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 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...

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...

08 Sep

Posted at 15:33h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

an assortment of some of my favorite artifacts, objects , and other diminutive fragments mounted on custom-built hardwood plaques by my shop's carpenter. [gallery columns="4" ids="13044,13045,13046,13047,13048,13049,13050,13051,13052,13053,13054,13055,13056,13057,13058,13059,13060,13061,13062,13063,13064,13066,13067,13068,13069,13071,13072,13073,13074,13075,13076,13077,13078,13079,13080,13081,13082,13083,13084,13085,13086,13087,13088,13089,13091,13092,13094,13095,13096,13097,13098,13099,13100,13101,13102,13103,13104,13105,13106"]   end...

04 Sep

Posted at 16:43h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

in preparation for an intensive, systematic photoshoot of the exterior and interior of old st. patrick's church (1854), i came across a statement claiming that the church building is "one of a handful of structures remaining in the city that predate the 1871 great chicago...

03 Sep

Posted at 18:10h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

photographed in my studio, the following images represent an impressive assemblage of discarded objects once used in the everyday life of a chicago family household spanning from the late 1860's through the early 1880's. the privy pit or "vault" was sealed and forgotten when a...

01 Sep

Posted at 01:19h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

the following images were taken during the demolition of a heavily altered "chicago balloon frame" oakley avenue house constructed sometime between 1879-1884. the multi-story house was raised sometime around the turn of the century with the addition of a basement or "garden apartment." [gallery ids="12844,12845,12843"] original mortise and...

31 Aug

Posted at 17:28h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

i finally forced myself to transport this completely intact and unaltered full-sized residential sill plate into my studio to be documented every which way i saw fit. this massive wood beam is comprised of solid old growth pine wood, with a tenon on one side...

30 Aug

Posted at 23:58h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

a utility subcontractor excavating a small parcel of land located just south of downtown chicago came across one of the most remarkably intact and long-forgotten 19th century landfills or dumping grounds, which in a few days times, yielded hundreds of bottles. from c. 1880's hutchinson...

26 Aug

Posted at 13:44h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

while en route to a residential salvage, i ran across a friend of mine who was wrecking an early 20th century (1910-1915) two story brick commercial building. his excavator had not reached the only redeeming architectural artifact in the form of an oversized carved bedford...

25 Aug

Posted at 15:09h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

i was pleasantly taken aback by the amount of community feedback and shared disgust over the demolition of an incredibly intact 19th century victorian era brick two-flat residence demolished late last week. the responses i received prompted me to expound upon a previous post pertaining to my salvage efforts connected...

25 Aug

Posted at 15:07h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

i've been spending great lengths of time reviewing images taken from various excavation sites, privy pits and other underground spaces to include in the highly-anticipated "unearthing chicago" hardcover book due out by the end of the this year. at times i feel my eyeballs are going...

25 Aug

Posted at 15:06h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, 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 25,500+ meticulously documented and well-organized artifacts in the...

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