New Acquisitions

three sections of nearly identical ornamental terra cotta roofline or coping panels featuring repeating hand-applied balls or spheres joined the bldg. 51 museum building artifact collection. ornament from the early wright-designed apartment complex was salvaged and distributed during demolition in 1973. the pieces acquired by bldg. 51 were originally given/donated to the chicago architecture foundation at the time of demolition. ...

  the following post contains another installment of objects, culled from various ongoing projects (both past and present), which were selected and assembled as a "hodgepodge" cohered by the single theme of being largely utilitarian objects from chicago's past. as previously stated, when we can flesh out the context in which these originally existed, they take on a new meaning...

the bldg. 51 museum recently secured through auction a pair of original and amazingly intact 1918-1919 william e. drummond-designed interior residential leaded glass windows accentuated with richly colored and festive flashed glass rectangles and squares. the strongly geometric windows were likely fabricated by the linden glass works, chicago, ills., but further research is needed to pinpoint the exact fabricator. the...

the following gallery offers a glimpse at the most recent american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to our ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 35,500 catalog listings to date). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective urban remains website categories.  

group of images taken from the tribune building on 11-12-1933. unidentified photographer. silver gelatin photos with ink crop markings were cut from a kodak velox contact sheet with notes on verso. images courtesy of the bldg. 51 museum archive.

1961 richard nickel kodachrome slide of john vinci working on stencil recovery from adler & sullivan's garrick theater. under crombie taylor's direction, wall sections from garrick theater - then under demolition - were cut out and brought back to taylor's home where john vinci, david norris and others spent weeks scraping away layers of paint... what they found is...

taking on more projects when already burned out beyond belief takes its toll - both physically and mentally. however, i've mastered the ability to ignore the warning signs (again and again) when situations arise where i know i need to act - whether its documenting the death of a building or in this case, purchasing a massive amount of louis...

a matching set of original richly colored stained interior residential stained glass windows - salvaged from the palmer v. kellogg mansion (burnham and root, 1883) during the depression - joined the bldg. 51 museum collection earlier this week. the two high victorian windows - featuring several jewels, swag, fruit baskets, foliated scrollwork, and fired enameled glass (confined to the fruit...

the following gallery offers a glimpse at the most recent american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to our ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 35,500 catalog listings to date). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective urban remains website categories.

2018 looks to be a very promising year in terms of ephemera, book, and artifact acquisition -  based upon what the bldg. 51 museum archive has already secured, along with arrangements in the works or nearing finalization. the ever-growing museum archive has reached a critical mass, where a publicly accessibly venue is necessary to properly display and/or exhibit chicago-based 19th...

i finally had time to shoot these two artifacts unearthed from a downtown chicago dump a while back. the 1860's hutchinson "ring top" bottle was found 15 feet below grade. the single-sided porcelain enameled depression era chicago sign, dug from the same location, was found around 5 feet below grade.  i kills me that more wasn't recovered from this site...

the former humboldt garage & auto service company building (1911) had a walk-in vault. shortly before that section of the building was demolished, the wreckers managed to open the door, where they discovered several ledgers, signs, salesman samples, blueprints, and other odds and ends left behind by the carbit paint company - the earliest checks date to 1938. courtesy of...

the following gallery offers a glimpse at the most recent american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to our ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 35,000 catalog listings to date). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective urban remains website categories.

three sections of cove molding were salvaged from albert sullivan's residence (1891) shortly before or during the house was deconstructed/demolished in 1970 (portions of the facade were removed by richard nickel and his brother donald for southern illinois university with the hope that the facade would someday be reconstructed). interior ornament was salvaged by nickel, john vinci, and robert furhoff. ...

the bldg. 51 museum recently acquired architectural artifacts (including an original early 20th century watercolor rendering that hung in the lobby) from the historically important columbus memorial building (boyington, 1893) and its neighbor, the venetian building (holabird & roche, 1892), which happened to share a boiler system with "the columbus" as it was originally known. the two buildings built within...

the following images (see below) represent a small selection of bldg. 51 museum architectural fragments acquired during 2017. the museum collection continues to revolve around chicago artifacts, with a greater emphasis placed on commercial buildings designed by notable architectural firms (e.g., burnham & root, jenney & mundie, holabird & roche, adler & sullivan, and so on.). ornament from chicago movie...

all original c. 1920's antique american ornamental cast iron interior oriental theater auditorium chair or seat end, fabricated by the heywood-wakefield company, menominee, mich. the highly ornamented single-sided cast iron figural cover seat end was salvaged from the auditorium when the seating arrangement was reconfigured during restoration in the 1990's. the theater seat ends contains a detachable cover plate originally...

next year i will force myself to set time aside and digitize my entire reference library containing 19th century architectural trade journals, company catalogs, salesman samples, booklets, brochures, etc.  for example, after rediscovering an early 20th century binder, containing double-sided plates with wood samples in a variety of finishes (i was convinced it was lost), i thought about how useful this...

  the bldg. 51 museum recently acquired a historically important collection containing hundreds of 1871 chicago fire insurance claims, letters, city permits, flyers, and advertisements revolving around the dry good merchants, bowen, winslow, and hunt.  countless hours have been spent sorting through and digitizing piles of ephemera that offer remarkable insight into the conflagration and its aftermath as seen through...

the following gallery offers a glimpse at the most recent american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to our ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 30,000 catalog listings to date). the newly acquired items have been documented, cleaned/refinished (if need be) and photographed prior to being added to their respective urban remains website categories.