23 Oct

Posted at 15:58h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

fully documented and all original c. 1929 historically important exterior palmolive building ornamental cast bronze flush mount facade pilaster removed during extensive renovations during the mid-1960's when the leasehold was purchased by playboy enterprises and renamed the playboy building in 1965. the exact foundry or...

20 Oct

Posted at 16:57h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

the "DECONSTRUCTING CHICAGO" exhibit held this weekend at the glessner house museum  (during chicago's "open house") was at the very least, a good start to make people aware of this exciting project. the exhibit revolved around harvested building materials from demolished wood-framed chicago houses, salvaged in...

16 Oct

Posted at 16:56h in Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

several truckloads of industrial factory and office furniture were removed from the defunct robers electric company, located on morgan street. the great majority of the building has been demolished, but a landmarked building within the complex will avoid the wrecking ball. in fact, the facade...

15 Oct

Posted at 22:42h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

i was notified early on in the day to quickly head to an excavation site (the two story wood frame house had been demolished a week prior), that looked promising for unearthing bottles and other discarded household wares dating to the early 1870's. sure enough when...

15 Oct

Posted at 13:33h 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...

12 Oct

Posted at 12:26h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

with two concurrent demolitions with heneghan about to begin later this afternoon and a west side excavation that holds promise for the discovery of an early privy vault, i simply do not have the time (at least now) to provide greater detail pertaining to the images taken...

11 Oct

Posted at 12:27h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Sales and Promotions, Salvages by

people in my inner-circle are growing concerned that i'm dangerously consumed or unhealthily immersed in the "deconstruction" and "unearthing" projects that i do for intellectual gratification when not operating urban remains. i cannot disagree, but i feel imbued over this newly found conviction that this...

10 Oct

Posted at 12:29h in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous, New Acquisitions, New Products, Salvages by

the workers cottage (1885-1887) was demolished just a few days ago, but excavation of the now-vacant lot is well underway. i stopped by the site on my way to work and asked the wrecker, one who i work with frequently, whether we could do a little...

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...

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...

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...

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