27 Jan 19th century victorian-era wicker park three-flat accentuated with ornamental pressed brick and fret-sawn wood lunettes faces demolition
an impressive 19th century chicago (wicker park neighborhood) three-flat apartment building with distinctive masonry punctuated with ornamental anderson pressed brick, fret-sawn wood window lunettes and amazingly intact surrounding ornamental cast and wrought iron newel, bracket and pipe railings flanking stoops and along sidewalk, will be reduced to rubble in the coming weeks.
in addition, a pre-fire wood-framed chicago workers cottage raised and moved towards the back of the lot (likely when the apartment complex was built around 1890), will be destroyed as well.
i’ve thoroughly documented both structures, with several images of the original ornament and interior shots of the cottage, focusing on its materials and methods used to construct it.
images documenting the existing three-story rowhouse in its current state are provided below:
all images courtesy of eric j. nordstrom and the bldg. 51 archive.
the anderson pressed brick company was founded in 1877 by james c. anderson of chicago. the use of ornamental pressed brick to accentuate or punctuate exterior facades was ubiquitous in both chicago residential and commercial buildings during the latter half of the 19th century. anderson credited itself with developing products that were “full of artistic beauty and capabilities” out of a material more commonly associated with “plain” buildings.
during the 1890s anderson company produced over 300,000 bricks a day during peak production at their three plants, located in chicago, massachistes and new york. this was achieved through a highly mechanized system they developed in-house where unburned bricks were led through a series of tunnel kilns, heated by a perpetual fire fed by crude oil.