Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

beginning monday, i found myself documenting a dig site where a prototypical late 19th century graystone two-flat  (demolished earlier this year) once resided. with the exception of  an early 1880's cobalt john a. lomax hutchinson unearthed at the front of the lot, a surprisingly large assortment of 1870's bottles and shards were discovered in condensed "deposits" under an enclosed porch (an addition likely...

long ago when i studied the chicago world's fair or "columbian exposition" of 1893 i wondered what, if anything, remained from the "white city" long after it was burned down and/or demolished. where did all the statues go? the lamp posts? like many others, i  was particularly fascinated with the gargantuan ferris wheel constructed on the midway plaisance.  the attraction...

once again i arrived on another heneghan wrecking job site (my crew and i recently completed salvage work at the a. finkl & sons foundry and the howard johnson excavation site) where a massive wooden rood truss warehouse constructed in 1918 was undergoing demolition. when the demolition permit for this structure landed on my radar, i was immediately interested. the otherwise mundane masonry structure contained a...

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 23, 400 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one is to have each and every artifact (housed...

i've amassed this large collection of antique chicago-based bottles (mainly "soda" or "mineral water") through auctions, excavation sites, privies, and private collectors over the past 8 months. with the "unearthing chicago" book taking shape, i'm scrambling to find many more bottles to fill in many blanks found in each of the decades i'm including in the book. in the meantime...

in the wake of recently completing a publication on my collection, "bldg. 51 museum: a collection of historically important american architectural artifacts," i have decided to make some additions to the virtual bldg. 51 museum in the form of services offered. this will include archival services (akin to my 3-year documentation of the 1893 chicago athletic association building's transition to...

visiting milwaukee over the weekend was brief, but productive nonetheless. in addition to visiting familiar haunts, i decided to take some time to photograph the vibrantly colored 19th century masonry, or "cream city" brick structures. these containing upper facade commercial false fronts, or "boomtown" cornices with striking stamped tin or cut stone name plaques (often accompanied by the date the building...

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 23, 400 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one is to have each and every artifact (housed...

my participation in yesterday's auction proved to be successful when i managed to secure a historically important, frank lloyd wright leaded art glass window designed for the arthur heurtley house (1902). remarkably the strongly geometric art glass window was free from damage and unlike most of my other frank lloyd wright windows, the original wood sash frame was intact and...

this was the first job site where i was unable to document the demolition of a late 19th century chicago two story wood-framed residence. it contained both old growth notched timber sills and girts with mortise and tenon joinery. in my place, i sent my most skilled salvagers to oversee the demolition and photodocument the timbers both "in situ" and...

late last week i was bombarded with several 19th century chicago soda and ale bottles sourced from auctions, fellow bottle enthusiasts and privy pits. a few will go into my personal collection of historically important 19th century bottles with the most notable being the cobalt blue glass george lomax soda or mineral water bottle, which is the only known example of an open-pontiled chicago...

it was simultaneously exhilarating and a bit surreal to experience this building as our "home" for a day. it was comforting to not have to haul a bunch of gear (with the exception of my ever-present camera), wear a hardhat, deal with extreme temperatures, or travel up and down stairs (though this is something I grew quite fond of for the last three...

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 23, 400 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one is to have each and every artifact (housed...

between residential and commercial salvages, i'm making an effort to also  visit and dig multiple excavation sites that are seemingly popping up all around chicago. digging up these "portals to the past" has provided me the opportunity to collect more data in the form of bottles, fragments, building materials that were bulldozed into the ground during demolitions decades ago, and hundreds of...

nearly 3 years later, i've completed my work at the chicago athletic association building. documenting the entire process has resulted in a collection of over 10,000 images, several parking tickets, and countless hours of exploring/documenting the exterior and interior of both cobb's building and schmidt, garden & martin's adjoining annex during its slow transformation from being largely abandoned to becoming...

i am continually fascinated at how both time and the elements transform otherwise mundane objects or subject matter into visually striking objects of "art." as i continue to explore my archive of digital photography, i came across a folder entitled "streets, signs & surface," containing thousands of images captured over the years, in which i purposely found the simplest and most unappealing subject...

--combing through tens of thousands of images taken over 15 years ago when i switched to digital photography-- i possess thousands of folders filled with photographs largely revolving around 19th and early 20th century american city architecture. these include images of signage, surfaces, streets, storefronts and anything else that caught my eye within a given urban landscape. i recall spending a...

my ever-growing collection of antique american soda bottles and my persistent and/or obsessive privy digging engagements are firmly planted (for better or for worse) in the day-to-day living with my significant other. recently she surprised me with an unbelievably thoughtful "couple activity," in which we visited a glassblowing studio to learn firsthand how to create our own glass bottles. at the helm was instructor...

i was absolutely delighted to begin the week by acquiring an assortment of original early 20th century cast bronze and brass "bare bulb" industrial incandescent light fixtures salvaged from various new york city subway stations. the subway station fixtures are  so incredibly simplistic and visually attractive in design, with virtually unlimited potential for use in a vast array of settings...

when time permits, i'm moving from one excavation site to another to look for pieces of the past before those "time portals" are once again closed when construction begins. i must admit, i have not "scored" any major privy vaults containing a condensed collection of material to tell a story of chicago life during a given time span, but at...