Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

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...

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...

acquiring louis sullivan and frank lloyd architectural artifacts to bolster the bldg. 51 museum collection is very important to me, and will continue on (likely with the addition of another artifact catalog in the coming years), but as i'm nearing the ten year anniversary of urban remains, i realize the need to continually evolve and diversify in other directions in...

we arrived early in the morning to begin where we left off a few days before. it was hard not to ruminate intensely about the implications of what we would soon discover in the circular-shaped oversized wood-lined privy during that time away. however, with tools in hand, we began to carefully dig after developing a documenting strategy to keep detailed...

In 1855, the city embarked on a far-fetched scheme to hoist itself out of the mud and gunk. On the 155th anniversary of the project’s launch, we take a lively illustrated look back. BY LILLI CARRÉ This article appears in the August 2010 issue of Chicago magazine. Subscribe to Chicago magazine.

while i patiently wait for the city to issue an excavation permit that will uncover any undiscovered buried remnants from the john kent russell house site before the new foundation is poured, which not only effectively ends my frequent visits to the site, but in addition, draws the fieldwork to a close. with this facet of the project completed, i...

judging from numerous channels of feedback, it's rather obvious that "open house chicago" this year was a smashing success. i'm very pleased that so many residential and commercial structures opened their doors to the public for observation, appreciation and an endless stream of photographic images populating blogs, flickr, facebook and so on. although i have visited most of the listed...

the small, but visually distinctive single story commercial buildings bedecked with bright white glazed terra cotta "sullivanesque" ornament in numerous configurations on their facades are disappearing more and more from the urban landscape in and around the chicago area as the number of demolition permits seem to have greatly increased this year. the majority of the these commercial structures outfitted...

the gallery of images presented in this posting offer the viewer a rather sad glimpse of the most recent round of alterations being made to this heavily altered c. 1876 solidly-constructed commercial block located just west of downtown chicago. earlier posts pertaining to this structure focused on the largely intact and original solid walnut wood staircases that at first were...

due to a number of unexpected architectural salvages, preparing the john kent russell house exhibit and overseeing the publication of the bldg. 51 museum catalog, i've finally had a little bit of time to begin working again on the odin j. oyen collection in greater detail. at this point, i'm just processing and cataloging all the materials, which includes photo...

i managed to capture the early stages of fabrication and preparation for installation of the "drooping tip" ceiling panels during my visit last week. production of the intricately detailed and well made faithful reproductions (taken awhile back from a mold of an original surviving panel) has ramped up considerably. additionally, the 8th floor dining room, where the panels were originally...

the urban remains virtual store's engine continuously operates as more and more artifacts, objects and oddities are added on a daily basis. with the recent spike in teardowns around the chicago area, architectural artifacts are finally becoming front and center again. however, cataloged items outside of the architectural artifact scope will always be included based on my interests and connecting...

i discovered the book "unearthing gotham" in 2002, and have read and later reexamined various chapters of this remarkable and highly informative tomb well into 2014 - especially when we began finding ash pits and privies buried beneath the john kent russell house (1855-56). i can't even begin to fathom the amount of buried remains from 19th century chicago and...

a few photographs taken while examining the interior of this post-fire chicago (1876) commercial building is "gutted" during preparation for a new use as loft apartments.

the greater part of sunday was spent gathering wood samples from building sites and digging privy pits. by the time i gathered all of the materials and brought them back to the shop, i should have went home and rested. instead, i pushed on... the darkness of night was setting in, but i continued sanding wood fragments i wanted to...

after spending weeks sporadically visiting the site where the pre-fire john kent russell frame house once stood, we have collected hundreds of fragments found in privies and ash pits. we have gathered enough material left behind to further understand living conditions of working class families that came and went through the doors of the russell house. the "dug" collection thus far...

it appears after repeated (failed) attempts to reach out and connect with the contractor, i'm embarrassingly relegated back to the dumpster behind the commercial building constructed in 1876 (see earlier posts on this building). it's abundantly clear that money and/or avoiding crossing paths with the construction workers onsite will persuade my original contact to allow me the time needed to...

reese was bitter from the beginning. nearly 30 buildings being vacated, or had been abandoned for years. an awful salvage experience were everything that could go wrong, went wrong. my relationship with the wrecker i had worked with for years grew tumultuous. it was hard to develop a system as to where to begin and where to end. so many...