Demolition Hold List: A place for info about architecturally significant buildings in danger of being demolished (or are already gone) is a new website that converts the City of Chicago Demolition Delay Hold List web page into a blog that (as I understand it) will be updated whenever the City list is updated (keep reading…)
My previous visit to this abandoned racetrack was underwhelming, to say the least. The weather was dreary and the track clubhouse reminded me of a cheaply built strip mall left to rot. I did not plan on going back, but when I learned that the racetrack was being demolished to make way for a shopping center I decided a return trip was in order. Maybe the place would be more impressive the second time around…
In 2001 the Chicago Paperboard mill, a sprawling complex of circa 1914 buildngs along the Chicago River between Ogden and Elston Avenue, was closed due to diminishing profits…
This whole business of documenting buildings before (and often while) they get torn down can be frustrating. A friend of mine once called it “chasing bricks” and commented that “after a while, one brick looks like another–what’s the point?” Good question, especially when often the only rewards are some mediocre photos that you can’t reshoot because the subject is a now a pile of rubble. Why become attached to a place that few others care about, only to see it smashed to bits? But then one day you ride past a building you’ve always been curious about, and you notice the orange safety fence and “NO TRESPASSING DEMOLITION IN PROGRESS” signs. Before you know it, Sunday morning has arrived and your glasses are getting knocked off as you squirm through a gap in the fence that is a bit smaller than it first appeared. It’s like a habit–after a while you don’t even know why you do it. You just do it, without thinking…
Much of the old Cook County Hospital complex is now gone. Demolition work at the Lakeside VA Hospital is well underway…
A couple of recent (June 29) photos from the ongoing demolition of the old Cook County Hospital complex…Work on removing the rear pavilions is well underway…
…another remnant of the ‘Old South Loop’ (by ‘old’ I mean back when the South Loop was still weird and funky and unscrubbed–you know, back when the area was actually interesting), gone.
After I heard that the tower had been torn down, I lost all interest in visiting the Westinghouse demolition site. But this afternoon I decided to check on the place one last time, just to see what was left of the building.
I had already seen (almost too many) photos of the demolition work, so I wasn’t surprised to that much of the school had been torn down and the water tower was now standing by itself. Even so, actually seeing the site in person was unsettling. After wandering the grounds for a bit, I went into what was left of the main building and climbed the stairs…
A great resource for finding buildings in Chicago that are about to be torn down is the Demolition Delay Hold List, which catalogs “structures subject to review for historic or architectural significance prior to the release of a demolition permit.” Buildings that end up on the list are almost always demolished, so I have a hard time believing that the review process is very rigorous. Perhaps they should remove the words ‘delay’ and ‘hold’ from the title…