Site
E
The 18th Street business district continues to be as important today
as it was a century ago when Pilsen was strictly a "pedestrian
neighborhood." Spanish signs now dominate the first floor shops,
which run the gamut from Mexican bakeries, to grocery stores and
butcher shops, bookstores, small clothing shops, taverns, and restaurants.
Site
F
Turn right at Paulina and go one block north to 17th Street, then
right and one block east on 17th to Ashland (1600 West). The magnificent
Roman basilica known as St. Adalbert's, 1656 W. 17th Street,
was designed by Henry J. Schlacks, built by the West Side's leading
Polish Catholic congregation and dedicated in 1914, forty years
after the parish was founded. The church's murals and stained
glass windows established St. Adalbert's as a Polish shrine. In
recent years the church has taken on a new identity as predominantly
Mexican. Symbolic of this change is the shrine in honor of Our
Lady of San Juan de los Lagos (1975) with its traditional picture
of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The above photograph shows th interior
of St. Adalbert's Church in 1980.
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