Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

  sorting through and processing boxes of carefully cataloged richard nickel contact sheets documenting the life and death of adler & sullivan's schiller building (later known as the garrick theater) has resurrected my laser-like focus or "maniacal obsession" from a seemingly inescapable or crippling battle with perpetual burnout.  immersing myself in this unexplored world of imagery aimed at documenting...

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.

john vinci kodachrome slides documenting the reconstruction of adler and sullivan's chicago stock exchange building trading room. thankfully, john dated each and every slide, so we have a concise timeline of the room's reconstruction. i hope to have any and all slides (taken by john vinci using his hasselblad 500c/m 120mm medium format film camera) pertaining to the trading room reconstruction digitized...

i recently completed digitizing  i visually compelling and deeply insightful photo album assembled by noted chicago architectural photographer, historian, and salvager, richard nickel. the silver gelatin photographs were taken between 1949-1954 while nickel attended the chicago institute of design, which at the time, was located in the former henry ives cobb-designed richardsonian romanesque building. completed in 1892, the structure housed...

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...

immersing myself in ornament is highly therapeutic - a portal to the past where i belong. william le baron jenney-designed richardsonian romanesque church built as the second universalist society as the church of the redeemer. completed in 1885-1886. the richly ornamented unglazed terra cotta was fabricated by the northwestern terra cotta works.  

the 3-story 1910 chicago machinery exchange warehouse - designed by d.h. burnham & company - has been reduced to rubble. it truly amazes me that a richly ornamented and well-maintained building designed by daniel burnham's firm has been destroyed with little resistance.  despite overextending myself on a daily basis, i feel obligated to document this madness... the historic fabric of...

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...

exterior restoration work has resumed on the jewelers building (1927). the northeast turret - one of four used to conceal water tanks for fire suppression - is completely shrouded for repair. several rope border panels under the oversized corbels have been extracted - they will likely be replicated and replaced (boston valley terra cotta is handling the job). the jewelers...

an early 20th century factory with white glazed terra cotta (possibly fabricated by the midland terra cotta company) located at 825-855 w. adams is undergoing demolition. thanks to moshe tamssot for bringing this to my attention. i photographed the exterior a few weeks ago, but looking at the latest images provided by True West Loop, the wreckers have arrived to take down...

a demolition permit has been issued for a 19th century 3-story masonry residential building with joliet limestone window hoods. the well-maintained structure is located at 530 w. dickens ave. any and all tenants have moved out. i didn't have a great deal of time to make an extensive visual record of the structure, but at least i captured the facade...

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.  

two early 20th century chicago apartment buildings adorned with bedford limestone are set to be demolished this week or possibly next. the power has been cut and the interior salvaged to some degree. the two buildings are located at 450-454 w. belmont avenue.  

according to 19th century chicago public health reports, periodicals (e.g., the sanitarian), and city ordinances, it was rather common for licensed "night scavengers" to dump refuse collected from residential privy pits or "vaults" into vacant lots. i've discovered several of these dumps over the past 3 years while gathering data for my "unearthing chicago" project. However, i haven't been actively...

the 1870's post-fire italianate style rowhouse with original bracketed wood cornice and artificial stone window hoods with centrally located keystones, has been reduced to rubble. as of this writing, the concrete foundation for its replacement has been poured. by spring's end, the new structure will likely by finished - occupied by a family that never knew what stood there. the...

inspired by spending the past several months organizing and digitizing images and artifacts belonging to chicago architect john vinci, i’ve now begun volunteering one day a week at the ryerson and burnham library archive, where i’m combing through and digitizing images from hundreds of contact sheets housed in the richard nickel archive. during my time there, i’ve been slowly weaving together a...

images from an unexpected tour of the south side of chicago on a saturday afternoon with tim samuelson and john vinci. buildings will be assigned captions when time permits.      images from unexpected tour revisited (self-guided):

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...