Frame worker cottages and raised Polish flats crowd narrow lots behind corner taverns and brick storefronts.
What Riverwest looks like
runs in a tight row of gabled wood frame duplexes built mostly between 1890 and 1920, porches stacked two deep with wooden stairs climbing straight up from narrow lots. Several sit on raised basements, a Polish flat added under the original cottage, with a second door and a half flight down to the street.
is wider, with a grass median and terraced lawns rising to the houses above the street grade. The duplexes here run taller, three storeys with front gabled dormers, patterned shingle in the peaks and bay windows on the lower floors.
holds a tan brick corner building on Burleigh Street, with an arched stone pediment over the door and copper colored awnings shading the windows. On Center Street, occupies a brick corner store with yellow striped awnings and a fire hydrant at the curb.
stands at Bremen and Clarke, a Gothic Revival brick church with twin copper spires over the houses around it. is a converted storefront a few blocks south on Locust Street, its name painted across a low white facade beside a mural on the end wall.
Shot in Riverwest
The PBS series Around the Corner with John McGivern spent its Riverwest episode on foot through the neighborhood, stopping at Woodland Pattern Book Center and St. Casimir's Church among other storefronts and institutions. Riverwest Film & Video, a video rental shop and community radio studio on Center Street, was the real subject of its own documentary in 2018.
Around the Corner with John McGivern
Woodland Pattern and St. Casimir's sit eight blocks apart, both stops on the same Riverwest episode.
Around the Corner with John McGivern, 2012
St. Casimir's Church
The crew visited St. Casimir's on its tour of Riverwest's churches and social halls, filming the Gothic Revival tower from Bremen Street. The church stands at the corner of Clarke Street, across from a row of duplexes.
Around the Corner with John McGivern, 2012
Woodland Pattern Book Center
The episode stopped inside Woodland Pattern, the poetry and small press bookstore on Locust Street, where McGivern talked with staff among the shelves. The storefront sign and the mural on the end wall are visible from the sidewalk out front.
Riverwest's corner taverns and cream city brick two-flats and cottages sit at the same worker housing scale as the streets behind Wicker Park's six corners intersection. Humboldt Boulevard holds the larger houses here, the way Hoyne Street does there. Riverwest's brick runs pale cream rather than red, so a wide shot needs to stay off the nearby river to hold the illusion. Try searching cream city brick tavern now.
Riverwest's brick corner stores and small frame houses on narrow lots sit at a similar scale to the streets behind Queen Street East in Leslieville. Humboldt Boulevard's larger duplexes read the same as Leslieville's bigger corner houses. Riverwest's taller front porches and steeper roof pitches show up in a wide shot and would need to stay out of frame. Try searching brick corner stores now.
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