06 Oct

Posted at 05:39h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 65,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items for the month of OCTOBER, 2021, have been...

04 Oct

Posted at 19:21h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the bldg. 51 museum archive recently acquired an exceptionally rare 1st edition of william h. birkmire's "skeleton construction in steel buildings," published by john wiley & sons, new york, ny., 1893. the profusely illustrated hardcover book with red cloth and gilt-stamped lettering contains information on...

28 Sep

Posted at 04:30h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

by the time i arrived in the summer of 2007, the nortown theater was already dead. stripped of its utilities, burnt by fire, and extensively damaged by prolonged neglect. note: salvaging/documenting the nortown theater's facade and its ornamental terra cotta was addressed in a previous blog entry,...

22 Sep

Posted at 01:01h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

urban remains and bldg. 51 recently acquired several sections of historically important egyptian revival style spray-glazed terra cotta ornament from the non-extant walter bailey-designed knights of pythias building (1928), also referred to as the "skyscraper" of bronzeville.  the building's architect, walter thomas bailey, was an american...

16 Sep

Posted at 14:45h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the bldg. 51 museum recently acquired two unusual chicago fire books (published, 1872) featuring a collection of gruesome accounts collected by writer and publisher george l. barclay. graphic lithographs including children being burned alive, criminals hung and "brained," and buildings being purposely detonated (often still...

08 Sep

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

the following images represent a well rounded cross section of historically important architectural materials added to the bldg. 51 archive in 2019. a more focused and in-depth blog post, will touch upon some of the more notable and historically important architectural artifacts acquired for the...

01 Sep

Posted at 14:31h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the st. louis-based winkle terra cotta co., with offices in the century bldg. at 9th and olive sts., and works at 5739 manchester ave., was established as the joseph winkle terra cotta works in 1883, located in cheltenham, a suburb of st. louis. in 1889...

28 Aug

Posted at 09:02h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, Salvages by

a virtual gallery consisting of hundreds of architectural artifacts (several being historically important) and miscellaneous objects discovered and documented by eric j. nordstrom during the past 15 years salvaging residential and commercial structures faced with demolition or senseless disfigurement. when time permits, i will be assigning...

18 Aug

Posted at 14:11h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the bldg. 51 museum's extensive collection of  late 19th and early 20th century "sullivanesque" style commercial building terra cotta is presented below in an exhaustive, ever-growing photographic survey conducted by eric j. nordstrom. the terra cotta ornament was designed by disciples of louis h. sullivan's,...

07 Aug

Posted at 04:08h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

i set aside time this weekend to resume scanning piles of postcards amassed over the past year.  i’ve included a few real photo post cards (rppc) of early 20th century residential streetscapes, and a seldom seen photographic view of schmidt, garden, and martin's michael reese hospital...

04 Aug

Posted at 13:49h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the following image gallery represents a fraction of 19th and early 20th century american builders' hardware recently added to urban remains virtual showroom. several examples salvaged from historically important buildings across the country will be added in the coming months. ...

28 Jul

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

digitizing the bldg. 51 archive's chicago fire collection of objects and ephemera has resumed, with the most recent seldom seen period stereoviews depicting the conflagration posted below. the images of the "burnt district" taken shortly after the chicago fire of 1871. several images were photographed by...

21 Jul

Posted at 14:01h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products by

the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural artifacts and/or miscellaneous objects added to the ever-expanding urban remains virtual catalog (over 65,000 items digitized/cataloged over the past 15 years). the newly acquired items for the month of JULY, 2021, have been...

10 Jul

Posted at 06:36h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

tragedy, or perhaps irony, characterizes many of chicago's largest construction and demolition efforts in recent history. just six years ago, vying to be the next host to the olympics, the city chose to demonstrate its bid by preemptively razing a 130-year old compound of historically...

07 Jul

Posted at 02:27h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

in synchronistic fashion, a rather interesting connection was recently discovered between artifacts that had separately been excavated from two chicago demolition sites. initially seeming like a simple curiosity, a detailed 7.5" tall spelter coin bank representing the first national bank of chicago was unearthed from...

22 Jun

Posted at 22:34h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

an uncanny find this week arrived in the form of a hefty, solid block of stone recovered from the basement of a wood frame cottage undergoing demolition near downtown chicago. the mottled, pink and gray rectangular block is a granite brick laid in 1883 at...

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