New Acquisitions

my participation in yesterday's auction proved to be successful when i managed to secure a historically important, frank lloyd wright leaded art glass window designed for the arthur heurtley house (1902). remarkably the strongly geometric art glass window was free from damage and unlike most of my other frank lloyd wright windows, the original wood sash frame was intact and...

this was the first job site where i was unable to document the demolition of a late 19th century chicago two story wood-framed residence. it contained both old growth notched timber sills and girts with mortise and tenon joinery. in my place, i sent my most skilled salvagers to oversee the demolition and photodocument the timbers both "in situ" and...

late last week i was bombarded with several 19th century chicago soda and ale bottles sourced from auctions, fellow bottle enthusiasts and privy pits. a few will go into my personal collection of historically important 19th century bottles with the most notable being the cobalt blue glass george lomax soda or mineral water bottle, which is the only known example of an open-pontiled chicago...

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 23, 400 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one is to have each and every artifact (housed...

between residential and commercial salvages, i'm making an effort to also  visit and dig multiple excavation sites that are seemingly popping up all around chicago. digging up these "portals to the past" has provided me the opportunity to collect more data in the form of bottles, fragments, building materials that were bulldozed into the ground during demolitions decades ago, and hundreds of...

i was absolutely delighted to begin the week by acquiring an assortment of original early 20th century cast bronze and brass "bare bulb" industrial incandescent light fixtures salvaged from various new york city subway stations. the subway station fixtures are  so incredibly simplistic and visually attractive in design, with virtually unlimited potential for use in a vast array of settings...

when time permits, i'm moving from one excavation site to another to look for pieces of the past before those "time portals" are once again closed when construction begins. i must admit, i have not "scored" any major privy vaults containing a condensed collection of material to tell a story of chicago life during a given time span, but at...

i've managed to gather well over a hundred rare and richly colored soda and/or mineral water bottles dating to the mid-19th century over the past month. since the rapidity of bottle acquisition has made it incredibly difficult to populate the urban remains website with these great finds, i've included an image gallery below of the ones i've at least managed to photograph...

the assemblage of photographic images shown in the gallery below offer a glimpse of my most recent visit (two consecutive days of shooting) to the notable a. finkl & sons chicago foundry that is rapidly being taken apart and discarded by several on-site excavators operated by the heneghan wrecking company. with assistance from my salvage crew, i continue to discover industrial objects or...

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 23, 200 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed...

earlier this week urban remains came across a treasure trove of chicago public school science classroom anatomical models, charts and posters, fossils and other interesting specimens. the images below provide a small sampling of the acquisitions that have been photographed and added to the website.    the images below pertain to the discovery of the double helix, with watson and crick...

after thoroughly documenting and/or collecting any and all data from wood beam sill plate corners from various 19th century chicago residences, i'm trying to determine what to do with them since i have nearly 100 individual specimens finished in a nearly identical manner to the two interconnected plate segments shown below. since most of the furniture in our new home...

for the past few months i have been exchanging emails with marty uhl, the grandchild of clement uhl, who with his brother joe, founded the toledo metal furniture company in 1903. for the next several decades, their "uhl art steel" furniture would find its way in commercial spaces throughout the country. in modern times, the resurgence of the clement-designed adjustable...

the recent removal of a depression era three-phase alternating current gantry crane switchboard, outfitted with an oversized trumball 3-pole knife switch, injected me with newly found inspiration to revisit an otherwise largely dormant interest in acquiring any and all electrical apparatus revolving around building "power plants." i took a moment and reviewed the vast assortment of voltmeters, ammeters, jackknife switches, fuses and...

the photographic essay below offers a brief glimpse at a day of savaging artifacts during a single afternoon at a chicago area standard oil (of indiana) brick factory building constructed as a distribution and handling center for several decades. the building is set to be demolished in the coming weeks. the images capture a multitude of objects that peaked my interest...

demolition of the downtown chicago howard johnson inn, constructed in the late 1960's, is nearly complete. in preparation high-rise development that will be constructed on the site (located at the corner of la salle and superior), the wrecker has spent the past few weeks systematically "potholing" the site to make way for drilling the caissons that will serve as the foundation system for the...

last night i finished editing images of two incredible artifacts carefully removed the a. finkl & sons foundry. both depression-era artifacts join the ever-growing number of antique american industrial objects and furniture being salvaged from this notable sprawling chicago industrial complex. before being taken down and brought back to the shop, the porcelain enameled depression era cobalt blue "northern crane" sign...

he photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 23, 200 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed...

as part of our ongoing salvage efforts at a notable chicago foundry complex, we finally gained access to yet another building on the sprawling industrial campus; the building formerly served as a distribution center for standard oil of indiana. there, we discovered several matching, unusually-shaped dirk saaf-designed white porcelain or vitreous enameled fixtures with original "stems" and ball-joint canopies. as of...

the gallery below represents one of my many sub-collections with a focus on early american signs (both vitreous or porcelain and baked-on enameled) that would be found in factory settings dotting the urban landscape. i selected these signs based on their subject matter, characteristic surface wear, rarity and color scheme. although i've slowed down in terms of acquisition, i will pick...