It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hi, I'm Jen Mason-Garb, Director of Interpretation and Research at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

If you've ever lived in a historic apartment building, you've probably discovered a

quirky feature clearly left over from another era, a mystery closet that contains a window,

adjacent doors that just don't seem to go anywhere. But have you ever wondered about what those

odd mystery spaces can tell us about who lived there before you and what was life like at the time?

Our question askers have been wondering the same thing.

I'm Biz. I'm a artist.

So my name is Tyler and I'm an illustrator.

We met at art school.

Yeah.

Biz Knapp and Tyler Nichol live in a 1927, eight-story brick apartment building in East Rogers Park.

Yep, this is us.

Okay.

So it's just teeny.

And when Biz and Tyler moved into their two-room apartment, they discovered this odd closet in an odd location.

They've wondered about this mystery for years.

So it's in the middle of the room.

It's really narrow.

It's maybe like a foot deep.

Like I don't even know if you could fit like winter coats or something in here because it really

is very narrow.

...