, stores and restaurants on their ground levels were complemented by owner apartments on their second floors. Where more people teemed, additional one-story commercial buildings were constructed to extend commerce down the street, creating the pattern of the “tall” buildings at corners with low-rise structures mid-block.

View of the northwest corner of N. Milwaukee where it intersects with Bryn Mawr. It shows the original pattern of commercial development in Gladstone Park with “tall” buildings on corners supplemented by one-story storefronts in the middle of blocks. The two-story neoclassical yellow brick building at the left (one section altered with modern stone columns) and the one-story dark brick building with the white ceramic tile trim next to it were built between 1927 and 1931, according to the Cook County Tax Assessor’s Office, when the streetcars first starting running down N. Milwaukee making stops at major intersections like this one. The next three low-rise midcentury modern structures in the middle of the block were not built until the late 1960s during the second wave of commercial construction. The picture is an apt illustration of the two architectural styles 30 years and worlds apart that have long been dominant in the community. Photo by author.

Because growth throughout America was stalled by the financial devastation of the Great Depression and the disruption of WWII, few new businesses established themselves anywhere, no less in the local community during the 1930s and 1940s. The original commercial buildings on the corners where the streetcars stopped continued to loom over vacant land in the middle of blocks. Wide swaths of land not near major crossroads sat undeveloped altogether.

It wasn’t until the postwar period that the second wave of commercial construction took place along the N. Milwaukee business corridor. As the community’s housing subdivisions were being built out between the late 1940s and the 1960s, the influx of new residents created more demand for services, shops, and restaurants. Business people responded, erecting storefronts and office buildings on one vacant lot after another. But it was not until the early 1960s that the entire Gladstone Park business district completely filled in, according to Chicago city planners who produced the Gladstone Park Corridor Study, Milwaukee Avenue from the Kennedy Expressway to the City Limits, January 28, 2017. Because of its delayed commercial growth, Gladstone Park was fortunate never to be subject to the forces of the postwar Urban Renewal movement that devalued significant historic buildings elsewhere, demolishing them to build bigger and more modern (some would say poorer) versions of themselves in its thirst for “progress.”

A representative section of midcentury commercial buildings in the upper 5400 block of N. Milwaukee in Gladstone Park. These brick and stone buildings reflect the spare nature of “modern” architecture that eliminated unnecessary ornateness in exchange for the directness that came with the unbridled technological and scientific progress of the 1950s and 1960s. Where unaltered, there is abundant glass to express the openness and optimism of the era. The buildings’ sturdy construction and easy adaptability makes them good candidates for small offices and specialty shops in the 21st Century. Photo by author.

Why was Gladstone Park’s business district development always kept it at least slightly out of sync with that of the rest of the city? One factor was geography. Its location in the Far Northwest corner of Chicago was simply of greater distance from the density and purchase power of the Loop than almost any of the other 76 city neighborhoods, greatly affecting its business climate. At 10-11 miles from the center city, the community might as well have been lightyears away. While one person might rue the dampening effect the distance had on land values, another would see opportunity. With comparatively inexpensive properties, entrepreneurs during this second wave found they were able to profit even when constructing small, low-rise commercial buildings on large plots of land. Echoing the economic prosperity and optimism of the 1950s, they built sturdy, low-slung midcentury modern buildings with an abundance of windows, distinctive angular forms, bright colors and singular geometric shaped accents.

With most of the commercial corridor finally built out, business activity again slowed. The limited commercial construction there was along the Gladstone Park business district in the 1980s and 1990s followed the mall-style design that was all the rage at the time. Some six small strip malls, each with a handful of stores and shared parking lots, were built with access off N. Milwaukee. Several large banks on generous pieces of property were also erected during this time. But most of the rest of the business district stayed untouched as if frozen in time.

Strip mall with parking lot accessible from the 5900 block of N. Milwaukee at its northeast corner near W. Ardmore. Online Cook County Tax Accessor information pegs the mall with a construction date of 1988. Of the six or so strip malls built during the last two decades of the 20th Century in Gladstone Park, none have more than 10 or so units for stores, offices and restaurants, depending how they are divided up and counted. The largest strip malls anchor the southern entrance to the community near N. Milwaukee’s intersection with W. Foster and the northern end where it crosses W. Devon. The two strip malls at the north sport most of the community’s national chain stores and restaurants such as 7-Eleven, Walgreens, Subway, U.P.S., and Dunkin’/Baskin Robbins. Photo by author.

How does this come together nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st Century? The traditionally low land prices combined with development on its own time schedule led to Gladstone Park’s business district assuming a most unusual presentation for an area of a major city. With its low-rise, spread out commercial landscape, it is a duck out of water when contrasted with downtown’s tall, dense buildings or even those in Lincoln Park, Bucktown, or the North Side. And because the community’s business development occurred during two distinct waves, it was left with only two main styles of architecture. Even today, the eclectic neoclassical/Art Deco two-story business buildings from the 1920s and 1930s and the one-story midcentury modern structures of the 1950s and 1960s predominate.

GLADSTONE PARK STORES

Gladstone Park may not be swank, but it isn’t generic either. The few chain stores in the community tend to be clustered at either end of N. Milwaukee at the major intersections at W. Foster in the south and W. Devon in the north. But there are no more than a handful of branches of national corporations such as Walgreens, U.P.S., AutoZone, 7-Eleven, and Dollar General here. And Big Box stores are nonexistent with virtually the only one anywhere nearby (a Target) in neighboring Mayfair, a half to one mile east. Residents wanting the Walmart, OfficeMax, PetSmart, Cosco, and Dick’s Sporting Goods experience can drive approximately two miles north on N. Central to find them in large strip malls on W. Touhy in suburban Skokie.

Like all towns in America affected by the growth of online stores – exacerbated first by the Great Recession of 2008 and later by the COVID-19 pandemic – the community’s businesses have suffered. As the commercial climate has changed for brick-and-mortars, stores with standard products that can be more easily ordered online and delivered to peoples’ doorsteps the next day have faltered. But because the Gladstone Park’s physical storefronts are generally small in square footage as well as distinct, shops with artisan products and specialty items that need to be seen and felt to be appreciated have begun to take their places. Still, there are many more vacant storefronts than anyone wants.

Shopping anywhere can be inhibited by the difficulty of parking which gives easy access to stores. That makes protecting Gladstone Park’s abundant and free street parking paramount. Obviously, businesses and restaurants that have their own parking lots (or shared lots in strip malls) have the automatic advantage, removing barriers for shoppers and promoting activity. Still, the bigger businesses in the community with large little-filled parking lots could prove themselves good neighbors by opening spaces for customers frequenting nearby stores and restaurants, particularly at night when they the larger businesses are usually closed.

Locally the biggest challenge to store access is not so much finding a space for a vehicle as the difficulty of parking in one store owner’s lot and not being able to walk to several stores in one trip. When merchants threaten to tow the vehicles of customers who go off site, shoppers are forced to move their cars multiple times to get to different places on one outing. This is one reason why it’s so important for storeowners to forge reciprocal parking agreements with each other in order to remove encumbrance and encourage Gladstonians to stay in their own community to spend their dollars. After all, shouldn’t a person making a deposit at Associated Bank be able to walk across W. Foster to pick up a Walgreen’s prescription and then circle back on the other side of N. Milwaukee to buy a pack of picture hangers at H&B Hardware in one trip without having to drive from one place to the other?

When highlighting some of the stores in Gladstone Park, we must first start by giving homage to Andy’s Deli & Mikolajczyk Sausage Shop. Other stores mentioned below are some of the community’s other standouts, either because they have particular significance for residents or because they draw numbers of customers from outside the area.

Andy’s Deli & Mikolajczyk Sausage Shop, 5442 N. Milwaukee, known simply by its patrons as “Andy’s,” is one of Chicago’s most renowned Polish food markets. It brings shoppers from both the center city as well as the suburbs looking for its fresh homemade traditional sausage, breads and bakery delicacies, and all sorts of spices and canned goods imported from the Homeland.

Although Andy’s presence in the community is the result of the spread of Chicago’s Polish immigrant population north toward the latter part of the 20th Century, its roots go even further back. Established by Mike Mikolajczyk in 1918, it moved to Gladstone Park in the mid-1980s after being bought by current owner Andy Kolasa. Andy’s website claims it is “the largest producer of a wide variety of authentic Polish sausages in the Chicagoland area” and as such it is highly recommended by Choose Chicago in its exploration section on the city’s Polish culture.

Perhaps unimposing from the outside, JC Licht Benjamin Moore Paint and Decor Store, 5514 N. Milwaukee, draws Chicagoland customers into the Gladstone Park community from a much wider area. Besides a full line of Benjamin Moore Paints, the JC Licht side of things offers home design services such as window shades and blinds.

American Thermal Windows, 5304 N. Milwaukee, too, replaces windows in residential, multifamily, and commercial buildings, but is singular in the Chicago area for offering a line of art glass windows that complement the city’s historic homes. The safe successor to lead-based stained glass, art glass from American Thermal comes in a variety of traditional and modern patterns. A long-time presence in the community, the firm has been family-owned and operated since 1981.

Residents feel particularly lucky to have the independently-owned H&B True Value Hardware Store, 5329 N. Milwaukee. Even though many local hardwares didn’t survive the era when big box stores took over, H&B has continued to do a robust business. Not only does the store have a great basic stock of everything you would expect in a hardware – and more – but also they will special order for their customers. Services include pipe, key, and glass cutting; knife, scissor and chain saw sharpening; and screen repair.

Besides Andy’s, the regional Shop & Save functions as Gladstone Park’s main grocery store. In a strip mall at 6312 N. Nagle at the triangular intersection with N Milwaukee and W. Devon, it sports an enormous selection of fresh produce as well as a plethora of products saluting the Polish population in the community. The specialized bakery offers unusual breads and goodies a cut above other supermarkets (Mango Cake is a favorite) and its deli with fresh prepared dishes is much more expansive than most. The wide variety of meats features halal products, whole pigs during the holidays as well as hard-to-find parts such as pork knuckles. Probably the most comprehensive international market in the area, the Shop has huge aisles of Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Chinese foodstuffs.

If the Shop & Save isn’t your cup of tea, there are a number of nearby full-scale grocery stores in the area. You can travel four blocks southeast of the Gladstone community to the Mariano’s/Kroger’s grocery store southeast at 5353 N. Elston. Only one mile south gets you to the nearest Jewel-Osco on N. Central in greater Jefferson Park with another in the Village Crossing Shopping Center two miles north in Skokie. Or you can travel two miles east to the nearest organic/gourmet Whole Foods Market in Sauganash.

The text above and photographs below are not a comprehensive collection of Gladstone Park’s stores and restaurants. They are a selection meant to be representative of the neighborhood. Please consult Gladstone Park Chamber of Commerce for more resources on local businesses in the community.

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