a little over a year ago a single house demolition dramatically altered the course of my life's work, in ways I could never have imagined. in ways i still struggle to make sense of. this house held an odd fixation for me and I would...
it's rather unfortunate that my recollections of exploring the partially operational (or perhaps largely crippled and chaotic) cook county hospital's power plant are so faint and fragmented. to make matter worse, hundreds of digital photographs taken of cook county hospital's interior during the short-lived salvage...
demolition in glencoe on the horizon. images from a visual record i made of the sprawling estate of h. earl hoover (nephew of william h. hoover), who purchased the land in 1922 and commissioned architect william furst of armstrong, furst and tilton to design the tudor...
when companies are contracted by the developers to extricate structurally unsound vaulted sidewalks and alleys in and around sites to be excavated for future construction, work continues with subsequent digging to remove concrete and asphalt, which in many cases, leads to the discovery of well-preserved...
as i continue to stitch together bits and pieces of prior salvage experiences i often fall victim to a dense cloud of confusion and frustration when i pour over the notes and images taken during urban remains's infancy. looking back, i feel the process of documentation...
a recent excavation presented an unusually eerie opportunity -- to visit and later dig at the site of a former "glass bending factory" that was built there by notorious american serial killer h.h. holmes. i was aware of this history from having taken a "ghost tour" with chicago...
months after the newly-built united center indoor sports arena (home to both the chicago bulls and the blackhawks) opened in august of 1995, demolition of chicago stadium began in march of 1995 (its site is now a parking lot for the united center across the street)....
exhaustive photographic documentation and/or record of careful removal of the two remaining sullivan-designed cast iron storefront columns capitals from adler and sullivan's s.a. maxwell loft building (more commonly referred to as the jewelers building) has drawn to a close. the fragments will be replicated to...
a chicago two-story 1880s masonry cottage or "boarding house" with completely intact fret-sawn pine wood bracketed cornice and diminutive lemont limestone window keystones accentuated with deeply incised simple scroll motifs will be destroyed in the next week or two. a demolition permit has been pulled and...
early 20th century movie-going was once a wildly popular excursion in which a nickel could purchase entrance to an elaborate architecture housing atmospheric settings, variety of entertainment and, importantly, an escape from the heat. a look to the ornament and interior décor of long-gone movie...
the following collection of entries focuses on my 4-year "unearthing chicago" project where i aimed to identify and document what lies beneath our feet. from bottles and bones found in residential privy pits to remnants of chicago's city infrastructure dating back to the mid-19th century, the...
the following image gallery offers a glimpse at the latest american architectural, medical, and industrial 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 AUGUST...
the following gallery of images (59 in total) were culled from the "unearthing chicago" project archive (2014-1017). with over 15,000 images documenting objects found in chicago's subterranean portals to the past, along with meticulously cataloging and photographing these unearthed objects in studio after project completion,...
peter b. wight (1838–1925) was an american 19th-century architect who practiced in new york city and chicago. wight's work in 1860s and 1870s new york evolved from a decorative, historicist style that paralleled the work of european designers john ruskin and augustus welby northmore pugin. after...
the second german evangelical zion church, designed by chicago architect theodore duesing and completed in 1905, has been issued a demolition permit that will likely be released in the coming weeks. the chicago church was built on the northeast corner of ashland and hastings for...
one of the most visually striking and architecturally distinctive features within notable architect henry i. cobb's chicago athletic association building (1893) is the highly detailed, tracery-laden "drooping tip" cast plaster ceiling, comprised of interlocking gridded panels reinforced with metal mesh cones and illuminated with single...
the chicago "l" dates back to the late 19th century, when the privately owned south side elevated railroad company was incorporated in 1888. the first four miles - much of which is still used in chicago's modern day "loop," opened in 1892 and ran from...
while en route to a demolition in the wicker park neighborhood of chicago, i came across an unusual renovation or demolition, some kind of chaotic project that left the structural components of a 19th century two-story framed cottage fully exposed for both the eye and...
after carefully studying and documenting adler and sullivan’s s.a. maxwell loft building (1881) over the past several weeks construction workers peeled back layer after layer of alterations revealing how much of its original historic fabric was stripped off dating back to the time its original...
a selection of stories from 2019: over a decade devoted to documenting and salvaging chicago's architectural past a look back at images of tribune tower's continued transformation in 2019 documenting louis sullivan-designed carved berlin sandstone panels on facade of 1881 s.a. maxwell loft building bldg. 51 and ryerson archive...