17 Aug nearly year later, west side chicago italianate style lemont limestone flats succumb to wrecking ball

last week, a group of post-fire three-story italianate style flats finally surrendered to the wrecking ball. a blog post from late last year sounded the alarm, triggered by a proposal to replace the 1870’s lemont limestone flats with more of the same dull, bland, and boring residential condos that have been permeating neighborhoods across chicago for years. i was hoping the stall in the project would buy enough time to usher in proposals for a repurposing of the existing buildings, but sadly that’s not how it played out.

instead i found myself, along with others, spending two consecutive afternoons documenting the deaths of these buildings, to have a thorough visual record of their characteristics, including condition, design and/or ornament, configuration, and so on. thankfully, both the developers and the wreckers agreed to save key architectural elements (e.g., lightly incised window hoods and door headers featuring abstract floral motifs popular during that time period) based on negotiations by neighborhood advocate moshe tamssot. the homes are now long gone, but will live on in both photographic images and fragments collected those afternoons.