commercial building with dearborn cast iron "front" and adjoining boarding house wrecked late last week

back-to-back demolition of 1880’s victorian era commercial building and adjoining residential boarding house comprised of brick accentuated with joilet limestone ornament ornament. the commercial building was especially difficult to see destroyed since it retained the original dearborn foundry “no. 2” cast iron and steel front configuration, with three-sided ornamental cast iron columns supporting a long horizontal beam with simple radial fluted anchor rosettes.

i’ve researched/written extensively about cast iron “fronts” adorning late 19th century and early 20th century chicago commercial buildings executed by dearborn or union foundry so this configuration and ornament used is nothing new, but important, nonetheless. in addition to having period catalogs showing numerous facade configurations, i’ve managed to salvage a great deal of components from these “systems” for further study (see pics).

thankfully, heneghan wrecking offered me a little time to rush over and document the still-standing boarding house (note the dated 1887 pediment cornice) and salvage sections of the commercial building’s cast iron store front, including the columns flanking the main entrance and anchors with rosettes.