over the past few years i've been tirelessly documenting and/or salvaging chicago's 19th century brick and wood-frame cottages as they're demolished with astonishing rapidity. it's deeply saddening just thinking about the seemingly endless number of demolition permits that will be issued during this year's (2017) "building season,"...
the chicago athletic association (caa) was established in 1890 by notable chicago businessmen, marshall field, cyrus mccormick, and a. g. spalding as an exclusive club revolving around sports, business and social activities. in 1893 the club commissioned architect henry ives cobb to construct a venitian...
the bldg. 51 museum has recently assembled several architectural artifacts from buildings (demolished or heavily altered/modified) designed by henry ives cobb for an upcoming exhibit highlighting his work. an exceptionally well-made and intricately designed late 19th or early 20th century american gothic style interior ornamental...
i was taken aback when i discovered a seemingly endless field of debris (several decades worth) covering the floor of a gargantuan plenum duct running under the congress theater's auditorium floor. i spent a good deal of time combing through piles of candy wrappers, matchbooks,...
a recently discovered cache of 1890's refuse, in the form of everyday household bottles, jars, shoes, stoneware (i.e. impermeable and partly vitrified pottery), flint glass, ink wells, etc., was unearthed the other day during excavation of a residential lot where a house built around 1890...
the relentless search to aquire, identify, and document historically important remnants from chicago building demolished or altered has greatly assisted in driving the bldg. 51 museum collection and archive's sustained momentum and/or growth in the new year. while the museum's core mission remains sharply focused on...
the bldg. 51 museum recently acquired an exceptional, copper-plated ornamental figural cast iron elevator panel and full-bodied eagle (the latter is an attribution) rescued from henry ives cobb's downtown chicago chicago federal building (1898), prior to its demolition in 1965. the single-sided eagle panel was originally apart...
a vast collection of 19th century exterior dearborn foundry newel posts, tuttle & bailey floor registers, and miscellaneous ornamental ironwork hand-crafted by f.p. smith was recently acquired by urban remains earlier this week. the american victorian-era interior and exterior residential ironwork was salvaged from demolished...
[caption id="attachment_28725" align="alignleft" width="2481"] 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...
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. [caption...
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...
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...
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...
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...
[caption id="attachment_28482" align="alignleft" width="1200"] photo courtesy of theatre historical society of america[/caption] [caption id="attachment_28483" align="alignleft" width="1500"] image courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 museum archive[/caption] the following images offer a detailed glimpse at congress theater's lobby light fixtures, grand staircase, and vestibule movie poster...
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...
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. [caption id="attachment_28429"...
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...
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...