Urban Remains Chicago News and Events

urban remains just acquired a limited supply of original american depression era railroad freight car flooring, comprised of remarkably dense and durable solid oak wood constructed "butcher-block" style. the rock solid wood planks were mostly salvaged from decommissioned great northern railway double-door steel box and postal railcars that traveled across the country for several decades. nearly every resized section in...

i've decided to add more posts pertaining to "gardenesque" ornament, perhaps inspired by what i've discovered in the chicago athletic association building (a topic i've written about before) and more recently, my revisitation of the ornamental terra cotta elements i managed to salvage from the michael reese "main" hospital building during its demolition. there is a very dense and highly...

i'm truly amazed at the enormity of ornament found in the commercial and residential buildings we salvage prior to the arrival of the wrecking ball. much of this interior ornament was produced by the decorators supply company, which traces its history back to 1883 when the original founders, simon strahn and richard c. foster, established a partnership to manufacture "artistic decorative...

after a long day of extensive shooting at the chicago athletic association building the other day, i purposely went out of my way to photograph sullivan's intricate organic design motifs covering the schlesinger & mayer building's corner entrance. i never grow tired of studying the ornament from a number of angles as i endlessly pace back and forth around the base...

the fate of the historic roanoke building's c. 1914 basement general distribution switchboard remains uncertain. "offline" or disconnected since 1940, the largely intact black slate-backed "open" switchboard, with visually appealing glass enclosed watthour, volt and amp meters, along with oversized copper "knife" switches and incised-letter plaques is a work of art, in and of itself. i was under the strong...

the photo gallery below offers a few 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 20,000 item mark. the ultimate goal since day one, is to have each and every artifact (housed in the showroom and warehouses...

detailed photograph of holy trinity orthodox cathedral's west entrance canopy. the image was taken over the weekend by eric j. nordstrom during a brief visit to document exterior church features. the chicago church was constructed in 1903, and is one of only two churches designed by louis h. sullivan - the other church has since been demolished. the distinctive fret...

the urban remains warehouse shipping and receiving area is completely filled with a large acquisition of artifacts purchased earlier this week. as of this writing we continue to sort through stools, building ornament, aviation equipment, industrial furniture, light fixtures and so on. the new inventory contains a few historically important artifacts from the city of chicago, that will be documented...

the photographs taken by eric. j. nordstrom were taken bottom-up, beginning at the building's midsection. the last "period" image of the building - around the turn of the century - can be used as your guide to pinpoint the locations where nordstrom's detailed images were taken. nearly 300 photographs were taken over the course of two hours high above on...

The Alestle is the student-run newspaper at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Posted: Thursday, May 1, 2014, by Luke Schmidt The Louis Sullivan Collection on the second floor of the Lovejoy Library pays homage to a giant of American architecture, displaying original ornament salvaged from buildings right before, and often during, their demolition. To look upon these pieces is to look upon the...

the trade signs found on or around the exterior and/or interior commercial building storefronts took on many forms in early american cities. when education was a privilege and literacy rare, the ideal trade sign immediately caught the attention of a passerby and, because of its design, was completely self-explanatory in terms of the trade it represented.   several skilled artisans...

i was virtually alone. free to explore. with cameras and lenses strapped to my body, i wandered around every nook and cranny, meticulously documenting the sulllivan ornament that was all around me. it was very dark, despite 3,500 glowing carbon filament incandescent light bulbs. the theater's interior is a true portal to the past, at least in my mind. it...

last week the bldg. 51 museum acquired an exceptionally rare and historically important late 19th century ornamental cast iron guaranty (later prudential) building flush mount ceiling light fixture medallion. the all original fixture was removed from the commercial building's interior lobby during a senseless remuddling in the 1950's. several light fixtures (including this medallion) and elevator components were taken out...

on thursday afternoon (last week) i attended an interesting lecture given by my friend and colleague bart swindall at the auditorium building. the topic of discussion revolved around artifacts that were removed or went "missing" from the building's theater and hotel over the course of 125 years. for nearly 45 minutes, mr. swindall discussed notable and often heart-breaking alterations and...

three virtually identical (condition varies) chicago stock exchange staircase balusters or panels designed by notable architect louis h. sullivan were acquired earlier this week and later added to the urban remains website product catalog. the historically important and highly sought after angled balusters were salvaged from the 1894 stock exchange building shortly before demolition in 1972. the balusters are comprised...

i believe i have around 5,000 images taken thus far of the exterior and interior of the chicago athletic association building and annex. this vast collection of imagery has been subdivided into categories based on mostly subjective parameters i've put in place (e.g., location, materials and so on). today i decided to step away from the architectural details (i.e., close-ups) i always tend to gravitate towards and instead, capture the space as a whole, where many of its parts are placed in an actual context involving scale, arrangements or configurations and so on.  i spent a great of time in the old reading room, located on the second floor, where a forest of darkly stained gothic style quartered oak wood tracery surrounds me every-which-way.

milwaukee is my home away from home, especially when i really want to wander around aimlessly, photodocumenting architectural details that capture my attention across the urban landscape. don't get me wrong, there is a substantial amount of terrain for me to document here in chicago, but for some reason or another, milwaukee speaks to me differently - through my camera lens.

we just purchased a huge load of all original all-metal or pressed and folded steel furniture designed and fabricated by the simmons mfg. co., kenosha, wisc. coming across a few pieces here and there is good, but having the opportunity to purchase "simmons" furniture on a very large scale rarely ever happens. the wide variety of furniture items (e.g., chairs...

in a single afternoon, six gargantuan hand carved limestone eagles were carefully hoisted from their perches that wrapped around three sides of the bunte candy factory water tower prior to demolition. the massive prairie school style factory complex was designed by the notable chicago-based architectural firm of schimdt, garden & martin in 1919.