Aretha Franklin’s Childhood Home (C.L. Franklin House)

Long before the Rose Estate, there was this brick house on LaSalle — the home of Reverend C.L. Franklin, the nationally famous pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, and his daughter Aretha. She lived here from around age five to eighteen, and the house was a genuine crossroads of mid-century Black America: her father’s circle meant Martin Luther King Jr., Dinah Washington, Sam Cooke, and other giants passed through these rooms while Aretha was still a girl learning to sing in her father’s church.

(A more recent owner has said neighbors still remember Sammy Davis Jr. renting the place across the street.) This is where the Queen of Soul’s voice was formed — gospel first, everything else after. It sits a few doors from other music-history homes on LaSalle, including Jackie Wilson’s. The mansion came later; the voice started here.