This is an undated article “Between Pulaski & Cicero”, likely published after 1935 when the name change of Crawford Avenue was changed to Pulaski.

Transcript: Between Pulaski and Cicero, all the streets begin with the letter K, but two: Tripp and Lowell do not. Why the exceptions?

Once, the streets west of Pulaski (then Crawford ) we numbered and called ''avenues,'' with Tripp and Lowell as exceptions but in the City Council they eliminated the numbers as-names system for north streets to end confusion with South Side east-west streets, some of which also bore numbers as names, but which were called streets.

However, the Tripp and Lowell exceptions were permitted.

Tripp is named for Jr. Robinson Tripp, a doctor and storekeeper who built Chicago's first paved·sidewalk, in 1853, at his State and Lake), and Lowell is named for F.W. Lowell a popular early school teacher here. In making the change, the City Council selected a system of alphabetizing street to give a clue to their Location. In addition to the ''K'' streets, L streets were established between Cicero and Central, M between Central and Narragansett, N, between Narragansett and Harlem; between Harlem and P, from there to the city limits, all with a few exceptions.

Meanwhile, on the South Side, the system of numbering streets was expanded; until then, only about half the east-west streets had numbers. Thus Cooper (for novelist James Fenimore Cooper) became 0th St.; Cross, Bridge and Commerce-became 9th, 20th and 2Ist, and Monteray, Palo Alto ,Buena Vista and Rio Grande, all streets that had been laid out after the Mexican War and named for battle that war,. that became 23d, 24th, 25th and 26th. Later, conversely, a few numbered South South streets were changed to names of persons:

39th street became Pershing Rd., 12th St. was renamed for Theodore Roosevelt and 22d St became Cermak Rd. And on the West Side, Crawford became Pulaski, a tribute to the Polish hero of the American revolution. But if the City Council had been logical, the tribute would have gone to another Polish hero of the American Revolution, which name began with a K; Kosciusko.

For an explanation on how the alphabet streets came to be, read about Edward Brennan, the originator of this system:

https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/not-lost-thank-edward-brennan/