i distinctly recall the afternoon in 2011 i spent wandering through henry i. cobb's 1893 chicago athletic association building and neighboring annex (schmidt, garden & martin) with a large group of investors, developers, architects, and designers hell bent on converting the buildings into a boutique...
in addition to the week's acquisition of plaster frieze work from frank lloyd wright's dana-thomas house, the bldg. 51 museum has obtained numerous historically important fragments of plasterwork from adler & sullivan's garrick theater auditorium. originally named the schiller theater, the building was designed...
on an exceptionally gloomy day late last week i was feeling the dismal ambiance of both my mind and the weather, when seemingly out of the blue i was gifted a louis h. sullivan-designed staircase newel post from the chicago stock exchange building. the artifact...
even as greater attention has been directed toward endangered 19th century wood-framed chicago cottages, there has been a dearth of conversation around the looming threat toward wood-framed commercial structures. a steady stream of demolition permits continues to painfully destroy the integrity of enough neighborhoods across...
i spent the greater part of my afternoon - away from shop and studio - to photodocument a largely intact post-fire )1872-1874) wood-framed workers cottage (located in old town) as it was quickly reduced to rubble in a matter of hours. the very first image,...
up close and personal: a photographic study of congress theater's diverse, richly detailed, and nicely weathered surfaces, part one. ...
having recently unearthed a time capsule from the cornerstone of the holy bethel church at adams and damen, my attention wandered to other cornerstones in the bldg. 51 collection, and in particular, the fragment of the cornerstone pictured on the cover of the building 51...
this post concerns an entire city block, containing a collection of historically significant post-fire "athens marble" italianate style rowhouses. each has witnessed fires, neglect, utter abandonment, and demolition since the houses were completed in 1874. in these rather depressing "ruins," i could only catch a glimpse...
an excavation site just west of the m. schultz company piano factory and showroom (erected in 1889) yielded several artifacts spanning several decades. the earliest identifiable object was a small dark amber glass fragment with an embossed letter that once belonged to a quart-sized william...
the following photographic images (taken over a course of three months) provide a highly detailed visual record of the two matching fully functional extant interior congress theater lobby cast brass and wrought ornamental chandeliers. remarkably, the gargantuan "electric candle" ceiling fixtures with dual-colored art cathedral glass globes...
long after the hodgepodge of 19th and 20th century buildings forming the ace hardware on ashland were demolished last year, excavation work finally began. multiple machines dug deep below grade in preparation for the foundation work of a new development, and just a few days later i...
looking over the work i've managed to post, coupled with a seemingly endless list of unpublished "drafts" for 2017 alone, i'm increasingly convinced i'm a good candidate for karoshi. it looks like a sabbatical is on the horizon...
a pair of leaded glass windows original to the henry babson house (salvaged before its demolition in 1960) were purchased for the bldg. 51 museum this month. since i only aimed to acquire a single window for the museum, the counterpart made its way to...
until the time comes when i'm slammed documenting the death of buildings, i've thoroughly enjoyed looking at the city's 19th and early 20th century architecture through my camera's zoom lens. i've taken several thousand images that i hope to make into an exhaustive photographic study...
discovering the remnants of bygone tradesmen in a building seems akin to finding the proverbial “needle in the haystack.” it takes patience and sufficient lighting as much as luck to pinpoint objects left undisturbed for many decades. it is all the more gratifying to uncover...
research continues on a marvelous brick mansion that is in the process of being converted into a pre-school. the structure envelops two city lots, and appears to have been built around 1887. to accommodate the needs of the developers and satisfy building codes, the interior...
a wide array of american architectural, medical, and industrial artifacts and/or objects have been steadily added to the massive urban remains virtual catalog for a few weeks now. with the completion of a gold coast mansion salvage earlier this week, we have been working long...
in a previous blog entry i focused on a highly unusual depression-era mayan revival fisher theater seat end - one of several non-chicago based artifacts housed in the bldg. 51 museum collection catalog. the richly colored all original theater seat end reflects late 1920's exotic movie palace...
[caption id="attachment_21122" align="alignleft" width="900"] detail of built-up molding on pine wood exterior door. the entry and any and all images first published on may 26th, 2016.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_29214" align="alignleft" width="450"] 1886 sanborn insurance map with red arrow indicating location of the superior street italianate. note: the...
while looking for a hopkins and dickenson doorknob the other day, i ran across several boxes of "personal collection" 19th century builders' hardware i've had stowed away for years. when i pull the lid from the first container, i immediately recognized doorknobs from the william...