BLDG51. News and Events |

11 Sep fulton street cold storage building, marble mantels, unearthed bottles, and industrial artifacts

Posted at 03:52h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

the following photo gallery offers a glimpse of the most recent artifacts salvaged and/or acquired and posted in the urban remains massive website catalog (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories). this year marks the ten year anniversary of urban remains, and from day one, one...

10 Sep exceptional c. 1880’s transom art glass windows discovered during demolition of former organ factory

Posted at 19:16h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by Eric

there's good reason why i cannot leave a wrecking site until everything has been trucked off, including the earth excavated for laying the foundation of the structure replacing the one reduced to rubble. every now and then, while a building is being blasted by the excavator's bucket, something...

07 Sep demolition on a group of neighboring 19th century houses on evergreen street has finally begun

Posted at 05:06h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by Eric

i never made it to work on friday. instead, i drove over to evergreen street after seeing demolition permits reissued, and hearing from an associate that the bright yellow wrecking machine is parked in front of the four endangered structures there. catching wind of this...

06 Sep exceptional museum-quality speckled glaze figural terra cotta rondel from st. boniface school

Posted at 02:46h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

a little over a month ago urban remains covered the initial stages of the death sentence handed to noble square’s early 20th century historically important st. boniface church. as wrecking begins on the dilapidated structure, despite community protest to adaptively reuse the building, urban remains...

01 Sep post-fire residence with exceptional joilet limestone facade on mohawk mowed down earlier this week

Posted at 20:22h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

i'm so thankful to have made the time to quickly document this remarkable pot-fire italianate style residence before it was brought down earlier this week. thanks to quality wrecking i managed to document both the interior and exterior shortly before and during the house's untimely...

29 Aug st. john’s 1910 bronze bell is removed from steeple as church undergoes its continued deconstruction

Posted at 15:38h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by Eric

since 1910, st. john's oversized cast bronze church bell was used to call the congregation to service, announce weddings, and of course, toll at funerals. late last week that oversized bell, fabricated by the henery stuckstede foundry, st. louis, mo., was carefully extracted from the exposed...

27 Aug historically important chicago street and park light fixtures latest additions to the bldg. 51 museum

Posted at 14:48h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

recently acquired for the bldg. 51 collection/museum are a pair of remarkable 1920's exterior light fixtures, discovered in a remodeled stairway leading down to lower wacker west of michigan avenue. the exterior sconces were originally installed at the lincoln park zoo. though the large globes are...

25 Aug self-induced pressure and the struggle of unfulfilled projects

Posted at 05:15h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

at least a fifty or so "projects" related to chicago history are currently awaiting my attention. the information so greatly deserves to be shared, whether through an image gallery or a lengthier narrative tied to research, and i feel the rapid accumulation of this dead weight...

24 Aug fisher theater building theater seat end echoes a most unusual design treatment used in the fisher theater

Posted at 02:46h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions by Eric

among the non-chicago based artifacts in the bldg. 51 museum collection is a highly unusual depression-era theater seat end, included in the catalog for its reflection of exotic movie palace architecture in the mid-west, and as an object designed for chicago architects anker graven and...

22 Aug old downtown chicago street sign sheds light on the corner of michigan ave and van buren street during the early 20th century

Posted at 15:35h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

outside of architectural ornament, signage is an important element of the built landscape for its ability to retrace a specific area's changing landscape. as a salvaged object, it is always implicated in whatever historical narrative might arise. this is embodied in a very rare original...

20 Aug systematic removal of senn memorial building’s ornamental terra cotta using mast climber platform

Posted at 10:00h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

last weekend i made my way over to rush hospital to document what remained of the historically important buildings containing ornamental terra cotta, limestone, and other materials on their facades. once onsite it was clear the presbyterian hospital's daniel a. jones building (1888) was long...

18 Aug photodocumenting st. john’s church deconstruction from high above

Posted at 18:27h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

out of equal parts curiosity and utter fascination i've chosen to devote a considerable amount of my time away from the business life of urban remains, toward meticulously documenting the death of a logan square church. instead of the usual deconstruction process, in which the...

17 Aug large array of recently salvaged chicago artifacts available on our newly launched website

Posted at 13:41h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by Eric

17 Aug early 20th century gothic style copper ornament salvaged from st. john’s church was executed by friedley-voshart company

Posted at 05:14h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by Eric

during this week’s demolition at 2442 w. moffat street, as st. john’s church was painstakingly deconstructed before my eyes, i decided to move forward and secure two matching sets of original c. 1910 gothic style pressed and folded antique copper finials, along with the topmost oversized finial...

15 Aug buried artifacts from two-story 19th century aldine street residence found shortly after its demoliton

Posted at 21:11h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

the 19th century two-story wood frame victorian style house had already been mowed down by the time i arrived onsite - i was shuttling back and forth between salvaging, digging and documenting other doomed buildings around the city, so i was unable to commit more time to...

12 Aug deconstruction of st. johns church is well underway – bell and tower to come down next week

Posted at 15:50h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, Salvages by Eric

in the coming weeks, i will be thoroughly documenting the salvage of a 106 year old church in logan square, whose structure is slowly being dismantled. the life of the building is to live on in scattered fragments and in the bricks which will purportedly...

11 Aug historic facade stays, but soul of building will be forever lost when the wrecking ball swings

Posted at 20:33h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

a permit was issued earlier this week to wreck and remove the terra cotta building at 3228 north clark street which until recently housed “the alley” and long ago held a nickelodeon and neighborhood gathering place called the "clermont". although some tout the current development vision...

11 Aug formusa’s building, and its rich history undergoing a slow and agonizing death

Posted at 14:17h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

[caption id="attachment_23470" align="alignleft" width="1000"] mountains of early 20th century lath waiting to be organized and strapped into bundles for reuse as anything and everything. the building is slowly dying, but its remnants will live on elsewhere.[/caption] the destruction of a building occurs within a finite, and...

10 Aug pre-fire cottage demolition behind urban remains offers a glimpse of the neighborhood’s past

Posted at 05:21h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by Eric

this past week demolition of a pre-fire workers cottage (the original cottage dates to the late 1860's, with subsequent additions added over the next 40 years) hit close to home (quite literally), with wrecking machines moving in on a neighboring structure, just adjacent to the rear...

08 Aug a photographic survey of chicago’s post-fire extant residential and building facade ornamental keystones

Posted at 18:57h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

the great majority of the keystones included in this photographic essay were taken from various extant commercial and residential structures built shortly after the great chicago fire of 1871, within what is known as the "burnt district." this area, consisting of downtown and the neighborhoods...