New Acquisitions

the bldg. 51 museum recently acquired an exceptional, copper-plated ornamental figural cast iron elevator panel and full-bodied eagle (the latter is an attribution) rescued from henry ives cobb's downtown chicago chicago federal building (1898), prior to its demolition in 1965. the single-sided eagle panel was originally apart of an elevator door bedecked with neoclassical design motifs. the three-dimensional figural finial is comprised...

a vast collection of 19th century exterior dearborn foundry newel posts, tuttle & bailey floor registers, and miscellaneous ornamental ironwork hand-crafted by f.p. smith was recently acquired by urban remains earlier this week. the american victorian-era interior and exterior residential ironwork was salvaged from demolished cottages, italianates, and greystones across chicago over the past twenty years. the following group of...

the bldg. 51 museum recently acquired yet another, well-executed full-scale alfonso iannelli-designed midway gardens figural head - cast from a plaster mold taken directly off the only known surviving fragment rescued from the massive "cube" fountain housed within frank lloyd wrights 1914 midway garden's indoor entertainment complex (demolished in 1929). the fountain head fragment is a welcomed addition to the bldg. 51 museums's...

the following images represent a small sampling of artifacts and/or objects added to the urban remains catalog within recent weeks. in addition, we have discounted several items within the collection, so please revisit your "wishlists" and/or search the catalog for sale items.  

remnants from the site of a short-lived druggist's pharmacy (1872-1874) were discovered under a downtown chicago parking ramp (since demolished). during excavation in preparation for new development, machine operator john propeck unearthed nearly 30 (mostly broken) stephen israel mineral water bottles lying against a foundation wall belonging to his post-fire building (demolished when the parking ramp was built in the...

after nearly ten years, i was delighted to finally come across a catalog that definitively identifies the fabricator behind a small collection of stamped steel or tin "sullivanesque" style ceiling panels i've had in my possession all these years. this was one of the more substantial discoveries of the week, so i am pleased to share images of tin ceiling panels  that now reside in the...

  once again i managed to reserve some time for congress's theaters dark, cavernous attic space when i revisited the theater last week to resume documenting the interior and exterior before its its extensive overhaul gets underway. almost immediately after entering the attic, i discovered a heavily-used galvanized steel bucket with drop handle wedged under one of the suspended catwalks...

last year i devoted a great deal of my time documenting 19th chicago workers cottages built before and after the great chicago fire of 1871. thankfully, the majority of the houses i photographically surveyed were not threatened with demolition, espeically on the north side of chicago, just west of the outskirts of the fire's "burnt district." many of those surviving cottages were...

the full-figured terra cotta eagles (american terra cotta company) and the largely unornamented shields they're perched on, were carefully removed from the towering gothic style arched buick automobile showroom's main entrance, designed by notable chicago architect clarence hatzfeld in 1921. the tan-colored, mottled glazed terra cotta full-winged eagles flanked the building's entrance, which was heavily altered when the second floor's...

shortly before the michael brand brewery complex was slated for demolition, i made my way over there with the hopes of documenting the few buildings left standing. after speaking with, and later earning the trust of the owner (his family's rubber works business had been there for the past several decades, if memory serves me correctly), i was allowed into...

i've noticed more and more cold-rolled steel or iron porcelain enameled advertising signs being dug from both commercial and residential excavation sites across chicago over the past few months. nearly all of the signs unearthed are heavily corroded with the polychromed enameled finish faded, but intact enough to identify the product or service and approximate date the sign was fabricated...

a sizable collection of all original illuminated interior wall-mount lobby bronze meta elevator "signal lanterns" or indicators were salvaged from the historically important, towering 38-story graham, anderson, probst, white-designed foreman-national bank building during a nearly completed overhaul of the "lasalle canyon" skyscraper's interior. the extant foreman state national bank building is composed of a 38-story central tower, flanked by two...

with "unearthing chicago" (a bldg. 51 publication) off to the printers, i'm eager to revisit a book project i've had on the back-burner for far too long. after nearly 5 years spent intermittently documenting the henry ives cobb-designed chicago athletic association building (1893), during its remarkable rebirth through a historically sensitive restoration, i feel obligated to finally put together a book...

most of the images, at least the ones taken with my zoom lenses, portray the perforated polychromatic terra cotta panel detail outlining the facade of rapp & rapp's mission revival style central park theater. the linear bands of cream and green-colored terra cotta crisscrossing the facade of the theater were configured with the dual purpose of being both decorative and...

a little over a month into the new year, the bldg. 51 museum has been busy acquiring and cataloging several historically important architectural fragments from chicago's past - salvaged from buildings demolished long ago. perhaps the most important acquisition is a rare cast aluminum elevator grille recovered from the non-extant isabella building, designed by architects william le baron jenney &...

this stereoview captures both a chaotic and energized street scene deep within the former "burnt district" along lasalle street, less than 2 years after the great fire of 1871. the stereoview (which enhanced the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis, or binocular vision) was distributed by the photographic firm of lovejoy and foster, chicago, ills. on...

the bldg. 51 museum, comprised of fragments from chicago's past, continues to acquire historically important architectural artifacts from the non-extant granada theater, a once a grand movie palace constructed for the marks brothers in 1926. levy and klein were architects of this building, now lost to us except for photographs and scattered pieces. the plaster fragments, cove lighting fresnel lenses...

earlier this week a 19th century residential privy pit or "vault" was discovered during the excavation of a west town neighborhood lot, where a single story framed-wood cottage once stood. just one year ago that residence succumbed to the wrecking ball. the demolition is sharp in my memory, but i temporarily abandoned the site after learning excavation of the lot...

when i visited the congress theater last week, i began by carefully navigating and methodically photo-documenting several deep, dark and dirty plaster and steel-framed cavities and coves high above the theater's cavernous auditorium ceiling. while zigzagging across the original, wobbly wood board catwalks, i distinctly recall being taken aback by the number of objects i ran across - thanks to my head lamp...

long after the collection of historically-important buildings belonging to rush's hospital campus were reduced to rubble, we received a call from a woman assigned the task of selling and/or discarding the piles of building remnants that had been dropped at a desolate storage yard shortly after each building succumbed to the wrecking ball. like the hospital buildings, this architectural "graveyard...