Author:  Marjorie Warvelle Bear

ISBN-10: 0-9633995-4-3: ISBN-13: 978-0-9633995-4-0

 

Author:  Marjorie Warvelle Bear

ISBN-10: 0-9633995-4-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-9633995-4-0

 

A Fabulous Window to the World!

As a talented artist and a landscape designer, and daughter of a famous educator and lawyer and former Dean of the Chicago Law School, Marjorie Warvelle Bear summarized her childhood memories, youthful impressions, life experience, observations, interviews and two decades of comprehensive research in A Mile Square of Chicago.

“Great cities, such as Chicago, are composed of lesser communities, little worlds of places, events and people. Many who grew up in a large city, even though they may have long since moved away, vividly recall their childhood neighborhood…” Marjorie Warvelle Bear wrote. She continued to describe detailed events and people for an area on the west side of Chicago, roughly one square mile, bounded by Ashland Boulevard on the east, Harrison on the south, Western Avenue on the west and Lake Street on the north for a period from 1850 to about 1920. She extended her coverage outside of this one square mile area occasionally for some important events, like the Great Fire of 1871 and the World’s Fair of 1893.

A Mile Square of Chicago includes three parts (or books as Marjorie called them). “Book One: Before my Day” includes description and discussions of Brown School and some of its distinguished students, Old Central High School and its successor West Division High School, the early Medical Center and member organizations, disaster and Restoration; “Book Two: In My Day” includes description and discussions of the author’s home, neighborhood, society and commerce in the neighborhood, Brown School days, William McKinley High School, faculty and some alumni, neighborhood private and parochial schools and other public schools, Lewis Institute, Faculty, and distinguished alumni, and other famous neighbors. “Book Three: Today and Tomorrow” includes description and discussions of the Twentieth Century of change, the Illinois Medical Center District, and the final Chapter, “My Country is the World.”

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “ Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in, the school or college he attends, the factory or office where he works…

A Mile Square of Chicago has 549 pages in 8 ½ x 11 format and 121 fine and valuable black-and-white photos.  It is an extremely well written book. It is not just a book for people in that one square mile area of Chicago, but also has universal appeal to everybody. It is a fabulous window to the world that all of us can relate to!

The above review was contributed by: Gang Chen: Gang is the author of Planting Design Illustrated .   He holds a Master Degree from School of Architecture, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, and a Bachelor Degree from Department of Architecture, South China University of Technology. He is a recipient of the Grace and Robert Frazer Landscape Heritage Award from the Landscape Architecture Foundation. Gang has over 20 years of professional design experience. Many of the projects he was in charge of or participated in have been published extensively in Architecture, Architectural Record, The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register, etc. He has worked on a variety of unusual projects: well-known large-scale healthcare and hospitality projects with over one billion dollars in construction cost; award winning school design, highly acclaimed urban design and streetscape projects, multi-family housing and high-end custom homes, regional and neighborhood shopping centers, etc. He is currently working in a leading professional design firm in the United States.

He is also a member of American Institute of Architects(AIA). To read Gang's Reviews Click here.