Life was good during the late ’60s and early ’70s. Railroad provided employment, church’s influenced a lot of people, heavy duty industry was still in the city, keeping people busy and employed kept a lot of people out of trouble.
On Diversey Parkway and Halsted Street, there used to be all kinds of small family-owned businesses. There were bakeries, butcher shops, greasy-spoon diners, liquor stores, old-fashioned barber shops, and tiny drugstores that had only two or three aisles.
Nowadays, all those businesses are gone, and have been replaced with trendy restaurants, upscale boutiques, expensive wine shops, stores that sell fancy furniture and stores that sell fancy glassware. Also, there’s a spa in almost every block. Those businesses cater to the yuppies who now live there.
These amazing black and white photos were taken by ceebop that show what Chicago looked like in the early 1970s.
The Walgreens, Chicago, circa 1970s
Edgewater Beach Hotel, Chicago, 1970
Kinzie Street looking west from State Street, Chicago, 1970
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