Unfortunately I still haven’t worked out who the mysterious “BdWL” is, but I did find a large cache of them on the west side of North Howard Street between Michigan Avenue and Lasalle Gardens. These are some of the clearest ones I’ve seen, and dated, which is somewhat uncommon.

This stretch of sidewalk runs along the east side of the Feldman Chevrolet (formerly Bud Kouts) lot. There is a surprising stretch of good sidewalk here, considering there are no houses along it. I’m a little surprised so much sidewalk work was being done along this corridor in the 1970s.

I discovered an odd little discrepancy while getting this post ready. Google Maps thinks Howard north of Michigan is an Avenue. City records seemed to indicate Street. That isn’t the first time I’ve found something like that; the main one that comes to mind is that Google thinks Horton is a Street but it is actually an Avenue. I did what I usually do when there’s a conflict like this: I tried to settle it by looking at the street signs on Google Street View. This turned up something peculiar: the street signs, at least as photographed in 2019, have Howard as a “ST” everywhere except a single instance of “AV” at the intersection of Lasalle Gardens. This suggests Google’s “Howard Avenue” is not completely without justification, but the preponderance of evidence favors Street.