charles frost and alfred granger-designed buildings lost and found

having recently witnessed the charles sumner frost-designed public life insurance building being unceremoniously toppled, with no effort toward its salvage, my mind wandered to other sites in the city, both remaining and lost, that were touched by the architects. frost had a fruitful partnership with alfred granger around the turn of the century, and the pair designed dozens of colossal structures in chicago and beyond-- banks, hospitals, churches, and railway stations -- many replete with neoclassical ornamentation.

c. 1924 president of the public life insurance company

frost worked on his own between 1889 and 1898 before starting his partnership with alfred h. granger. alfred granger had arrived to chicago after having completed a prestigious eductation at m.i.t. and the ecole des beaux-arts in paris. he initially assisted charles coolidge (architect of the art institute of chicago), and went on to briefly work with the firm of jenney and mundie. after four years of a private practice in ohio, granger returned to chicago in 1898 to join forces with charles frost. interestingly, frost and granger not only worked together but married into the same family. their wives were both daughters of marvin hughitt, who was president of the chicago and north western railroad. hughitt was in fact a decisive influence on the partners' careers, as he would commission them to design multiple large-scale buildings for his company.

one such commission was the company's office building, constructed in 1904 at 226 west jackson; seven years later the firm would design the chicago and north western terminal, built in 1911 at 500 w. madison. the former structure still stands, housing the city colleges headquarters, while the latter terminal was sadly demolished in the early 1980's, replaced by the ogilvie transportation center.

the extant office building underwent renovation in 1978, and the bldg. 51 museum and gallery managed to obtain artifacts from this time, in the form of multiple unrestored black painted exterior two-part neoclassical style cast iron corbels (the contractor could not see these being scrapped so he contacted me) from the facade of the 14-story prairie style office building. the oversized neoclassical style corbel contains rich detail-- floral rosettes, acanthus leafage, and volutes. the layers of old black paint finish were thoroughly removed to reveal the fine casting, which is attributed to the dearborn foundry company. a total of 8 were removed when their anchors were badly corroded and posed a threat to pedestrians below. the example shown in this post is a permanent fixture of the bldg. 51 collection.

while the chicago and north western terminal was demolished in the 1980's, the powerhouse remains, a scarce example of its kind. a beaux-arts building with large, arched windows set within cream-colored brick walls, the powerhouse had long been slated for demolition but was successfully added to the national register of historic places in 2004. its designation as a landmark ultimately lead to an award-winning adaptive reuse project.

still, looking to the past week's demolitions it becomes painfully clear that neither age, a prominent architect's vision, or awe-inspiring scale could spare the public life insurance building from demolition. in all its irony, these buildings --  seemingly monuments to permanence -- all too often fail to outweigh the drive for development. for the foreseeable future, modern buildings will continue to erase historic structures, and we can only hope to rescue small pieces of those structures, whether thriving or ailing, that speak to the city's history.