The tale of the two-flat

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Investigation, Chicago, Radio, Arts, Society & Culture, Public, Education, Curious, City

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You know the building: Two stories, an apartment unit on each floor, usually with bay windows and a facade of brick or greystone. But how did the two-flat become so popular, and who was it originally built to serve? In our last episode, we looked at the types of places Chicago’s single women lived in at the turn of the 20th century. In today’s episode, we explore the Bohemian origins of the humble Chicago two-flat. As it turns out, the advent of the two-flat mirrors the development of the city’s middle class. “Our design No. 144 is a two-family flat designed for a money making proposition,” begins a 1915 ad enticing homebuyers to build a two-flat. “Anyone wanting a comfortable home and at the same time a good income on the investment will do well to consider this proposition.” Plus, we answer another housing-related listener question: why are Chicago fire escapes distinctively wooden (read: flammable) and are they actually effective during fires? This episode was reported by Chris Bentley and was originally published in 2014.

Transcript

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1:04.2	What's up Chicago? I'm Erin Allen, and this is Curia City. If you're on the bus and you
1:10.4	glance out the window or you open up Google Maps Street View,
1:13.6	you will see one type of Chicago structure everywhere, the humble two-flat apartment building.
1:21.6	Our last episode was all about where single women found housing in Chicago back at the turn of the 20th century.
1:28.3	Today we're bringing you the story of one quintessential type of housing in Chicago that straddles the line between apartment and house.
1:37.3	Now, it might be easy to ignore the two-flat, or take it for granted, but it turns out it is directly tied to the fate of our local middle class.
1:48.5	Here's a question we originally set out to answer way back in 2014. Who were two flats originally
1:55.4	designed to serve? And has that changed? I'll let reporter Chris Bentley take it from here.
2:03.1	You know the two flat, even if you don't live in one.
2:05.9	Two stories with an apartment unit on each floor, usually made of brick or graystone,
2:10.2	sometimes with a bay window in front, and their old.
2:12.8	Most were built between 1900 and 1920.
2:15.8	According to data from DePaul University's Institute of Housing Studies,
2:19.4	there are more than 76,000 two-unit apartment buildings in Chicago today. In some neighborhoods,
2:24.9	the two-flat constitutes more than two-thirds of the building stock. The Architecture Foundation's
	...

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