Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

this month marks the second trip i’ve taken to new york to document american architecture, and the cross-over of preservation happening in the two cities. this summer i pursued a fragment of the historic gage building (1899) being replicated in buffalo at the boston valley terra cotta company, and saw they were simultaneously working on fragments of the woolworth building...

i continue to document historic buildings undergoing restoration/renovations in chicago’s downtown at a feverish pace. i've noticed there is little - if any - public attention directed at the "sky boys" who spend their days working high above on scaffolding replacing, repairing, and recreating terra cotta and stone ornament that has succumbed to the unforgiving freeze-thaw cycles over the years.  the evening...

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.      

  the bldg. 51 museum collection houses historically important examples of unusual and intricately designed escutcheons, doorknobs, rosettes, doorbell push button plates and other house trimmings known as the "kelp" pattern. the "stock" hardware was executed by the yale & towne mfg. company, stamford, ct. the gallery below offers a few examples - cast in bronze -  designed for a...

the image gallery offers a selection of images taken from a recent shoot where i systematically documented john root-designed ornamental terra cotta adorning the west facade of the rookery building (1888). the northwestern terra cotta company executed the terra cotta for burnham & root's rookery building.  the base of the rookery consists of gargantuan pink granite slabs of rusticated stone...

a unique and largely unaltered 1870's brick cottage on ohio street (west town neighborhood) i've been watching for years is now for sale. it's a rather unusual workers cottage, with overpowering faceted panel keystones accentuated with anthemions. i'm convinced the window hoods are comprised of artificial stone despite being painted. the white pine wood bracketed cornice with dentil molding is...

my ongoing effort documenting the jewelers building at 35 e wacker has intensified over the past week, when the northwest turret (one of four designed to conceal water tanks) was fully exposed with newly added terra cotta - executed by boston valley terra cotta. more to follow.  built in the mid-1920’s by joachim giaver and frederick dinkelber, the jewelers building is...

at the surface level, the recent fire at 695 north milwaukee was a devastating blow to the owners of a couple of local restaurants and entertainment companies. however when i dig deeper, it also becomes apparent that this location had a rich past with local chicago retail. the exact year in which the structure was erected remains unclear - most...

demolition begins today at 2219 n. dayton. the early to mid-1880's two-flat is amazingly intact, with stamped tin bracketed cornice, marble mantels, and cast plaster ceiling escutcheons. the double door entrance, with centrally located corbel, raised panel jamb, and transoms are all original. the interior passage doors were outfitted with "screwless spindle" chicago-niles hardware, executed by the chicago hardware company.  its neighbor...

it never ceases to surprise that the smallest artifacts can hold the most expansive histories. this week a simple object --a brass key ring from the reliance building-- unveiled an iconic narrative from an era when chicago served as territory to some of the most notorious gangsters. even hotel burnham, in the historic reliance building, acknowledges that it houses a strange history...

if you haven't already, please take the time to visit this adler & sullivan masterpiece, containing an extraordinary level of design complexity and detail, and a variety of building materials treated with a visually stunning polychromatic finish. with a sizable amount of salvaged material carefully documented and removed from the original trading room, chicago architect john vinci et al., managed to follow through...

despite being pinned down with so many ongoing projects for the past few years, a place i always make time to document inside and out is the congress theater. nearly a year has passed since i began photographing the logan square landmark. my eager excitement to use the building as a portal for traveling back in time has only intensified...

i had a single day to salvage what i could from a pre-fire chicago italianate style residence retaining many of the interior elements dating from the time of construction. when i arrived onsite, the excavator had already flattened the garage. soon thereafter, the unmistakable sound of the machine's treads or tracks, burned into my brain from years of salvaging, crawled over...

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 29,000 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.

the images contained within this post represent a small fraction of extant early 1880's chicago buildings, dressed with red slip terra cotta ornament designed and fabricated by the northwestern terra cotta company, chicago, ills. the majority of the terra cotta documented is "stock" ornament - made widely available through the company's period catalogs.  the northwestern terra cotta company was founded...

i flew to nyc to document the woolworth building's upper floor condo conversion and exterior ornament restoration, but my adhd continually redirects my efforts toward editing other images of captivating building ornament (e.g., edelmann's dexter bld. facade). i have edited some woolworth, but need to ramp it up soon - especially the ornament fabricated by winslow brothers.  the woolworth project...

original carved oak wood (with early allover crazed paint) and composite fireplace over-mantel header fragment salvaged from the morris selz residence before its demolition in 1967. richard nickel, john vinci, and john norris salvaged the ornament and photo-documented the exterior and interior prior to its destruction. the kodachrome (first introduced in 1935) color slide and interior residential over-mantel fragment reside in...

when i find time, i'm carefully extracting fragments from the piles of "insulation" discovered behind the walls of a pre-chicago fire worker's cottage i salvaged a few days ago. my research strongly indicates that the house was constructed around 1867, possibly earlier. the materials at the very bottom (found on the yellow pine wood sill plate) date to the 1860's and...

although it may be redundant to preface a post pertaining to 19th century chicago cottages with my continued disappointment and despair, i will probably continue to express my lament, as long as there is still a constant stream of exceptional buildings being permanently erased from the urban landscape. the loss is felt deeply at each site, especially so, as i've spent a considerable...

for months now i have been documenting ongoing facade work (i.e., terra cotta repair and/or replacement) on the jewelers' building. the 40-story building was built from 1925 to 1927. the structure was co-designed by architects joachim g. giaver and frederick p. dinkelber (the latter designed new york city's flatiron bld.). while visiting boston valley terra cotta, i documented some of...