Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

pictured below: a very well-maintained example of early steel office furniture in the form of a joseph uhl-designed switchboard operator's adjustable height mobile chair with the highly sought after oxidized copper-plated finish largely intact. identified by period catalogs as "model 511," this remarkable patented pressed, folded and pinched heavy gauge steel chair was built by the toledo metal furniture company, located...

with the ten year anniversary of urban remains rapidly approaching, i've taken a considerable amount of time to reflect on where i began and where i'm going. dwelling more on the former for the time-being, i'm looking through hundreds of pictures taken when i first started salvaging large-scale construction sites and historically significant buildings. the nortown theater was both, and i knew that...

investigating a near west side chicago site, i discovered some history through researching nineteenth century maps. according to an 1886 e. robinson's atlas (sanborn insurance) map of chicago (lots 14-17), a large parking lot that was recently excavated used to be a huge coal yard surrounded by several wood-framed structures and a scattering of light manufacturing. when the backhoe began busting through the concrete...

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, 600 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one is to have each and every artifact (housed...

beginning monday, i found myself documenting a dig site where a prototypical late 19th century graystone two-flat  (demolished earlier this year) once resided. with the exception of  an early 1880's cobalt john a. lomax hutchinson unearthed at the front of the lot, a surprisingly large assortment of 1870's bottles and shards were discovered in condensed "deposits" under an enclosed porch (an addition likely...

long ago when i studied the chicago world's fair or "columbian exposition" of 1893 i wondered what, if anything, remained from the "white city" long after it was burned down and/or demolished. where did all the statues go? the lamp posts? like many others, i  was particularly fascinated with the gargantuan ferris wheel constructed on the midway plaisance.  the attraction...

once again i arrived on another heneghan wrecking job site (my crew and i recently completed salvage work at the a. finkl & sons foundry and the howard johnson excavation site) where a massive wooden rood truss warehouse constructed in 1918 was undergoing demolition. when the demolition permit for this structure landed on my radar, i was immediately interested. the otherwise mundane masonry structure contained a...

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...

i've amassed this large collection of antique chicago-based bottles (mainly "soda" or "mineral water") through auctions, excavation sites, privies, and private collectors over the past 8 months. with the "unearthing chicago" book taking shape, i'm scrambling to find many more bottles to fill in many blanks found in each of the decades i'm including in the book. in the meantime...

in the wake of recently completing a publication on my collection, "bldg. 51 museum: a collection of historically important american architectural artifacts," i have decided to make some additions to the virtual bldg. 51 museum in the form of services offered. this will include archival services (akin to my 3-year documentation of the 1893 chicago athletic association building's transition to...

visiting milwaukee over the weekend was brief, but productive nonetheless. in addition to visiting familiar haunts, i decided to take some time to photograph the vibrantly colored 19th century masonry, or "cream city" brick structures. these containing upper facade commercial false fronts, or "boomtown" cornices with striking stamped tin or cut stone name plaques (often accompanied by the date the building...

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...

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...

it was simultaneously exhilarating and a bit surreal to experience this building as our "home" for a day. it was comforting to not have to haul a bunch of gear (with the exception of my ever-present camera), wear a hardhat, deal with extreme temperatures, or travel up and down stairs (though this is something I grew quite fond of for the last three...

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...

nearly 3 years later, i've completed my work at the chicago athletic association building. documenting the entire process has resulted in a collection of over 10,000 images, several parking tickets, and countless hours of exploring/documenting the exterior and interior of both cobb's building and schmidt, garden & martin's adjoining annex during its slow transformation from being largely abandoned to becoming...

i am continually fascinated at how both time and the elements transform otherwise mundane objects or subject matter into visually striking objects of "art." as i continue to explore my archive of digital photography, i came across a folder entitled "streets, signs & surface," containing thousands of images captured over the years, in which i purposely found the simplest and most unappealing subject...