Bldg. 51

urban remains spent a good portion of 2009 carefully extracting artifacts from the jarvis hunt-designed lake shore drive athletic club for future use and/or reintegration into the building once it was converted to apartments. that time has come. see below, in article and images.  Once threatened with demolition, the 19-story building from 1927 will now have units ranging from $1,900...

built on the site of the first brick building in chicago (1837), the 13 story steel frame chicago stock exchange building was designed by the architectural firm of adler and sullivan with falkenau & company as general contractors. the building was completed in 1894 at a total cost of $1,131,555.16. the stock exchange contained 13 stories with the single basement...

after photodocumenting the chicago athletic association building for weeks now, i focused my camera on the unusual and greatly oversized cast plaster chandelier at the foot of the grand staircase leading to the upper level or balcony of the swimming or "plunge" room. i suspected the chandelier and the matching candelabra sconces and heavily ornamented coffered ceiling, replete with highly...

more and more layers are peeled back - week after week - and i'm there to document it with my cameras. the frequency of extensive "remuddlings" that have occurred over the decades in this building are rather astonishing, yet equally depressing in some ways (at the very least, when considering the historic integrity). so much has been lost (or thrown...

nearly sixteen years ago, i was attending college during the day and working as an audio engineer at night in a recording studio a friend and i haphazardly piecemealed together in the basement of the historic odin j. oyen building. during the course of organizing the studio space, i befriended the new owner of the building, who had every intention of...

the light was right. the scaffolding was in place and easily accessible. i spent a great deal of time documenting the exterior - especially the carved limestone columns and capitals (the stone setter was john arnold), and the art glass windows designed by healy ad millet. i hope a get chance to photodocument the annex (both additions) containing some visually...

here are a few more photographs of the chicago athletic association building (henry ives cobb) taken late last week. more to come.

i managed to get away from the shop this afternoon so i could continue photo-documenting the interior of the athletic club association building while it undergoes its transformation from abandoned club to boutique hotel. although they have an industrial photographer onboard, i told the developers that i would do this free of charge and hand over any and all edited...

after dismantling the false or "drop" ceiling installed during a classic remuddle, the original cast plaster "drooping tip" ceiling was exposed for the first time in decades. unfortunately, the installation of the drop ceiling caused considerable damage to the ornament. i'm glad i was able to capture the moment during this unusual "unveiling." the ceiling was installed in 1892-93 in...

i'm incredibly excited (and equally relieved) after some rather nerve-wracking auction bidding as of recent. i participated in a local auction that offered an amazingly large collection of louis sullivan-designed artifacts from various notable building commissions (e.g., stock exchange, guaranty building, etc.).  i managed to win a copper-plated cast iron elevator medallion from the schlesinger & mayer department store, along...

i was pleasantly surprised when i discovered this "gardenesque" plaster ornament while photodocumenting the interior of the chicago athletic association annex (commonly referred to as the "madison building" by club members). the cast plaster corbels were revealed recently during renovations, after being hidden for years from senseless alterations. unfortunately, there is considerable damage evident, so whether or not they will...

completely and utterly exhausted. worked 13 hours straight. removed several truckloads of salvaged items from the chicago athletic club. fortunately, nearly all of the historically significant architectural elements from the original 1893 building (henry ives cobb, architect) and the 1907 "michigan building" addition (schmidt, garden & martin, architects) will be carefully restored and reincorporated into the final design as a...

urban remains owner eric j. nordstrom and anthony baus work together on the roofline of the richman brothers building on a balmy saturday afternoon. the polychrome terra cotta ornament was carefully removed and preserved. two of the figural birds reside in the bldg. 51 museum. the richman brothers clothing store (formerly known as the bee hive dry goods store was...

The sheer variety of rare and unusual pieces here is mind-blowing. Between the huge warehouse in Chicago’s West Town and the online catalog, this architectural antique store is like a museum where everything is for sale. From stained and leaded glass windows, to historic building hardware and 1920s Farie lamps, Toledo stools and industrial tables, antique electrical devices, the odd...

urban remains has recently acquired a sizeable amount of meticulously documented original building elements removed from the historic reliance building after nearly 16 years in off-site storage. the majority of the artifacts found in storage were either replaced with faithful reproductions or were rendered obsolete under current day building codes during a lengthy restoration occurring in the 1990's. building materials...

sadly, the massive, intricately designed "sullivanesque" unglazed and speckled terra cotta frieze, adorning the facade of the c. 1905 michael reese hospital (designed by the architectural firm of garden, martin and schmidt), was destroyed in early may of 2011. in addition, nearly 300 terra cotta figural lion heads flanking the ends of the window sills were lost as well. any...