Welcome to CornerSpotter, Curbed's regular game in which you, fair readers, consult archival streetscape photos or postcard illustrations to identify the building(s) and/or location presented. Time to tap that reservoir of urban minutiae and flaunt it before your fellow readers. Fire away in the comments, and we'll reveal the correct identity and backstory tomorrow.
A recurring theme of cornerspotter is the physical toll of growth and development in the city, starring many misguided urban renewal schemes and auto-centric planning. For a change of pace the 1936 streetscape depicted above is virtually unchanged today, in architecture and in scale. Spotting this intersection offers its own challenges, borne of a century of monotony and untold thousands of half-awake elevated drive-bys. One considerable evolution is the corridor's tamped-down retail activity. If you think you're up to it, take one more hint: while the buildings in full view are the same today (excepting one piece of the retail strip), the lakefront greenspace directly behind has receded somewhat to allow for newer high-rises.
·Cornerspotter [Curbed Chicago]
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