New Acquisitions

extraordinary and very rare early 20th century remarkably intact new york city subway sub-station single panel open front switchboard designed and fabricated by the metropolitan electric mfg. co., new york city, ny. metropolitan was founded in 1892 and went on to manufacture electrical equipment in addition to switchboards well into the 20th century. period advertisements offer a glimpse at some...

earlier this afternoon i managed to secure an incredibly huge lot of visually striking and vibrantly colored anglo-japanese style residential parlor stove figural majolica tiles designed and fabricated for notable stove maker, sherman s. jewett & company, buffalo, ny. the exceptionally well-designed glazed ceramic tiles were designed specifically for use with jewett stoves during the american aesthetic movement in the...

the photo gallery below offers hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this 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 21,200 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed in the showroom and warehouses), available for...

i recently acquired a remarkable cobalt blue iron pontil glass soda bottle that was recovered from a wood-lined privy pit dating to the 1850's. interestingly, the bottle is not native to chicago, although other bottles found where identified as chicago-based lomax and competitor hutchinson, who had bottling operations during this time period. the image below was taken from the 1853 bird's...

this remarkable contraption, comprised of painted iron and wood, is a very early commercial building integrated fire hose reel and swing-out bracket manufactured by or for jno. c.n. guilbert of new york city. the date of fabrication is likely 1895-98. the firefighting device was made available shortly before a series of patents were filed for similar contraptions that were designed...

very few of the original "sprite" statues adorning midway gardens survived demolition in 1929. the indoor/outdoor entertainment facility was constructed in 1914 with frank lloyd wright as architect. the full-bodied statues were designed and executed by notable industrial designer and sculptor, alfonso iannelli. wright took much of the credit with the design process, which greatly upset iannelli to the point...

the photo gallery below offers hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this 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 21,200 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed in the showroom and warehouses), available for...

as a late 1870's two story worker's cottage is rapidly being transformed into a growing pile of splintered old growth wood, i managed to work around the ongoing chaos and extract several intact building components that were used to build this modest 19th century hybrid frame dwelling; incorporating the use of balloon frame and post and beam construction. the interior...

the photo gallery below offers hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this 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 21,200 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed in the showroom and warehouses), available for...

more so than ever it seems, we have several clients aggressively seeking out and purchasing any and all of the "beau brummel" liquid soap dispensers made available on the urban remains website. long ago, we acquired a sizable quantity from one of our sources (outside the realm of local demolition contractors) who managed to secure a variety of artifacts salvaged...

the bergmann socket was designed to be compact and simply constructed with as few parts as possible, including the amount of insulation used and possess a very simple form of "circuit-controller." the stout copper-plated two-part shell or casing, containing several lightly incised patents, conceals the socket, consisting of the threaded sleeve that receives the light bulb that screws into place...

i feel very fortunate that we had the opportunity last saturday afternoon to attend the last day of architech gallery owner david jameson's "burnham, sullivan & wright" exhibit. almost immediately upon our entry we received a warm greeting and quick overview from david. i happened to notice my friend lynn becker there, admiring the framed drawings and blueprints hung on...

as i continue to systematically document an overwhelming amount of drawings, photographs, artifacts and correspondences revolving around notable artisan odin j. oyen, i felt it was important to share multiple drawings i've gathered thus far that not only shed new light on oyen's work during his time in chicago at the art institute, but also document the evolution of oyen's...

early in the afternoon we arrived at the job site during a momentary pause as the wreckers were refueling their backhoe. we took advantage of that time to quickly assess the unusually large, double lot, containing a single victorian era red brick two-flat residence constructed in the 1880's. i must admit, from the very beginning, it was incredibly hard to...

the photo gallery below offers numerous hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this 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 21,200 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed in the showroom and warehouses), available...

between residential salvages we digressed somewhat by spending two days in a recently shuttered chicago area factory, where most of the industrial equipment and/or furniture no longer in use (i.e., lying dormant) dates to 1915-23. the great majority of the factory lockers, stools and miscellaneous machinery was relegated to a section of this largely abandoned sprawling complex that likely had...

from the very beginning of this salvage, the so-called "coach house" (more often referred to as a carriage house), located on the back lot of the property, was the structure that peeked my interest more than the two flat (1897) facing the street. i felt convinced from the beginning that the classic gabled roof two-story wood frame chicago workers cottage (1883-87...

the photo gallery below offers numerous hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this week's listings (10 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 21,000 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed in the showroom and warehouses), available...

it's no secret that this gargantuan, riveted joint, wrought bronze metal john massey rhind-designed statue or figural weathervane head fragment was brought to auction by the david v. nelson family, based on all of its recent recognition in local media. however, i was truly surprised and remarkably fortunate to secure the weathervane artifact (for the bldg. 51 museum), that once was apart of...

throughout most of the 19th century joliet's numerous quarries were supplying chicago (and other midwestern cities) with great stone slabs used in the paving of city sidewalks, along with several churches, hotels, banks, warehouses and other types of public buildings. the stone was found just below surface level and quarried to remove the covering from the horizontal layers. slabs were...