Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Slice of Life: The Polish Alma Mater



The great thing about signs carved in stone is that they so often outlive those for whom they were carved, and thus leave us a trail back into history.  This sign for the "Polish Alma Mater" was spotted above the door of a commercial building built in 1896 at 1643 West Milwaukee Avenue in Bucktown.  It reminds us that this section of Chicago used to be a lot more Polish than it is now.  This building once housed a Macierz Polska -- a Polish aid society.  Many immigrant groups form these when they come to a new country.  You can see a number of current examples down in Chinatown.
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

1 comment:

  1. ovelhadogOctober 6, 2009 at 12:21 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

You can write a comment about this article below, but that's kind of just a one-way street. For full whiz-bang interactivity, click here to comment on this article at the Chicago Architecture Info Forum.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)