my eye gravitates toward crazed paint, cracked windows, timeworn stonework, and "ghost signs" as i walk the streets with camera in hand. those are only a few of the numerous attributes that i look for in aging buildings that have avoided substantial alteration. even when...
to this day, the rookery building (burnham & root, 1888) still houses the northern trust company's old central safety deposit vaults in its basement. while the vault room no longer houses the 1100 private safes (installed in 1901) used to protect chicagoan's securities and valuables, the...
an exceptionally well-maintained two-story masonry residence, constructed between 1888-1894, was issued a demolition permit late last week. despite being structurally sound and a solid representation of a late 19th century victorian-era chicago boarding house and/or two-flat, it seems it was sadly only a matter of...
after spending the day engaging with people over my pop-up exhibition of "fragments from chicago's past," i brought some of the architectural artifacts to my studio to photograph before they return to the bldg. 51 museum. i cleaned, documented, and photographed each and every fragment, both...
after spending an afternoon a few ago photographing the facade of the congress theater, combined with revisiting nortown theater ornament i salvaged in 2007, and researching the architectural firm of rapp and rapp for an upcoming exhibit i'm putting together on "artifacts from atmospheric theaters,"...
less than a week ago i posted images and a brief commentary about two adjoining 1870's italianate "athen's marble" fronted residential buildings on monroe street, which were vacated in preparation for a demolition that i suspected to be only weeks away. i'm constantly surprised how quickly...
the architectural firm of rapp and rapp, consisting of brothers cornelius ward rapp and george leslie rapp (founded in 1907), was widely considered to be one of the leading designers of the great movie palaces constructed during the early 20th century. the firm designed over 400...
i spent the afternoon last week helping my friend tim samuelson transport an ornamental terra cotta figural rondel head salvaged from sullivan & adler's schiller building (garrick theater) to be repaired by another mutual friend, mike gruzca, in preparation for an upcoming exhibit. gruzca is...
several 1870's-era joilet limestone commercial and residential structures have been wiped away from chicago's ciyscape this year. i find this deeply disconcerting. could you imagine buildings in soho, fronted with cast iron facades, being broken apart and scrapped? just as with the buildings in soho's cast...
as i stood across the street from the congress theater's facade, i was reminded of my good fortune, to at one time have had intimate, unabridged access to the chicago athletic association's intricately ornamented building facade. the athletic club had a similar scaffolding configuration as...
after keeping a watchful eye on the post-fire richard maurice birdsall cottage since the day it was handed a death sentence earlier this summer, the moment finally arrived when the wrecking machine was delivered to 1241 n. state street. less than 24 hours later, a cottage...
when i pulled up to the site, to document and extract park view church's time capsule, all that remained standing of this gargatuan gothic-style bedford limestone church was a portion of the exterior facade. the zettler windows had been carefully removed by us a...
nearly a week after spending several consecutive days devoted to carefully and painstakingly extracting "munich style" art glass windows executed by f.x. zettler and drehobl brothers, i'm still incredibly exhausted and applying copious amount of tiger balm to my arms to ease the pain and...
more to follow. ...
once again i took the time to carefully extract, thoroughly clean, and reassemble the floor boards of an 1860's-era chicago cottage privy vault. the sanitary pit was covered over long ago, as indoor plumbing was becoming more readily available during the late 19th century. the house's...
i was already stressed and exhausted from pulling the last of the zettler-signed "munich" style windows from the park view lutheran church's interior (1929) , when i was forced to pause for an hour as a wrecking machine nearby began pulling down the facade of the...
previous posts have covered this historically significant 1870's-era cottage and the "death sentence" it was handed way back in summer 2016. however, the post i have been dreading all along is finally here. the wheels are now in motion, and the "kiss of death," in...
spending an afternoon in the small and amazingly eccentric town of jerome, az., is an unforgettable experience, where portals to the past exist in an oddly suspended state, immune to change or significant alteration. this glorified "ghost town" was an ideal location for me to practice...
for the past two weeks i've devoted nearly every afternoon methodically and painstakingly extracting any and all art glass windows from the soon-to-be-demolished gothic style park view lutheran church featuring an indiana blue limestone facade and single bell tower topped by a an unusual oversized...
two single-sided cast aluminum art deco style bas-relief panels (fabricator unknown) with highly abstract designs depicting the "transmission of sound," make an otherwise utilitarian industrial "switching office" building (completed in 1932, holabird & root, architects) a worthwhile destination for architectural and/or art deco enthusiasts to admire...