Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

theater ticket stubs found on the plenum floor. note the earlier one locate in the top left corner. very little pertaining to the theater itself has been found - unlike the lawndale theater for example, where i found several programs and coat check cards dating back to 1927 when that theater opened. for months now, the developer has been...

a few hundred bottles, pottery fragments, and so on, were discovered during excavation in a chicago residential neighborhood. the machine operator was gracious enough to grant me highly coveted time to extract as much as i possibly could before loads were sent to the landfill. note the children's toy doll arm, comprised of glazed porcelain. based on preliminary research, this...

it's become impossible to resist my maniacal desire to photograph chicago's cityscape, and that's a good thing. i'm a terribly anxious person in the present, so i counter that by living in the past. in some unexplainable way, i feel i belong there. it's no surprise that my mind'e eye naturally gravitates towards chicago's past, especially when viewed through the...

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...

photo courtesy of theatre historical society of america image courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 museum archive   the following images offer a detailed glimpse at congress theater's lobby light fixtures, grand staircase, and vestibule movie poster cast iron display case captured during the "golden hour." remarkably, the architectural elements featured in this collection of photographs...

i was deeply honored that the bldg. 51 museum was chosen as the destination for the prestigious school of the art institute of chicago's architecture and historic preservation department annual field trip, where students engage with and carefully analyze artifacts (housed in the bldg. 51 museum collection) during a brief lecture, followed by discussion bolstering critical thinking of the historically...

i discovered a sea of candy wrappers, matchbooks, ticket stubs, and bottles deep within congress theater's underbelly last weekend. for nearly 91 years, moviegoers would conveniently dispose of their trash through cast iron "mushrooms" located directly beneath each and every seat in the auditorium. all images courtesy of the bldg. 51 museum archive layers of depression era refuse found "in...

  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...

the small collection of bottles featured in this entry were recently found scattered on an interlocking pine wood floor of a privy pit exposed during the excavation of a west town chicago city lot that days earlier had been occupied by a wood-framed workers cottage - a building that remained largely unaltered since its construction in 1889. when the cottage was...

i spent the greater part of my day traversing congress theater's facade scaffolding, to document the largely off-white italian renaissance style terra cotta, anchored firmly against the structure's steel skeleton. records indicate that the terra cotta commission was awarded to the northwestern terra cotta company, chicago, ills. i was in perpetual awe of the skillfully executed design elements packaged into...

Eric Nordstrom of Urban Remains has been exploring Chicago’s Congress Theater, which was built in 1926 and is currently under renovation. Earlier this year, Nordstrom, whose business reclaims objects from old buildings, started working his way through the old theater, finding newspapers, pipes, tools, and blueprints left there since the 1920s.

in an alarming turn, a largely intact and well-maintained 19th century lincoln park wood-frame workers cottage was handed a death sentence on february 14th, 2017. if the cottage was built in 1864 as the custom plaque indicates (further research pending), then we are dealing with the loss of a pre-fire cottage. i will be moving my mountain of a schedule...

demolition of the former "mega mall" is nearly complete, with only a single story of the buick sales building (1921) still standing. the figural terra cotta ornament adorning the two entrances will be extracted in the next few days. the former two-story buick automobile showroom (buick sales building) was designed by notable chicago architect clarence hatzfeld, and built in 1921 by charles...

i was in desperate need of a "break" from staring at a computer screen for hours on end while editing a seemingly unending folder of images from a rapp & rapp's central park theater (1917) photographic study for an upcoming post. i decided to just get in my car and drive - making my way towards the nellie a. black hospital building (1932...