Like Watching A Bully Beat Up My Only Child
During my Saturday morning bike ride, I swung by Washburne to check up on the demolition work. Much of the west wing is now gone, no surprise there. But what I was really interested in was at the east end of the complex.
A friend had told me that the art moderne style administration building, a 1935 addition to the main building, was in the early stages of demolition.
I arrived just in time to watch one of the walkways being torn down.
The south end of the administration building, ripped open.
As much as I disliked watching the earlier teardown work at Washburne, the effects were not visible from the street. You could even argue that removing the rear warehouse section and west wing created parking spaces, making the main building a much more attractive candidate for re-use. But with the art-deco office building coming down, the distinctive view of WTS from the corner of 31st and Kedzie will be radically, and permanently, altered. For the worse, I think.
I’m a Little Village resident and I work in the area as a community organizer as well. While I can understand your concern for the preservation of historically significant buildings not just in Chicago, but elsewhere, I assume, I’d like to, briefly, point out the significance of the Washburne Trade School complex to many people in Little Village.
The building sits on an 11 acre parcel of land in a part of Little Village which has little to no green space for the community to access. The organization that I work with has been looking for the demolition of the entire Washburne Trade School complex for some time now in order to create that much needed green space in Chicago’s youngest community, per capita, and the community with the 3rd least amount of green space per capita, as well.
The conversation on this site could go on and on, but I wanted to give the perspective of someone who is not all that saddened by the loss of these buildings, architecturally and aesthetically pleasing as they may be. Thanks.
Thanks for the comment, Julian, your opinion is most welcome here. I should probably point out that I also live in Little Village, which is partly why I became fascinated with Washburne.
I understand the need for park space, or any open space at all, in our neighborhood. And as much as I like WTS I’m also frustrated that it’s been sitting abandoned for 10+ years. It’s an insult to the surrounding neighborhood, and it certainly hasn’t done any good for the building itself.
There are plenty of good reasons to tear WTS down, and with the general lack of interest in maintaining the building there are few, if any, reasons to keep it up.
I write about Washburne out of frustration that there isn’t a better solution. I’m not in favor of keeping an abandoned building up and denying the area much needed green space just because the building is “historic” or I think it looks neat. That is why I’ve been taking photos of WTS, which I will continue to do until the entire place is gone. That way there’ll at least be a record.
I wish you and your group the best of luck. Getting the city to tear down a huge building like Washburne is a lot of work. And knowing how things work in Chicago, getting them to build a decent park could be just as challenging. Thanks again for the comment.