01 Apr revisting raw and unedited images of john m. van osdel ii’s 1896 ywca hotel during its demolition in 2009

another data dump from 2009.

raw and unedited images of john m. van osdel ii’s 1896 ywca hotel, located at 830 south michigan avenue, chicago, il.

the building was designed by architect was john m. van osdel ii, nephew of prominent chicago architect john mills van osdel. the building was demolished in 2009 after decades of deferred maintenance and abandonment.

looking back, i’m disappointed i didn’t salvage more, but at the time, i did this one alone during a very brutal winter. the icy interior was extremely dangerous – a death trap.

i was fortunate to extract what i could from the interior (e.g., staircase balusters, elevator doors, hardware, etc.) since most of the floors had caved in or collapsed.

navigating through that tangled mess of broken building parts with very little artificial light to guide me was foolish, but after seeing the exposed cast and wrought iron open cage elevators largely intact (i was convinced they were ripped out when elevators were updated in the 1940s), i was driven to document and save what i could, including the one-of-a-kind cast iron monogrammed cartouches.
the terra cotta was executed by the northwestern terra cotta company. the ironwork was fabricated by winslow brothers.

a sampling of ornament salvaged by eric j. nordstrom during demolition by heneghan wrecking:

images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 archive. all rights reserved. 2025.