Forgotten Downtown Chicago Tour - 2 October 2011Jacob Kaplan and Patrick Steffes from Forgotten Chicago led a tour on 2 October 2011 of remnant and anachronistic artifacts in the downtown Chicago loop. The focus was primarily on low-rise buildings that have managed to survive into the 21st century.
Congress Parkway was widened in the 1940s into a major vehicular artery through downtown. However, since there were buildings on either side, the first floors were arcaded to permit pedestrian traffic to continue.
This building at Van Buren and Clark is a quickly-built "taxpayer" building that somehow never managed to be replaced with a skyscraper.
I believe the side of the Western Union building facing Congress Parkway was demolished and given a new modernist wall to make way for the widened street.
The former Fort Dearborn Hotel at 401 Lasalle served a long-defunct rail terminal.
The Dixon Building and Vogue Building on South Wells Street just South of Van Buren were manufacturing lofts built when this area was the fringe of the Chicago downtown.
Cal's Bar, 400 South Wells is a taxpayer building from the 1947 that was built after a gas explosion. It managed to hang around for much longer than expected.
The Van Buren.
This CTA sub-station on Franklin between Van Buren and Jackson sat underneath the tracks for the defunct Wells Street Terminal. The terminal was completed in 1904 as the Fifth Street Terminal and a 1926 expansion included the construction of this substation. After a operational reorganization when the CTA took over operation in 1947, stub terminals like this became obsolete and the terminal was demolished in 1955. However, the substation remains in operation.
The Brooks Building is an old manufacturing loft converted to offices.
Continental Bank Building (South Wells at West Quincy) has an anachronistic stone engraving with the Fifth Street as the old name for Wells Street.
Another anachronism - Jackson at South Financial Place - once called Sherman Street
Modernism - 230 South State Street.
Abandoned modernism - 202 South State.
127 State Street features three completely different, incongruous layers of visible reskinning.
24 East Adams
30 East Adams - modernist entry renovation on a much older building.
Palmer House (bathroom break)
Italian Village - when owner refused to sell, rumor is that building slope next door was built to redirect rainfall onto his roof. Monroe and Clark.
Bell Savings and Loan.
Covered alley - legend is that it was a cow path.
Chicago Loop Synagogue and the former Astor Theatre (1922)
St. Peter's Church, 110 West Madison.
Brevoort Hotel? (Madison at Lasalle)
Chicago Federation of Musicians.
177 West Washington (Paul Hyland and Redmond P. Corse Architects) started as an office building, was turned into parking, restored to offices, and then turned back into parking again.
Washington Block at 40 North Wells (at Washington) dates from 1873 and is one of the few survivors from the years immediately following the great 1871 Chicago fire.
Randolph Towers - a terra cotta maintenance nightmare undergoing one of it's far-too-regular renovations.
The Great Lakes Building, 180 North Wacker, is a repurposed warehouse.
227 Lake was built in 1872 and is landmarked.
215 Lake is a parking garage that has survived multiple facelifts.
Page Brothers Building, 177-191 North State Street, was built in 1872 and is notable for its cast-iron facade.
The Tigerman Parking Garage is a bit of postmodernist whimsy from 1986.
The Chicago Motor Club was built in 1928 a, "monument to the progress of motordom." The club relocated to Des Plaines in 1986 and the landmarked building subsequently endured sporadic use and failed redevelopment plans.
Following the tour, I went looking for Dominican food and found it at Bolero, albeit at a price quite a bit higher than I was used to paying in New York.
Rev. 19 December 2011 |
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