Friday, December 28, 2012

Welcome to (Radio) Chicago, 93 XRT.

          This mural is on Sheridan just north of Rogers welcomes motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc to Chicago. Sad to see that it has fallen into such disrepair. Three sections of the advertising have been removed and the 93 is badly faded. XRT is Chicago's greatest radio station and Rogers Park is Chicago's greatest neighborhood. It is only fitting that we have such a sign restored to its original splendor. Most advertising is ugly and blight, not so with this sign. Pretty old fashioned for radio stations to advertise at all nowadays, used to be quite common.
Rogers Park's Tallest Building the Farcroft in the distance.
        
        
        Cursory research reveals that this station was originally WFJL from 1947 until 1959, then it was WSBC from 1959 to 1963, then WXRT in 1964. First official on air (in current format) date is listed as 1972. WXRT was locally owned until 1995 when it was bought out by CBS. Based upon this information gleaned from wikipedia and looking at the wear on the sign, one would guess that this advertising is from when WXRT was locally owned and from sometime in the eighties. This photo was taken December 24th 2012. A short walk down the street to the Sheridan and Rogers intersection you can see the mighty Farcroft peeking out above the other buildings.
To see a closeup of the Farcroft with its scaffolding still evident continue reading below








Closeup Of Farcroft Looming Above The Pack (which we can see still has scaffolding)

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