historically important fulton street market directory shed's light on district's storied past

before its rapid transformation, the “fulton street market” of tech giants and restauranteurs was a quintessential part of chicago’s industrial past, a thriving home to the city’s first century as a gritty, blue collar hub, where food distribution and manufacturing boomed. sadly, as preservation becomes a front for more development, and landmarking an effort to calcify that history into higher property values, the most meaningful remains of a passing place seem to be located in fragments from long ago (ironically these fragments are only now being discovered through the demolition and/or alterations of buildings housed within the historic fulton district.

an exceptionally rare, one of a kind reverse-painted interior directory - likely found in the basement of the former cold storage building - bears witness to five businesses, which once occupied the same block as google’s monolithic glass and steel headquarters. bordered by fulton and carroll, carpenter and morgan, the corporation sits atop the former refrigerator for multiple meat packers and food distributors. research on the companies leads to little specific history, which goes to show how easily this information could slip away, if not for attention paid to the artifacts that accompany buildings.

the sign itself, is rather large for being a wall-mounted directory, not to mention crude in construction with "folk art" characteristics. the majority of the thick plate glass panels exhibit reverse-painted lettering with a few containing the sign maker's name ( e. degenhardt). the surrounding border and dividers are comprised of brass with the original oxidized copper or "tiger stripe" finish largely intact. both the glass panels and elegant brass framing components are backed by hand-made wood slats nailed to opposing vertical stretchers. the mostly uniform painted finish is no doubt original. the directory dates to the 1920's-1930's, but plate glass panels have likely come and gone, like the occupants of the building.

the building that preceded google is well-known. it is considered by many to have been the 20^th century beacon of the neighborhood, constructed in 1920 as a full-block windowless behemoth which architects gardner & lindberg designed to have a decorative trim of terra cotta near the roofline. the structure served the refrigeration needs for the entire district. when it was sold and transformed in 2011, nearly a century of ice had to be defrosted from the interior. an ironic undertaking alongside the language used to sell the neighborhood, characterizing fulton as a "white hot market" for various development.

several gauges (original to the building) in all shapes and sizes were rescued from the bowels of the cold storage building, housing the boilers, electrical panels, water mains, and so on.

in the mid-19^th century, the area saw construction of chicago’s first city hall and food market, and from there the city expanded outward. many of the buildings once inhabiting the neighborhood did not survive into the 20^th century, but the its defining characteristics – a wide central street and architecture supporting a thriving marketplace– remained. the great fire of 1871 only intensified production, making fulton market the epicenter for wholesale trade.

the fulton-randolph market preceded any other industrial zone in the city, and cemented chicago's reputation as bread basket for the region. as the center for food processing and redistribution from surrounding farmland, the neighborhood's very identity lies in its historic fabric, as a strong immigrant and working class community on the near west side in close proximity to the movement of rail and waterway - uniquely poised to provide the sustenance necessary for explosive urban growth. even during the late 19th century the farmer's market there was regarded as quite a curiosity, for bringing together people from the countryside and urban areas, and creating a spectacle of suppliers hocking their produce on wagons. as an 1898 guide read "the city and country meet day by day in the everlasting crash of separate interests..."

it has been equally important as a meatpacking district, housing the nation's biggest packers. the above cold storage directory lists only several of the many businesses involved in those operations. architecturally, the area was shaped by the meatpacking industry (and its corollary businesses of wholesale produce and later, warehouse manufacturing), meaning its makeup is largely brick masonry structures, densely constructed in low-rise configurations, and bearing a utilitarian demeanor. decorative elements are less pronounced and more integral to construction, for instance appearing in the patterning of brick and in some cases, red slip ornamental terra cotta.

the ethos of this architecture (and the overall neighborhood cohesion, which are well-described in the "landmark designation report") has sadly not been heeded in major developments of the recent past, which seem to put no stock in the history that makes chicago distinctive.

those factories and plants - established for moving farmed goods, produce, meat, cheese, machinery and other manufactured goods - have rapidly been supplanted by top dollar restaurants, hideous high rises, and "luxury" housing with little purpose besides providing amenities for the continuous flow of elite newcomers. the rampant development  has triggered a cascade of insensitive, bordering on comical remuddlings, sweeping demolitions and disney-esque facadectomies, which would eerily erase everything that fomented the fulton market as locus of city growth and as a center for the labor movement (host to a peak confrontation, the haymarket affair in 1886). "a crash of separate interests" resounds, to say the least. the collective soul, once ingrained within the district's buildings is no longer, which again, marks a huge failure to uphold the historic integrity of an entire district holistically. it is akin to the gentrification happening in so many other chicago neighborhoods. a deeply entrenched insensitivity (or stupidity) fueled by money and an urge for redevelopment is radically altering the 19th century chicago cityscape, and at an alarming speed. before we know it, we will be, as james h. kunstler's book title so elegantly states, in a "geography of nowhere," with no ties to the past and no guidance for the future.