WESTCHESTER,
Chicago's dream child,
Its first made-to-order suburb,
Born on the path
Of Rapid Transit and Super-
Highways
After three years
Of expert planning
And the expenditure
Of ten million dollars
In underground and surface
improvements,
Is now emerging
Full fledged from the hand
Of builder and landscape
gardener
A perfect promise
Of the hundred million dollar
Homeland
It is destined to be.
Chicago's dream child,
Its first made-to-order suburb,
Born on the path
Of Rapid Transit and Super-
Highways
After three years
Of expert planning
And the expenditure
Of ten million dollars
In underground and surface
improvements,
Is now emerging
Full fledged from the hand
Of builder and landscape
gardener
A perfect promise
Of the hundred million dollar
Homeland
It is destined to be.
People are flocking to Westchester in crowds to view at close range the actual building of this community, and take pant, as home owners, in the greatest 'suburban movement of the ages.
Mingling with the throngs of happy home seekers are serious looking groups of students, with their professors as guides, many of them from far off countries, who want to 'see for themselves, on the spot, by actual demonstration, a perfect suburb in the making.
From that bleak November day in November, 1925, when the news was flashed around the world that the kings of Chicago's Rapid Transit and their associates in suburban community building, had decreed a model city on the western edge of Chicago, similar in scope to Niles Center on the North, the whole world has been watching with open eyes the unfoldment of the plan.
During the long months and years of planning and preparation, involving the building in advance of thousands of acres of underground tunnels for sewer and water, telephone and electricity, the world looked on, seeing nothing to indicate the creation of the promised community.
Only the high reputation, well known sagacity and sterling integrity of the creators of Chicago's high speed hinterlands, could have engineered the feat and stood the necessary strain of the conception period.
But 1929 sees all the striving and tunneling and shoveling and the millions of underground expenditures finished and completed, every laid out street paved and boulevarded and the sidewalks built and ready for a community of fifty thousand people. The word has been given, and today a gigantic home building plan is in full swing in Westchester, and hundreds of model homes of charming individuality are making of Westchester the gem in the crown of Chicago's achievements. It is the largest pre-conceived development and building plan Chicago has ever known.
With 11 miles of reinforced concrete paving, 33 miles of sidewalks, 41miles of water mains, 71 miles of sewers, Westchester is the only west side suburb with Chicago water under adequate pressure, and with both storm and sanitary sewers, which means no flooded basements, no back-up of waste.
Direct to Loop service by Westchester "L" trains over the Garfield Park. line gives a schedule of 180 trains a day, 38 minutes ride and a 12 cent fare. Homes are being occupied immediately on completion, with gas, electric and telephone service already installed.
Westchester is crossed by three main arterial highways, 22nd street, Roosevelt and Mannheim Roads. Golf grounds and a forest preserve park are within the community.
The high population areas of Oak Park, Maywood and other western suburbs see in Westchester the needed relief from the pressure of congestion, due to the great growth in Chicago suburban population. Westchester will always be a homeland. The first completely planned and zoned community of Greater Chicago, it is forever protected against crowding. For the first time the householder need have no fear of the future. That is why Westchester today is the fastest growing community in the Middle West. Westchester's February building permits were $169,725 exceeding the building permits of Blue Island, Calumet City, Chicago Heights, Elmhurst, Elmwood Park, Geneva, Homewood, La Grange, Niles Center and Wheaton combined.
Westchester comprises more than 2,600 acres around the terminus of the Westchester rapid transit line. Its area extends from Harrison street south to Twenty-First street and from Gardner Road on the east to the DuPage county line. Adjoining are 2,200 acre's of forest preserve, an area three times the size of Jackson Park.
The first elevated train was in operation October 1, 1926. A passenger count last fall at the Westchester terminal station revealed an average of 530 daily over a two month's period.
While the trains now run only as far as Roosevelt Road, work is almost completed on the viaduct providing for grade separation at this point, after which service will be extended south to 22nd St. and west to Mannheim Road. The right of way has already been obtained and fenced off as far as Wolf Road. The plan is to continue the line to the Fox River Valley at Warrenville. This new line will pierce the most picturesque part of DuPage county, running right through the world famed Joy Morton Arboretum, with its 2,000 varieties of trees and known nationally as the Kew Gardens of America.
William Zelosky & Co. who control the properties north of Harrison street, have already built several groups of homes.
George F. Nixon & Co. who handle the properties south of Roosevelt Road have erected a score of houses and have plans for many more. Many other builders have also made preparations to come into this suburb and have bought large holdings accordingly.
The Zelosky and Nixon organizations have reserved lots throughout their sub-divisions to be sold only as "building lots." These lots are being sold with the understanding that they are to be improved immediately.
In the evolution of Westchester from a prairie tableland into a model suburb, water was brought directly from Lake Michigan by tapping the city mains at Austin Boulevard and Harrison street. An immense tract of land was bought and a reservoir was constructed providing storage for five hundred thousand gallons and equipped with electric pumps to increase the pressure. Besides this a water tank with storage facilities for an additional one hundred thousand gallons was erected.
Two complete sewage systems have been installed providing the most comprehensive outlet plan in the Chicago Metropolitan area, and adequate to care for the requirements of an ultimate population of 250,000. Storm sewers seven feet in diameter have been laid throughout the territory to take care of the surface waters, and a smaller system will provide outlets for residential drains.
Before paving was laid officials of the utilities companies were called in to study the embryonic plans for the community and were asked to make provisions for the requirements for all time. As a result, now that the pavement is in, there will be no necessity for tearing it up in order to care for increased needs in the future. All of Westchester's streets are paved, and Broadway, the principle north and south thoroughfare, extending from Washington Boulevard to 22nd Street, is a 100-foot boulevard with a parkway through the middle.
Under an ordinance factories have been zoned out. No wooden buildings are permitted and no wooden fences. Apartment sites are platted to comprise thirty-five feet frontage, and the set-back from the street is fifteen feet. Residence lots front forty and fifty feet and must be set back twenty-five feet.
As determined by the Chicago Regional Planning Association, only a small percentage of the property is zoned for business, an even smaller amount than the standard ratio of fifty feet frontage for each one hundred inhabitants. Business properties will be confined to the immediate section around the Rapid Transit stations, the Harrison street, Roosevelt Road and Twenty-second street frontage and part of the Mannheim Road frontage.
Plans for the new school system provide that no home shall be more than four blocks away.
This school system will consist of two identical buildings strategically located, one north of Roosevelt Road and the other south, a mile intervening. When the school bell rings in September of this year Westchester's new schools will be in operation. The architectural scheme chosen is the English style. Everything is modern construction throughout; absolutely fire-proof, of steel and concrete materials with brick walls trimmed with stone. Westchester starts its school year with exceptional advantages. Being a permanent school district (district 92 1/2) of Proviso Township, it received a pro rata share of the assets of all the surrounding districts.
Besides housing the school children, the handsome buildings to be opened this fall will serve Westchester as community buildings containing full gymnasium facilities, meeting rooms for civic bodies, auditoriums, etc.
Students of high school age will attend Proviso Township High School, in Maywood, with transportation and tuition provided by the Westchester School District as the present village school system embraces only those ages from kindergarten to the eighth grade.
The new school buildings are capable of being easily enlarged as occasion demands, by the addition of wings. At present they will accommodate from seventy to one hundred and twenty pupils.
The grounds about the buildings are to be landscaped and gardened into playgrounds for the use of the children.
Grant M. Britten is President of the Board of Trustees of the Westchester School Board, Howard R. Roberts is Clerk and Treasurer and Charles Reiche is the third member.
A tract of sixteen acres on the north side of Twenty-second street between Broadway and Mannheim Road has been set aside as a civic center, and here are to be erected the Westchester City Hall, the Westchester Public Library, the High School, Post Office, Fire and Police Stations.
Westchester's well-being as a municipality is in the hands of an able village government, with Grant N. Britten as its executive head. To Mr. Britten during these years of planning is due a large measure of the credit for the orderly unfoldment of the various plans and execution of public expenditures. His board of trustees have been faithful to their trust. Members of the board are: Klaas Prime, R. E. Zehner, R. L. La Force, J. A. Landall, Chas. Gardner and Ernest Farrand. Reuben N. Nelson is clerk, Edward J. Hennessy, attorney, Consoer. Older & Quinlan, engineers, W. E. Panttila, treasurer and Ralph H. Hipp, collector.
President Britten has spent a life-time in the service of the public, in large construction work and public utilities. Besides being chief executive of the village government, he is president of the new school board, president of the Fairlawn Golf Club and Superintendent of the Suburban Construction Company. Britten's Camp, a huge construction camp in the heart of Westchester, is one of the stirring scenes of his activities. Here the actual work of the building of Westchester originates, here is where the big construction gangs are housed. Mr. Britten's Chicago office, 79 West Monroe Street, is the headquarters of the Suburban Construction Company, whose immense building program calls for an army of architects, engineers, clerks and artisans, in order to cover the broad territory of metropolitan Chicago. Mr. Britten's hand is on the pulse of all these movements, guiding and directing and supervising. In his hands and those of his associates and fellow workers, is the future of Westchester, infant prodigy of Chicagoland.
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