Five and six storey brick warehouses beside the Milwaukee River, arched windows and iron fire escapes over the old loading doors.
What Historic Third Ward looks like
runs between red and tan brick warehouses standing four to six storeys, arched window heads lined up over ground floor storefronts and black iron fire escapes climbing the corners. One five storey building on the street keeps its original bracketed cornice and loading canopy, its ground floor now open to the sidewalk as a restaurant.
Water Street opens onto a two storey market hall of glass and steel, its name spelled out in block letters the width of the roofline. An elevated freeway ramp runs overhead at that end of the street, and streetcar tracks continue south past the market entrance toward the older warehouse blocks.
A wooden boardwalk follows the river past more of the converted buildings, their old loading floors now carrying balconies and glass. Small boats sit moored along the far bank under a row of grain silos, and a disused railway swing bridge stands mid channel farther down, its steel control cabin still perched above the water on a stone pier.
At the corner of Erie Street a five storey brick building keeps its full grid of factory windows and a brick smokestack rising past the roofline, the ground floor now studio space. Close by, another converted warehouse carries a flat glass floor built up above its original cornice line, delivery doors along its base opening onto cafe seating instead of loading docks.
Shot in Historic Third Ward
For the 1990 production of the ABC television movie Dillinger, the crew filmed inside the upstairs apartment of the Hambach Building on North Broadway. The same shoot also redressed a Third Ward warehouse as Chicago's Biograph Theatre, where the outlaw was killed in 1934. A separate building stood in for the bank his gang robbed in Mason City, Iowa.
Dillinger, 1991
The George Hambach Building at 221 North Broadway is a brick, Queen Anne style building completed in 1895. Its upstairs apartment was used for interior filming during the 1990 production of the television movie Dillinger, and the ground floor storefront now holds a restaurant.
What Historic Third Ward can double for
Printers Row in Chicago, Illinois
Printers Row's brick loft buildings share the same heavy masonry scale as the Third Ward's warehouses, several converted from printing plants into lofts the same way, like the Pontiac Building and the Franklin Building. Both districts keep arched window bays and bracketed cornices at a similar four to six storey height. Printers Row runs taller in places, up to fourteen storeys at the Pontiac Building, so a wider shot should stay on the shorter blocks nearer Dearborn Station to hold the match. Try searching brick loft buildings now.
West Bottoms in Kansas City, Missouri
The West Bottoms kept its heavy brick stockyard warehouses at a similar four to five storey scale, among them the 1880 Abernathy Building in red brick, now converted into apartments the same way as the Third Ward's own loading floors. Cobblestone still shows through the asphalt on some of its blocks. Frame around the cobblestone sections and the low corrugated additions along the rail spur, which would give away a different city against the Third Ward's plain asphalt streets. Try searching heavy brick stockyard warehouses now.
Washington Avenue Historic District in St. Louis, Missouri
Washington Avenue's dry goods warehouses, among them the 1906 Ely and Walker building, run to a similar multistorey brick and terra cotta scale before their own loft conversions. The district keeps the same pattern of tall factory windows over ground floor storefronts. The terra cotta banding and round arched piers on buildings like the Lesser-Goldman are more ornate than anything in the Third Ward, so the plainer facades hold the match better. Try searching dry goods warehouses lofts now.
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