07 Oct

Posted at 23:34h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

i feel trapped in this inescapable and horrific cycle of documenting one residential demolition after another. i simply cannot keep up. i receive calls and email notifications daily that a wrecker is onsite and well into dismantling, or rather, erasing another piece of 19th century chicago....

06 Oct

Posted at 10:58h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Salvages by

i find it incredibly strange that the last five demolitions i've been involved in shared three nearly identical characteristics: oversized sill plates (with both lap and mortise and tenon joinery), faceted pegs, and 1-2  summer beams with notched parallel floor joists (versus the more common perpendicularly...

05 Oct

Posted at 10:03h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

a fine collection of "real bronze" ornamental builders' hardware designed and fabricated by the metal compression casting company and/or the russell & erwin mfg. company was recently purchased by urban remains earlier this week. the "mccc collection," consisting of some of the most finely executed...

29 Sep

Posted at 23:50h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

the recent burst of demolition activity in my "study area" over the last two weeks has been rather bitter-sweet in terms of loss and discovery. the rate at which these outwardly nondescript 19th century wood-framed cottages are being pummeled into the ground (and their remains trucked off...

28 Sep

Posted at 22:08h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have 26,000+ meticulously documented and well-organized artifacts in the...

25 Sep

Posted at 14:15h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions by

the vast scattering of excavation sites in and around downtown chicago have provided a dizzying, seemly endless amount of artifacts discarded by chicagoans of the 19th century. the quantity of "hutchinson" type soda or mineral water bottles alone is impressive to say the least. moreso, the sheer variety of...

23 Sep

Posted at 12:31h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

|Guest Lecture Series|1pm-4pm|9-23-2015|SAIC|Eric J. Nordstrom| PART ONE: Deconstructing the John Kent Russell House [gallery ids="13524,13525,13526,13527,13528,13529,13531,13532,13533,13534,13535,13536,13537,13538,13539,13540,13541,13542,13543,13544,13545"] PART 2: Harvesting materials and recreating "systems" for additional study. ADDITIONAL CASE STUDIES IN PROGRESS....

22 Sep

Posted at 14:55h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

from the moment i struck through a wall near the northeast corner of the house, i knew that my suspicions about its true identity were correct. after peeling back continuous layers i am convinced this house was likely moved from the central business district sometime during...

21 Sep

Posted at 14:17h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

an unusual number of original and matching ornamented cast iron "chicago style" newel posts were recently salvaged from a chicago residence dating to the 1880's. the nicely distressed paint ball-finial newels are identical in size with various open hole configurations designed for use with tubular...

17 Sep

Posted at 16:18h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, Sales and Promotions by

over two hours of talking and sustained concentration left me utterly exhausted but satisfied, knowing that i managed to communicate a single important message: urban archaeological research in chicago is virtually non-existent, and an especially overlooked area of the field is in documentation of 19th century household...

17 Sep

Posted at 13:09h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

the fisher building is 20-story, 275 foot tall neo-gothic landmark building in the chicago loop community area of chicago. commissioned by paper magnate lucius fisher, the original building was completed in 1896 by d.h. burnham & company with an addition later added in 1907. it...

16 Sep

Posted at 12:15h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

as mentioned earlier, after discussing my recent urban privy find with several people in the field (e.g., historians, archaeologists, chicago bottle collectors and so on), there is very little doubt that i have come across the oldest known/documented chicago urban privy pit, with artifacts pulled from various...

15 Sep

Posted at 23:00h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

earlier this week i discovered a downtown chicago privy pit that dates from 1830's-1850's, based on the pockets of artifacts or fragments found therein. the artifacts were situated by a haphazard arrangement of early clay bricks, likely used as infill when the privy or trash pit was covered...

11 Sep

Posted at 14:03h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

on the final day of the freemont street house demolition, the day before we salvaged the ornamental white painted galvanized sheet iron cornice, we managed to secure any and all of the decorative face brick or blocks that adorned the two-flat's facade. the salvaged terra...

11 Sep

Posted at 13:55h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by

the alarming rate of demolition permits issued over the past few years, and the subsequent slow eradication of chicago's rich 19th century landscape needs to stop. wishful thinking of course. i wasn't as concerned or aware of these trends when i was living a dichotomous life, as both...

10 Sep

Posted at 15:15h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

the photo gallery below offers a glimpse of some of the newest artifacts recently acquired from last week's listings (15 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have 25,800+ meticulously documented and well-organized artifacts in the...

08 Sep

Posted at 23:42h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

my travel companion consists of an agglomeration of small but important fragmented building materials, carefully salvaged from both interior and exterior "systems" used in the construction of the wood framed two-story john kent russell house (1855), and any subsequent additions prior to the great chicago...

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