urban remains recently purchased several amazingly designed and finely cast neoclassical style oversized cast iron exterior facade corbels salvaged from the historically-important extant 14-story chicago and northwestern railroad office building located in downtown chicago. the prairie school style commercial building was designed by the architectural firm...
over fifty american depression-era "new old stock" pressed and folded baked green enameled steel reflectors or shades were recently discovered in the storage room of an old chicago area twine factory. the diminutive pendant or task lamp shades were designed and fabricated by or for harvey...
urban remains just acquired a limited supply of original american depression era railroad freight car flooring, comprised of remarkably dense and durable solid oak wood constructed "butcher-block" style. the rock solid wood planks were mostly salvaged from decommissioned great northern railway double-door steel box and postal...
i've decided to add more posts pertaining to "gardenesque" ornament, perhaps inspired by what i've discovered in the chicago athletic association building (a topic i've written about before) and more recently, my revisitation of the ornamental terra cotta elements i managed to salvage from the...
the photo gallery below offers a few hand-picked or "highlighted" artifacts from this week's listings (10 new items are added daily in their respective categories) on the urban remains website. as of this writing, we have surpassed the 20,000 item mark. the ultimate goal since...
the urban remains warehouse shipping and receiving area is completely filled with a large acquisition of artifacts purchased earlier this week. as of this writing we continue to sort through stools, building ornament, aviation equipment, industrial furniture, light fixtures and so on. the new inventory contains a...
[gallery ids="1737,1738,1739,1740,1741,1742,1743,1744,1745,1746"]...
last week the bldg. 51 museum acquired an exceptionally rare and historically important late 19th century ornamental cast iron guaranty (later prudential) building flush mount ceiling light fixture medallion. the all original fixture was removed from the commercial building's interior lobby during a senseless remuddling...
three virtually identical (condition varies) chicago stock exchange staircase balusters or panels designed by notable architect louis h. sullivan were acquired earlier this week and later added to the urban remains website product catalog. the historically important and highly sought after angled balusters were salvaged...
milwaukee is my home away from home, especially when i really want to wander around aimlessly, photodocumenting architectural details that capture my attention across the urban landscape. don't get me wrong, there is a substantial amount of terrain for me to document here in chicago,...
we just purchased a huge load of all original all-metal or pressed and folded steel furniture designed and fabricated by the simmons mfg. co., kenosha, wisc. coming across a few pieces here and there is good, but having the opportunity to purchase "simmons" furniture on...
earlier this week we acquired several boxes of assorted laboratory glassware, scales, unusual scientific instruments, signage and other medical oddities once used in a chicago area pharmacy or drugstore. the majority of the articles gathered date between 1880-1930 and are in remarkably great shape, considering age. once...
we managed to secure a total of four matching historically important oversized exterior ornamental cast iron single electric light sconces salvaged from the original wrigley jr. company's chewing gum factory, located at 35th and ashland avenue. as of early 2014, the factory complex continues to...
rare to find a large quantity (over 200 available) of all original (not the reproductions) american industrial galvanized steel locker room storage baskets designed and fabricated by the lyon metallic mfg. co., aurora, il. the locker baskets acquired in recent weeks, are comprised largely of...
the images below depict a rare, joseph f. l. uhl-designed chair patented in 1902 (considered a precursor to the slightly modified "perfection" chair) and manufactured by the uhl brothers company, toledo, oh. this early prototype was advertised as a new and useful improvement in the construction...
nothing terribly special (i.e., have been made time and again), but the copper fitters are rather delightful. the fixture, although repurposed, contains two original copper socket housings/fitters manufactured by benjamin electric of chicago. they are incredibly popular now, and i'm sure have been knocked off...
completely and utterly exhausted. worked 13 hours straight. removed several truckloads of salvaged items from the chicago athletic club. fortunately, nearly all of the historically significant architectural elements from the original 1893 building (henry ives cobb, architect) and the 1907 "michigan building" addition (schmidt, garden...