March 2022 Month-in-Review Newsletter
Tiffany Barrel-Vaulted Ceiling at the Marshall Field and Company Building
1907, Louis C. Tiffany. Contains over 1.6 million pieces of Favrile iridescent art glass. Photo credit: Eric Allix Rogers 
Table of Contents
PETITION
  • PETITION: Save the Century and Consumers Buildings

CHICAGO 7 MOST ENDANGERED
  • Chicago 7 2022 Announcement, March 9, 2022
  • Press and Media Coverage
  • Chicago 7 Video Overviews
  • Recording of Full Preservation
  • Chicago 7 2022 Poster

THE CHICAGO 7+1 2022
  1. Century & Consumers Buildings
  2. Public Housing Sites (Altgeld Gardens, Cabrini Rowhouses, Lathrop Homes)
  3. St. Martin de Tours Church 
  4. Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District
  5. Promontory Point 
  6. Central Park Theater 
  7. North DuSable Lake Shore Drive
  8. Moody Triangle (The Moody Church / North Federal Savings Bank / Archway Standard)

ADVOCACY
  1. WIN: Thompson Center Sale For Renovation Finalized
  2. THREATENED: $52M Federal Funds to Demolish Century & Consumers 
  3. THREATNED: Will Feds Reject New Adaptive Reuse Plan?
  4. WIN: New Video to Promote Early Chicago Skyscraper UNESCO Site
  5. THREATENED: McPier Vetoes Casino Reuse of Lakeside Center
  6. THREATENED: Plans Emerge to Bulldoze South Shore Nature Sanctuary
  7. LOSS: Beloved Dinkel’s Bakery to Close After 100 Years In Business
  8. WIN: Emmett Till House Receives $250k Adopt-a-Landmark Funds
  9. WIN: Muddy Waters House Receives $250k Adopt-a-Landmark Funds
  10. WIN: Paseo Boricua Flags Approved as Preliminary Landmarks
  11. WIN: 226 W. Jackson Receives Class L Designation
  12. WIN: Preservation Chicago Leads Effort for 15 New Chicago Landmarks
  13. POTENTIAL WIN: Helstein House Suggested for Chicago Landmark 
  14. WIN: The Forum Receives $1 Million Restoration Grant
  15. WIN: Preliminary Landmark Monumental Baptist Church  
  16. WIN: G.A.R. Rotunda Restoration Complete
  17. THREATENED: Wrigley Lodge/Salvation Army Permanently Closed
  18. LOSS: Demolition of Cassidy Tire / Tyler & Hippach Has Begun 
  19. WIN: Clarendon Park Community Center Approved
  20. THREATENED: Promontory Point is More than the Limestone
  21. POTENTIAL WIN: Former Standard Club Building Sold
  22. THREATENED: Our Lady Of Victory Church Petition
  23. THREATENED: Uncertain Future for Avalon New Regal Theater 
  24. THREATENED: Portage Theater Needs Significant Support to Reopen
  25. LOSS: Final hours for the John Ramcke House at 2028 N. Seminary
  26. WIN: Humboldt Park Methodist Church to be Adaptively Reused
  27. WIN: Overton to be Adaptively Reused as Community Center
  28. WIN: Roof Repairs Underway at Glessner House 
  29. WIN: West Pullman School Wins Driehaus Adaptive Reuse Award
  30. WIN: North Lawndale Sears Sunken Garden to Be Restored 
  31. THREATENED: Decorative Art Deco Terrazzo Floor Discovered
  32. BUYER WANTED: St. Paul's Lutheran Church Listed
  33. BUYER WANTED: Little Village Former Schlitz Tied-House Listed
  34. BUYER WANTED: Larry Booth Designed 2104 N. Cleveland
  35. BUYER WANTED: Pre-Fire Bellinger Cottage Listed
  36. THREATENED: Loss of Chicago Flats Reduces Affordable Housing
  37. THREATENED: Fire Engulfs Stickney School by J.E.O. Pridmore
  38. THREATENED: Early Warning Signs
  39. THREATENED: 90-Day Demolition Delay Watch List
  40. LOSS: Spotlight on Demolition (74 demolitions in March 2022)

PRESERVATION IN THE NEWS
  • Op-ed: Transform McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center into a recreational center that would serve all
  • Op-ed: Helmut Jahn and I re-imagined Lakeside Center in 2011. The city can still take advantage.
  • Sun-Times Editorial: Casino or not, city has big decisions to make regarding Lakeside Center
  • Sun-Times: Thompson Center Revamp Could Boost LaSalle Corridor
  • Sun-Times Editorial: A federal case: U.S. government shouldn’t wreck two Loop skyscrapers in the name of safety
  • Chicago Magazine: Think TikTok is Obsessed with Goth Target? Meet Ward Miller.
  • WIN: After 25 Years Leading Chicago Architecture Center, Lynn Osmond Tapped to Run Choose Chicago
  • WIN: Lee Bey Becomes Architecture Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times 
  • Sun-Times Editorial: Writing a new chapter for Avalon Regal and Congress theaters
  • South Side Weekly: The South Suburbs’s Little Known Underground Railroad; Historians and activists push to recognize the history of Underground Railroad stops and guides in the south suburbs
  • Billdr: Researching the History of your Home in Chicago
  • WTTW CHICAGO: The Lions and Lambs of March Are a Great Excuse to Introduce the Work of a Prolific Chicago Photographer: Deborah Mercer
  • WTTW CHICAGO: “Anything Goes” - Arts and Culture in Jane Byrne’s Chicago (3:57)

EVENTS & HAPPENINGS
  • Ward Miller Guest Lectures at University of Chicago Historic Preservation Class
  • Presents National Park Week 2022 presented by Pullman National Monument 
  • RAILROADERS: Jack Delano's Homefront Photography Historic Pullman Foundation

FILM & BOOKS
  • "Uptown: Portrait of a Palace," A Documentary by Pappas & Bisberg
  • "Lost Chicago Department Stores," by Leslie Goddard
  • Schiller/Garrick Theatre Visualization by Wrightwood 659
  • Architecture with Stewart: The Simple Idea by Mies van der Rohe that Changed Chicago
  • Starship Chicago: Thompson Center: A Film by Nathan Eddy
  • At Home In Chicago; A Living History of Domestic Architecture by Cannon and Caulfield

SUPPORT PRESERVATION CHICAGO
  • Chicago 7 Posters and Swag
  • Please Support Preservation Chicago
PETITIONS
PETITION:
Save the Century & Consumers Buildings!
Stop the $52M Demolition for a Gravel Lot!
(Chicago 7 2011, 2013 & 2022)
Save the Century & Consumers Buildings! Stop the $52M Demolition for a Gravel Lot!

Adding the words "or renovation" to the bill before Congress is all that is needed to allow the restoration plan to move forward.

Chicago’s Early Chicago Skyscrapers are currently being considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Yet, the Feds just earmarked $52 MILLION taxpayers dollars to DEMOLISH two outstanding Early Chicago Skyscrapers and replace them with...a permanent gravel lot!

NO WAY!

And just as the historic buildings are on the verge of being beautifully restored!

After years of planning, the Chicago Collaborative Archives Center adaptive reuse plan has strong support from dozens of archives from across the nation and is ready to go.

Landmark or Landfill?

So after being vacant and mothballed for over twenty years, the fate of the historic Century and Consumers Buildings is about to be determined.

After 20 years of advocacy, it all comes down to two little words. Two little words that will determine the fate of these historic skyscrapers.

"OR RENOVATION"

Adding "or renovation" to the appropriations bill currently before Congress is all that is needed to allow the restoration plan to move forward.

CONGRESS: Add "or renovation" to the appropriations bill currently moving through Congress and Save the Century & Consumers Buildings!

These proud and elegant Chicago School skyscrapers are located on State Street in the vibrant and thriving heart of Chicago’s Loop. The 16-story Century Building was built in 1915 and designed by Holabird and Roche. The 22-story Consumers Building was built in 1913 and designed by Jenney, Mundie & Jensen.

In 2005, the Federal Government took ownership of these buildings through its power of eminent domain with plans to renovate and reuse these buildings. But these plans never happened due to lack of federal funding.

The Chicago Collaborative Archive Center is a solid plan to save and adaptively reuse these historic buildings with strong stakeholder and financial support.

But all will be lost if the $52 million dollars of federal funds are used to demolish the Century and Consumers Buildings and replace them with a permanent gravel lot.

Please sign the petition!

1. We encourage Congress to add "or renovation" to the appropriations bill currently moving through Congress and Save the Century & Consumers Buildings!

2. We encourage the Illinois Delegation in Washington D.C. including Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Tammy Duckworth and Congressman Danny Davis to take urgent action to support this effort.

3. We encourage the City of Chicago to take immediate steps to designate the Century and Consumers Buildings as Chicago Landmarks which would protect them from demolition.

Preservation Chicago: Love Your City Fiercely!
Miracles DO happen...
But today they are people-powered
and Preservation Chicago is there
every step of the journey.
Preservation Chicago seeks to nurture and support healthy, vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities by leveraging the power of Chicago’s historic built environment. The path is long and steep, but we are making real and tangible progress.
 
We are deeply grateful for your donations. Your support has allowed us to successfully convert ambitious strategic goals into on-the-ground realities. Our results have been surprising, significant and substantial.

Thanks to your support, we can continue to make Chicago a better city. Preservation Chicago is a 501(c)(3) non-profit so your donation is tax-deductible as permitted by law.
 
Your support makes it possible.

Thank you for Loving Chicago Fiercely!
Not interested in this monthly newsletter? No problem.
Click the 'Unsubscribe' button in the footer ("End" key shortcut takes you there)
Chicago 7 2022 Announcement
Preservation Chicago's 2022
Chicago 7 Most Endangered Announcement
Reaches Hundreds via Livestream
Ward Miller Presents Preservation Chicago 2022 "Chicago 7 Most Endangered" to over 300 hundred through virtual livestream. Photo Credit: Cathie Bond / Preservation Chicago
The Preservation Chicago 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered presentation was presented live to a virtual audience of approximately 300 people on March 9, 2022. Additionally, there was a small in-person group of approximately 25 people including staff, board members, stakeholders, and reporters. We anticipate that this dual presentation format, including both a live in-person audience and live virtual simulcast will become the standard moving forward as it allows maximum attendance and flexibility.

Ward Miller's 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered presentation was fast-paced, information-packed, and engaging. Beautiful photos and embedded media made the presentation visually rich and compelling. For those who missed the live event, the entire one hour presentation was recorded and has been posted on Preservation Chicago's website and YouTube channel.

The 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered announcement and presentation was held at noon on Wednesday, March 9, 2022. The event was held in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Center.

Since 2003, the “Chicago 7 Most Endangered” has sounded the alarm on imminently threatened Chicago historic buildings to mobilize the stakeholder support necessary to save them from demolition.

The Chicago 7 Most Endangered 2022 reporting has been robust with coverage with many articles appearing in print, web, radio and television. This is media coverage is important as it powerfully amplifies the the message.










New ‘Endangered 7’ include LSD, Loop and Near North Side sites, The Skyline, 3/9/22

WATCH: The Video Overview of the Preservation Chicago 2022 "Chicago 7 Most Endangered" (Length 5:00)
Video Overview of Preservation Chicago's 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered. (5:00 Minutes) Image Credit: Preservation Chicago
WATCH: Short Cuts of the Preservation Chicago 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered (Length 0:34)
Video Short Cuts Overview of Preservation Chicago's 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered. (0:34 Minutes) Image Credit: Preservation Chicago
WATCH: The Full Announcement and Presentation of the Preservation Chicago 2022 "Chicago 7 Most Endangered" (Length: 60 Minutes)
Introducing the Preservation Chicago 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered Poster and Mug
Altgeld Gardens 'Up-Top' Commercial Building
1945-46, Keck & Keck, 13106-13128 S. Ellis Avenue. Image credit: Preservation Chicago
 
Altgeld Gardens 'Up-Top' Commercial Building Preservation Chicago 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered Poster. Available in a variety of sizes including 8x10, 16x20, and 24x36. Posters available at Preservation Chicago's webstore.
The 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
THREATENED: The Century and Consumers Buildings: A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
Century Building, 1915, Holabird and Roche, 202 S. State Street and the Consumers Building, 1913, Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, 220 S. State Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Century Building, 1915, Holabird and Roche, 202 S. State Street and the Consumers Building, 1913, Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, 220 S. State Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Century Building
1915, Holabird and Roche, 202 S. State Street  
 
Consumers Building
1913, Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, 220 S. State Street  
Overview

Preservation Chicago has long been concerned about the deferred maintenance, vacancy and deteriorating condition of the Century and Consumers Buildings, fronting State Street, Adams Street and Quincy Court, in the heart of the Chicago Loop and the city’s Central Business District. These two early 20th-century skyscraper structures were included in past years as part of our Chicago 7 Most Endangered List in 2011 and in 2013. Both have now once again been selected as part of our Most Endangered List for a third time in 2022.

Preservation Chicago has recently learned that a $52 million expenditure, or line item, has been earmarked in the Federal Infrastructure Bill, currently before Congress, specifically for the demolition of The Century and Consumers Buildings. It appears that the decades-long advocacy efforts to save these significant buildings is therefore reaching a critical stage.

These two remarkable buildings, the 16-story Century Building by Holabird & Roche (1915) and the 22-story Consumers Building by Jenney, Mundie & Jensen (1913), were once principally occupied by small businesses, attorney offices and showrooms. Due to the close proximity of the courthouse and courtrooms, the Federal Government and the General Services Administration (GSA), exercised its power of eminent domain in 2005 to take control of these State Street buildings based on increased security fears following the events of September 11, 2001. Since that acquisition by the GSA, the buildings have been stable but slowly deteriorating due to deferred maintenance and vacancy.

Multiple adaptive reuse plans for the Century and Consumers Buildings have been proposed and later blocked due to the proximity to the Chicago Federal Center. The Dirksen Federal Courthouse, part of the larger Federal Center complex, fronting Dearborn Street on the west, is located across the rear alley from these historic buildings. The Quincy Court entry to the Dirksen Building was originally envisioned as a principal pedestrian entrance by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to the courthouse structure from State Street.

Originally both the Century and Consumers Buildings, along with parcels to the south extending to Jackson Boulevard along State Street, were all to be occupied by Federal Government offices as part of an expansion of their Loop campus. That proposal would have included the Century and Consumers Buildings, along with two structures located in between at 212 and 214 S. State, known as The Consumers Annex (C.M. Palmer, 1883, and later Martin Jewelers and Roberto’s Men's Store with a remodeled Art Deco storefront by Isadore E. Alexander, c. 1949). Also included in those Federal Center expansion plans were the Art Moderne Benson & Rixon Store Building (Alfred Alschuler, 1937) at 230 S. State and the modernist Bond’s Clothing Store (Friedman, Alschuler & Sincere, with Morris Lapidus, 1949), at 240 S. State, also known as 10 W. Jackson Boulevard. A small two-story building included on this block is the heavily-remodeled and truncated E.L. Brand Building (Adler & Sullivan, 1883), at 12-18 W. Jackson Boulevard.

These seven properties on the block-long parcel fronting State Street, one of Chicago’s most famous and notable thoroughfares, were acquired by the GSA to be used exclusively for Federal Government offices and long-considered part of a larger revisioning and vast expansion of the Federal Center complex. At one time, the GSA proposed a new large office building, which was to be sheathed in glass to bridge and connect the Century and Consumers Buildings. This proposal would have further increased the larger and more desired floor plates and square footages for Federal offices. That proposal was welcomed by many in the architectural community, as it engaged and bridged the two historic skyscrapers in a sensitive manner, reinvested in the restoration, and repurposed these two seminal buildings. The plans also engaged The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Restoration, which is a series of established guidelines, principles and best practices for the reuse of historic buildings and part of a Federal program.

In the past decade, it was determined that the expansion of the offices into all of these buildings was unnecessary with federal funding largely diminished for this larger and broader vision. Only the Benson-Rixon Building, with its broad horizontal banding and curvilinear corner, along with the former Bond’s Store, were to be converted into governmental offices. The remaining buildings along State Street, between Adams and Quincy Court, were to remain vacant for the immediate future or potentially reused by others when, and if, possible. Discussions held at the Federal Center in about 2009-2010, which included Preservation Chicago and our other partner organizations, also considered demolition of one or both of the tall Chicago School buildings as a possibility. The conversation around demolition of these early skyscrapers was considered unbelievable and incomprehensible at the time, and that was shared with GSA officials.

Security concerns, along with a reduction in the required office space in the Loop, appeared to have halted the GSA's initial plans for renovation and reuse. Then in 2017, the City of Chicago issued a Request For Proposals for the adaptive reuse of the Century and Consumers Buildings, after an extensive advocacy effort by Preservation Chicago. Preservation Chicago was delighted by the City of Chicago’s selection of CA Ventures in partnership with Cedar Street Companies. Their $141 million renovation proposal planned for a preservation-sensitive adaptive reuse of the four building cluster, with the two terra cotta office towers as residential apartments and the two adjacent low-rise buildings as State Street retail. Despite a strong developer team submitting a solid adaptive reuse for a residential plan, it was halted by a federal judge citing security concerns.

Widely considered to be an impossible challenge to solve, Preservation Chicago redoubled its efforts to identify an adaptive reuse that could accommodate the rigorous courthouse security requirements. Eventually, we arrived at a highly unusual solution, a collaborative national archive center to be known as the Chicago Archives Center.

At first, the notion of repurposing two tall, slender Chicago School skyscrapers into an archive center seemed unique and perhaps even far-fetched. In fact, this creative solution has many strengths and is very achievable. Recognizing the growing urgency to repurpose these buildings, Preservation Chicago has been working quickly over the past two years to build a strong coalition of critical stakeholders. There is now strong interest, support and enthusiasm for this adaptive reuse project. This coalition of partners has already engaged architects and engineers long before news broke of the demolition earmark at the Congressional level.

THREATENED: Public Housing Sites; Altgeld Gardens Commercial, Cabrini Rowhouses, Lathrop Homes South Campus
A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
Altgeld Gardens, Commercial Buildings, “Up Top”, 1946, Keck & Keck, 13100 S. Ellis Avenue. Photo Credit Ward Miller / Preservation Chicago
Cabrini Rowhouses, c.1940s, bounded by Chicago Avenue, Larrabee, Oak and Hudson Streets. Photo Credit Ward Miller / Preservation Chicago
Lathrop Homes South Campus, 1938, South of Diversey Avenue, between Damen Avenue on the east and the North Branch of the Chicago River on the west. Photo Credit: Adam Natenshon / Preservation Chicago
Chicago Public Housing

Altgeld Gardens, Commercial Buildings, “Up Top”, 13100 S. Ellis Avenue, 1946, Keck & Keck
Carver Elementary School “C Building”, between 133rd Street and 133rd Place, 1944, Naess & Murphy

Cabrini Rowhouses, bounded by Chicago Avenue, Larrabee, Oak and Hudson Streets, c. 1940s, Holsman, Burmeister, Rissman, Grunsfeld, Solomon, Jones, Vitzman, Loewenberg, McNally

Lathrop Homes South Campus, South of Diversey Avenue, between Damen Avenue on the east and the North Branch of the Chicago River on the west, c. 1938, DeGolyer, Garden, Burnham, Tallmadge, Watson, Lowenberg, Roberts, Christiansen with Jens Jensen,

Preservation Chicago has once again selected Chicago’s public housing sites (or specific buildings within them), all of which are historic Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) developments, as part of our 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered list. Altgeld Gardens’ “Up Top” structure and “C Building”, Cabrini Row Houses, and Lathrop Homes South Campus comprise this year’s selection.

At Altgeld Gardens, we are spotlighting the unique Midcentury Modern, one-story curvilinear Commercial Building, known locally as “Up Top,” designed by the seminal architecture firm of Keck & Keck. This gently curving, block-long building, with its undulating cantilevered canopy and open arcade with retail tenants, overlooks a community plaza and greenspace and was once the very heart of the Altgeld community. The commercial storefront structure is the only privately-owned building in the Altgeld Gardens development and once contained a cooperative-owned grocery store, drug and variety store, beauty salon and barber shop, and a tavern. The building is now almost completely vacant while the open arcade contains a heartbreaking memorial wall of handwritten names for those lost to violence. The current owner has attempted to sell the building to CHA in the past, yet nothing has transpired in recent years, leading to the building’s further disrepair and vacancy. As a result, it has once again earned a place on our Chicago 7 Most Endangered List.

The other building in Altgeld Gardens that we are highlighting is the “C Building,” which is part of the George Washington Carver Elementary and Primary School complex. It was designed as part of a multi-building campus of one-story structures for preschool and primary grades and was housed in a Federal-style building overlooking Carver Park and the playground. The C Building in later years was used as an administration building for Carver School, but has been vacant for more than three decades. A demolition threat was recently held off as the owner, the Chicago Board of Education, wanted the building to be demolished. This building is part of an ensemble, along with buildings A, B and D; together, they form a curved wall of buildings fronting, protecting, and shielding Carver Park and schoolchildren on one side, while also providing a portion of two streetwalls on the street-facing elevations.

Altgeld Gardens was also part of our 2017 Preservation Chicago 7 Most Endangered List, with 624 housing units in 26 buildings in Blocks 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16 all noted as threatened, along with the privately-owned “Up Top.” These noted structures, except for “Up Top,” were all lost in the following years due to severe neglect and legal challenges as the residential buildings were considered too far gone. That former housing site is now the proposed location of a 130th Street terminal, station, and multi-story parking lot for the Red Line Extension.

The Cabrini Row Houses comprises 586 units on 16 acres. Bounded by Chicago Avenue, Larrabee Street, Oak Street, and Hudson Avenue, they were originally known as the Frances Cabrini Homes and consisted of two- and three-story buildings. Over the years this development has languished and fallen into disrepair. About 140 units of the western portion of these early row houses have been retained, restored and reused. However, a vast majority of this beautiful and utilitarian village of row houses have remained untouched, despite the overall growth and development of much of the former Cabrini-Green project area on the Near North Side. In a city desperate for affordable housing, there was a prior plan to eliminate half of the row houses for fear that emergency vehicles would be impaired by these narrow streets. However, off-site parking for resident vehicles on much of the nearby vacant land, still controlled by CHA, could resolve such problems. CHA needs to step up and get these buildings and houses back to a vulnerable community of residents that have been awaiting these homes for almost 20 years.

A 2013 Chicago 7 Most Endangered, Lathrop Homes’s North Campus and its historic Jens Jensen landscape has been beautifully renovated after a 20-year advocacy effort. However, the South Campus, located south of Diversey, comprises almost half of the development area and is again stalled. Since 2002, Preservation Chicago has advocated with the community and our partner organizations to reject the first revisioning concepts, which included a wholesale demolition of most, if not all, of the buildings on the Lathrop site. Most of the historic 1938 buildings are vacant, with the exception of a senior housing building and a new apartment structure, while a corner building at Diversey and Damen has just begun a renovation effort.

The CHA is once again neglecting its historic resources and developments, with more than 1,000 existing housing units being mothballed or vacant. In the case of the Cabrini Row Houses and the Lathrop Homes’s South Campus, many of these affordable units constructed for Chicago’s most vulnerable residents have remained vacant for far too long.

THREATENED: St. Martin de Tours Church, A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
St. Martin de Tours / St. Martin de Porres / Chicago Embassy Church, 1895, Henry J. Schlacks, 5848 S. Princeton Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
St. Martin de Tours / St. Martin de Porres / Chicago Embassy Church, 1895, Henry J. Schlacks, 5848 S. Princeton Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
St. Martin de Tours / St. Martin de Porres / Chicago Embassy Church
1895
Henry J. Schlacks
5848 S. Princeton Ave. 

For nearly 130 years, St. Martin Church, a striking Gothic structure with a soaring steeple, has been a visual landmark on the South Side of Chicago. Designed by renowned ecclesial architect Henry J. Schlacks for a fledgling German Catholic parish in Englewood, the church first served German immigrants and ultimately became a thriving Black parish before being closed in 1989.

In later years of use, deferred maintenance led to deterioration of the structure, whose former glory diminished despite subsequent operation as Chicago Embassy Church. While its current status is uncertain, the need is urgent to find a preservation solution to save St. Martin’s. Restoration of this magnificent edifice to its former prominence would add to the spiritual and social life of the community, and creative reuse could spark renewal of this corner of Englewood.

St. Martin’s entire existence has combined the highest level of structural craftsmanship with service and attention to its community’s many needs. The awareness that beauty is a need and a benefit to the poor as much as to the wealthy has lifted the spiritual and emotional well-being of its parishioners of every background.

The present day needs of the community, like most disinvested communities, are many: education and job training, economic investment, accessible mental health, and a clean, litter-free environment, among many others. As pressing as these needs are, there is also the need for intangible goods, like a sense of security, safety, and peace of mind.

Thus, restoration of St. Martin’s Church as a beautiful, luminous space can provide a spiritual and emotional benefit even if it is not used for religious services. It could be used for smaller-scale musical performances or occasional art exhibits, possibly of the immersive experience type. This reuse could be coupled with, for example, arts and other classes in the renovated rectory-parish hall building north of the church. Perhaps this could be done in collaboration with faculty of the nearby Kennedy-King College. This space could also house a small gallery featuring goods produced by local craftspeople and artists. The parking lot on the site of the demolished St. Martin school building could be turned into green space with beekeeping and a native-plant garden, as well as community plots for growing fresh produce. In this way, the entire St. Martin campus could become something of a creative incubator space.

If restored and repurposed, the irreplaceable structure of St. Martin’s can anchor an oasis of creativity and nature, offering music performance, arts training, and peace for present-day and future generations. In commenting on the damaged statue of St. Martin, one of the clergy of the Chicago Embassy Church commented that: "The statue can tell the story of the Englewood community and where it was, and where it is. And […]where it is going. We believe that Englewood is one of the hidden treasures in our city.” A renovated St. Martin Church can be a beacon of pride and hope for the entire community, making this corner of Englewood a treasure that is no longer hidden.

THREATENED: Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District, A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District. Photo Credit: Max Chavez / Preservation Chicago
Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District. Photo Credit: Preservation Chicago
Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District

Peterson Avenue between Pulaski and Oakley
Various architects
c.1950 to c.1970

The Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District extends over approximately a two-mile distance that stretches from North Park to West Ridge. Consisting mostly of low-rise structures that today house dentist and doctor offices, dry cleaners, schools, and even a fire station, the Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District is an overlooked collection of Midcentury Modern architecture in the City of Chicago.

Peterson Avenue’s Midcentury buildings were developed over the course of about three decades, with construction spanning from the late 1940s to 1970. Until the start of this period, Peterson Avenue was largely undeveloped, consisting of service stations, billboards, the occasional 1920s storefront or apartment building, and empty fields. However, that changed with the post-WWII construction boom that spurred a surge of development across Chicago’s North and Northwest Sides. During and after this period, Peterson Avenue’s sustained growth saw the look of sophisticated modernism positioned the district as a gleaming, contemporary destination for Chicago’s Northwest Side businesses.

While Peterson Avenue was not a formally planned development, many of the buildings lining the corridor were erected by a handful of developers and builders, many of whom also had their offices nearby. As they grew Peterson Avenue from miles of empty lots to one of the most sought-after neighborhood commercial districts in Chicago, the developers recruited a mix of architects, both well- and lesser-known, to further enhance the commercial offerings in the community. Some of the more recognizable names that left their mark on Peterson Avenue during this period are A. Epstein & Sons, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Perkins & Will, Paul Gerhardt, Jr., and Henry L. Newhouse II (son of prolific Chicago architect Henry L. Newhouse).

Today, Peterson Avenue’s Midcentury Modernist buildings are threatened by a host of issues and threats stemming from neglect, unsympathetic alterations, abandonment, and demolition. Many significant designs have been razed, with one recent example being The Sapphire Building at 2800 W. Peterson Avenue, despite calls by Preservation Chicago to adaptively reuse the structure. The Peterson Avenue Midcentury Modern District is also not protected by Chicago Landmark status, nor are any of its structures listed in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey. As a result, Peterson Avenue’s history relating to Chicago’s commercial expansion on the Northwest Side in the middle of the 20th century and the significant architectural movement it represents are in danger of being lost.

THREATENED: Promontory Point,
A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
Promontory Point, 1937, Alfred Caldwell, Chicago Lakefront between 54th and 56th Streets. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Promontory Point, 1937, Alfred Caldwell, Chicago Lakefront between 54th and 56th Streets. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Promontory Point
Alfred Caldwell
1937
Chicago Lakefront between 54th and 56th Streets

Last year, Preservation Chicago named the Chicago Lakefront as one of Chicago’s 7 Most Endangered sites, noting the threats facing the city’s many heritage sites along Lake Michigan. This year, we have selected Promontory Point, one of last year’s highlighted lakefront sites, as one of 2022’s 7 Most Endangered due to the continued threat facing The Point’s historic limestone revetment. The City of Chicago, along with the Chicago Park District, intend to replace The Point’s natural limestone with a mass of concrete, destroying not only the historic stepstone revetment, but also the naturalistic aesthetic of this Alfred Caldwell-designed park. This irreversible alteration will adversely affect the open and diverse community culture that has thrived for decades at Promontory Point, moving this historic site further away from its original design and setting a precedent for future unsympathetic alterations.

Preservation Chicago calls on the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District to consent to the designation of Promontory Point as a Chicago Landmark, decisively ensuring the protection of The Point’s historic revetments for all time. In 2018, Promontory Point was put on the National Register of Historic Places, making it more difficult to destroy the historic revetment – but not impossible. Designating Promontory Point an official Chicago Landmark, and specifically highlighting The Point’s limestone revetments as an integral part of the designation, would make demolition almost impossible and would make certain that repair and rehabilitation of The Point's revetment preserves its historic integrity and beauty. Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston has supported preservation in the community’s fight to save The Point since 1996. U.S. Congresswoman Robin Kelly and State Senator Robert Peters have also recently spoken out for preservation at The Point.

Preservation Chicago sees no reason for demolition of the original structures and does not support the use of textured concrete as a substitute for the existing limestone. We also support the Promontory Point Conservancy’s wish to hire its own independent engineers, architects, and community organizers to prove once more that preservation is doable, cost-effective and desirable. We are confident that this is an opportunity for the City to work cooperatively with a passionate community to find the best preservation plan to protect and preserve a beloved public landmark. In doing so, they can enhance lake access with creative ADA compliance, avoid environmental hazards by repositioning the original limestone material instead of concrete, and invest equitably in South Side parks overall. Preservation Chicago urgently recommends the City of Chicago and the Chicago Parks District seize this opportunity to preserve the remaining original features of this historic park.

THREATENED: Central Park Theater,
A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
Central Park Theater, 1917, Rapp & Rapp, 3535 W. Roosevelt Road. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Central Park Theater, 1917, Rapp & Rapp, 3535 W. Roosevelt Road. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Central Park Theater 
1917
Rapp & Rapp
3535 W. Roosevelt Road

The Central Park Theater in North Lawndale is Chicago’s first movie palace and the mothership of a remarkable partnership between theater developers Balaban & Katz and architects Rapp & Rapp. While they would go on to build grander and more remarkable movie palaces, it all started with the Central Park Theater. The theater closed in 1971 and the House of Prayer Church of God in Christ’s congregation and leadership has been stewarding it since. Without their intervention, this theater would likely have joined the many demolitions that swept through North Lawndale in the 1970s and 1980s. The repair needs at the theater are growing and the older congregation at House of Prayer is shrinking. The church retained this historic theater for 50 years and now they need help getting it across the restoration finish line.

With collaboration between City agencies, the excellent team of partners on the Central Park Theater Restoration Committee, and prospective investors and developers, this restoration is more than possible. The church is committed to owning a majority interest in the theater to both keep it in community control and also honor the legacy of their founding Pastor Lincoln Scott. The community’s vision is for a cultural center with concerts and programs in the auditorium, cultural tenants in the front second and third floor spaces, and retail uses on the first floor that would support residents and visitors in the area as well as patrons of the Central Park Theater itself. Pastor Robert Marshall and his family continue to carry on the work at the Central Park Theater to keep it standing and thriving. With a little bit of flexibility and creativity, the City of Chicago can help in these efforts to bring the Central Park Theater back to life.

The Central Park Theater might be most endangered but it is also most alive. For decades, North Lawndale underwent devastating disinvestment. Businesses closed their doors. Buildings were demolished along commercial and residential corridors. Yet along Roosevelt Road, the Central Park Theater is still standing.

We are certain that the building would not be standing if not for the congregation’s tireless work to maintain and restore this grand community asset. However, with a dwindling congregation, maintaining and restoring the theater has become a challenge too great for the House of Prayer to take on by itself. Like the North Lawndale community, the church is committed to keeping the theater alive and in community control. Given its 51-year history of stewarding the theater and the thousands of congregant hours that have been invested in the upkeep of the theater, as well as the church’s continued presence in the community, House of Prayer is looking for a development partnership that would allow it to maintain majority control of the theater upon its restoration.

THREATENED: North DuSable Lake Shore Drive,
A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, c.1890 to c.1950, Nelson, Simonds, Burnham, Atwood, Bennett & Others, from Grand to Hollywood Avenues. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
North DuSable Lake Shore Drive Historic Photo, c.1910. Photo Credit: Ryerson and Burnham Libraries
North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, c.1890 to c.1950, Nelson, Simonds, Burnham, Atwood, Bennett & Others, from Grand to Hollywood Avenues. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
North DuSable Lake Shore Drive
c.1890 to c.1950, Nelson, Simonds, Burnham, Atwood, Bennett & Others,
from Grand to Hollywood Avenues

For the first decades of its existence, North DuSable Lake Shore Drive was a slow-paced, boulevard parkway that allowed Chicagoans to enjoy the ride along the Chicago lakefront by horses or bikes and later by automobiles. The original design was strongly influenced by the City Beautiful movement. In fact, the original builders of the Drive were the Lincoln Park Commissioners who sought a pleasure drive to help people access and enjoy the expanded and improved Lincoln Park and lakeshore. Graceful, curving, tree-lined boulevards along with the expanded parklands soon attracted new beautiful homes and buildings.

This pastoral, naturalistic quality saw major changes over time and was also impacted in the post-war era after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. In the midst of the Cold War, many highways were created or in some cases existing streets improved to create a high-speed, high-capacity Interstate Highway System to allow the rapid evacuation of cites and deployment of troops in the event of nuclear war. The highway engineers had very different priorities than the parks commissioners which is reflected in post-war changes to DuSable Lake Shore Drive. The roadbed was widened, traffic speeds were increased, traffic lights and grade-crossings were removed, and highway-style on and off ramps were added. During the 1950s, highway engineers planned to formally convert the southern portion of the Drive into Interstate 494, but the project was never moved past the design stage. Traffic engineers were forced to make incremental changes over the decades due to funding challenges, but their clear goal was to bring the Drive up to interstate highway standards.

Today, North DuSable Lake Shore Drive’s character is a unique blend of parkway and highway, pleasure drive and interstate. However, this character will change after the proposed multi-billion-dollar construction project called “Redefine the Drive” is completed. Many years in the making, it is an incredibly complex plan with a wide variety of objectives. However, the core goals have been determined by the highway engineers who seek to increase traffic speeds, increase capacity, and increase safety. Interstate highway standards offer a clear path for how to achieve these goals.
Preservation Chicago strongly supports investment in infrastructure, increased green space, bike lanes, and transit. Enlarged and improved lakefront parks are the headlines, however this plan is, at its core, a highway project. There is concern that these more popular elements are being used to “greenwash” a roads project that is largely an effort to bring it up to interstate highway standards and dramatically change the character of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive from its original parkway intent.

To impose interstate highway standards on North DuSable Lake Shore Drive would fundamentally change the character of this important and historic parkway. Destroying the slower speed and meandering pleasure drive qualities of the roadway in order to increase the average traffic speed is futile as the string of traffic lights at Grant Park will remain unchanged.

Preservation Chicago would like to see no widening to the existing roadway. We would like to see the existing historic Art Deco bridges restored. We would very much like to see the existing green medians and mature trees protected and maintained. This plan is highly complex and robust public participation is essential for a good outcome.

THREATENED: Moody Triangle; Moody Church / North Federal Savings Bank / Archway Standard, A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
Moody Memorial Church, 1925, Fugard and Knapp, 1635 N. LaSalle Dr. Photo Credit: Ward Miller / Preservation Chicago
North Federal Savings Bank / Wintrust Bank, 1961, Naess & Murphy, 100 W. North Ave. Photo Credit: Ward Miller / Preservation Chicago
Archway Standard / Archway Amoco / BP Station, 1971, George Terp, 1647 N. LaSalle St. Photo Credit: Lynn Becker
Archway Standard / Archway Amoco / BP Station, 1971, George Terp, 1647 N. LaSalle St. Photo Credit: Ward Miller / Preservation Chicago
Moody Triangle
                           
North Federal Savings Bank/Wintrust Bank, 100 W. North Avenue
Moody Memorial Church/Moody Church, 1635 N. LaSalle Drive
Archway Standard Station/BP Service Station, 1647 N. LaSalle Street

The Moody Triangle site, in the Old Town neighborhood of the Lincoln Park Community Area, is formed by North Avenue to the south and the convergence of Clark Street and LaSalle Drive to the north. This highly-visible parcel fronting Lincoln Park and the Chicago History Museum has recently come to our attention as a potential revisioning and redevelopment site by Moody Church and Fern Hill Company.

The proposed scope of development includes several sites, including this triangular parcel of land that we are referring to as the Moody Triangle, as well as nearby parcels to the west along North Avenue and sites along the 1600 blocks of LaSalle and Wells Streets. However, Preservation Chicago has identified the triangular parcel, which is of specific concern, as part of our 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered.

This triangular site contains three buildings which we at Preservation Chicago feel are extremely noteworthy. These structures include the former North Federal Savings Bank (1961) by Naess & Murphy, now known as the Wintrust Bank Building, and the Moody Memorial Church (1924-1925) by architect John Fugard of Fugard & Knapp. Also included, at the apex of the triangular site, is a sculptural building constructed as Archway Standard Station, later known as Archway Amoco, and now a BP Service Station, with a sweeping hood and overhanging steel canopy that gently transitions to a hyperbolic curve of concrete, sloping down to the ground.

Noting this is being referred to as a development site, Preservation Chicago wants to encourage preservation of all of the structures on this triangular parcel of land, with the exception of the Shell Station at 130 W. North Avenue, which may be considered as a modest development site for Moody and Fern Hall.

Advocacy
WIN: Thompson Center Sale For Renovation Finalized
Rendering of Thompson Center post-renovation. James R. Thompson Center, 1985, Helmut Jahn, 100 W. Randolph Street. Rendering Credit: Jahn Architecture / Prime Group
"Less than four months after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a development team would take over the beleaguered James R. Thompson Center in the Loop, the governor’s office on Thursday announced a purchase and sale agreement has been finalized.

"In December, Pritzker chose a proposal from a group led by Michael Reschke, chairman of Prime Group, a longtime developer in the region. Reschke’s plan — which included the $70 million upfront payment to the state — called for preserving the 17-story building as a mixed-use property with office, retail and hotel space — and with the state retaining about a 30% ownership. The sale and title transfer are expected to be completed this summer.

"The former home of state government in Chicago opened in 1985 and was designed by the internationally acclaimed architect Helmut Jahn, who died last year. Preservationists have argued the Thompson Center, with its soaring atrium and generous public space, is a postmodern landmark and keeping it would honor Jahn’s contributions to his hometown.

"A rendering of Reschke’s plan, which was unveiled in December, includes a replacement curtain wall to fix the blaring sunshine and slash energy costs by half. The building’s annual operating expenses are about $17 million, largely due to the building’s glass envelope. Reschke last year said renovations would begin this year and would take about two years from start to finish, with a budget of $280 million." (Sfondeles, Chicago Sun-Times, 3/31/22)




THREATENED: $52 Million Federal Funds Approved to Demolish Century and Consumers Buildings 
Century Building, 1915, Holabird and Roche, 202 S. State Street and the Consumers Building, 1913, Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, 220 S. State Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"The federal government has held a pair of century-old State Street buildings in limbo for 17 years and is now planning to spend $52 million to demolish them — a plan preservationists are trying to stop.

"The buildings are the 22-story Consumers Building built in 1913 and, a few doors north, Century, originally called the 21st Century, which is 16 stories and was built in 1915. Between these two handsome old high rises are two barely noticeable low buildings, a three-story and a four-story, at 212 and 214 South State St.

"Two slender high rises with nice architectural details, the Consumers and Century buildings are part of what made State Street that great street in the 20th century.

"Consumers, at State and Quincy, is clad in white terra cotta, with rounded corners and diamonds and bars emblazoned in the spaces between the layers of windows. It was designed by the architecture firm Jenney, Mundie & Jensen.

"Century, at State and Adams, is also clad in creamy white terra cotta, but it’s more detailed here. You can’t tell at street level, because the bottom floors have been completely changed, but the ornamentation, which includes knights’ helmets, coats of arms, lions, ropes and torches, is called Manueline or Neo-Manueline, named after a 16th-century king of Portugal, when and where the style originated. It’s not common in Chicago, but according to a profile by the Government Services Administration, the design may have come from the imagination of architect John Root of Holabird and Root, who was “extremely interested in obscure historical styles.”

In December 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported that the federal government would spend more than half a billion dollars on expanding the federal center. “The mammoth project could be a boon to State Street, replacing a dreary stretch,” the Tribune’s Tom Corfman wrote. He quoted a commercial real estate executive saying, “It’s unlikely that someone from the private sector is going to come along to make that kind of investment,” and, “The decisions that are made on this block are critical to the momentum that the street has enjoyed for the last several years.”

"Not only has the federal government not redeveloped the buildings, it blocked somebody else from doing it. In 2017, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration announced that a real estate developer, CA Ventures, would pay $10.38 million in a three-way deal involving CA and the city and federal governments. In a $141 million project, CA would put 429 apartments in the two buildings and a new 15-story connector between them.

"That was almost two-and-a-half years ago. Earlier this month, when Preservation Chicago was preparing its annual list of the most endangered places in the city, they planned to include Century and Consumers to point out the buildings are still just sitting there waiting for a future use.

"But then, according to Ward Miller, Preservation Chicago’s executive director, 'we found out it was much worse.'

"The federal infrastructure bill, they were told, included $52 million to demolish the Century and Consumers buildings, to create a secure plaza east of the Dirksen courthouse. It’s tucked into page 551 of a 2,741-page Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, passed by Congress on March 14 and signed into law by President Joe Biden the next day." (Rodkin, WBEZ, 3/31/22)


THREATENED: Will Feds Reject New Adaptive Reuse Plan that Addresses Security Concerns?
WATCH Ward Miller interviewed by Ray Cortopassi on WGN 9 Chicago on April 6, 2022 regarding the fate of the Century and Consumers Buildings. Photo Credit: WGN 9 Chicago
WATCH: Ward Miller interviewed by Ray Cortopassi on WGN 9 Chicago on April 6, 2022 regarding the fate of the Century and Consumers Buildings. Photo Credit: WGN 9 Chicago
"Several historic buildings could pose a 'clear and present danger' to federal judges, jurors, witnesses and others who find themselves at the Dirksen Federal Building in downtown Chicago. That’s according to a memo chief judge Ruben Castillo sent in 2018 to the Attorney General asking him to block the transfer of the property to a private developer who wanted to restore the long-vacant Century and Consumers Buildings on State Street.

"It was the latest chapter in a tug of war for control of the site between the federal government, the City of Chicago and preservationists that has lasted more than 15 years. Meanwhile, the buildings are vacant and deteriorating while taxpayers foot a bill that has already run into the tens of millions of dollars.

"'It’s another Block 37 in the making,' said Preservation Chicago’s Ward Miller, a reference to an entire city block that sat vacant for decades in the heart of the Loop. 'It’s going to be another 30 years before something is developed on that property.'

"The federal government purchased four buildings in the 200 Block of South State Street and along Quincy Court for $22 million in 2005. It came after the FBI said it foiled a plot to blow up the Dirksen courthouse with a truck bomb.

"The General Services Administration, which owns and operates property for the government, said it wanted to create a 'security buffer' around the courthouse. There was a plan to renovate the buildings for use as office space for federal workers. Turns out, the government didn’t need the space.

"A GSA spokesperson says the agency spends as much as $800,000 a year maintaining the property, including $70,000 a year on scaffolding rental to protect the public from falling pieces of the building. In 2015, falling bricks forced the brief closure of State Street and led to the construction of a protective canopy.

"Between 2015-2019, the GSA came close to a deal to sell the properties to a joint venture between the City of Chicago and private developers for micro-housing for the Loop’s fast-growing population of college students.

"'We had a plan for them to reuse these buildings as residential,' said Miller. 'The City was behind it and then the judges put the kibosh on it.'

"Judge Castillo’s 2018 letter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to kill the deal painted a grim potential for a mass casualty event if the property were to fall into private hands with the feds unable to control who comes and goes.

REAL CONCERN

“The concerns are real,” said Jason Wojdylo, the former acting-U.S. Marshal in Chicago who oversaw courthouse security until 2020.

The CTA’s Blue Line runs beneath the courthouse and busy Dearborn Street fronts the building’s west side. More than 1,000 federal employees work there every day with many more visitors. In other words: It’s a security nightmare.

“They are so close to the Courthouse that from the higher floors it is easy to see directly into judges’ chambers and read their computer screens,” a Durbin spokesperson tells WGN. “Multiple security assessments, including from the U.S. Marshals Service, ATF, FBI, Federal Protective Service and more, made clear that the security risks are too great for private redevelopment.”

DEMOLITION WON’T HAPPEN UNTIL 2024

The future of the site is back on the front burner now that $52 million has been set aside in the federal infrastructure bill to demolish the buildings. Although the GSA says public meetings need to be held before the plan proceeds and demolition won’t begin prior to 2024.

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

So what’s the federal government’s plan for this site that’s now been vacant for nearly two decades? Judge Castillo wrote that once the buildings were demolished the property could be used as a security buffer, for unspecified federal corrections activities or any purpose “that promotes the safety of the courthouse.”

The current $52 million price tag only covers demolition. Congress would have to allocate additional money to develop the site. Judges and security personnel have advocated for building a new security pavilion on the east side of the Dirksen Federal Building and having that become the building’s main entrance.

That’s not a very sexy plan for preservationists who say the buildings represent the last two standing examples of architects who learned from the examples of Daniel Burnham and others who set the trajectory for the modern skyscraper right here in Chicago.

Preservation Chicago’s Ward Miller says his group has been in contact with 20 religious orders who are interested in used the existing buildings as archives, which would alleviate the need for any windows facing the courthouse. (Bradley, WGN Chicago, 4/6/22)


WIN: AIA Chicago and Preservation Chicago Create “Early Chicago Skyscrapers” Video to Advance UNESCO World Heritage Site Designation Proposal
Early Chicago Skyscrapers: a potential UNESCO World Heritage Site video (5:00). Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
There is strong support to designate “Early Chicago Skyscrapers” as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A UNESCO World Heritage Site designation would further recognize the Chicago's contributions to the built environment and to increase education regarding these architecturally significant structures. Other sites nominated include Civil Rights Sites, Native American Sites, The Statue of Liberty, and Central Park in New York City.

Preservation Chicago and AIA Chicago are honored to present this 5-minute video prepared for the US/ICOMOS 50th Anniversary Conference was held virtually on April 9th, 2022.
We were asked to create this video by the US/ICOMOS on behalf of the many Chicago-based preservation partners which organized the 2016-2017 effort to begin the lengthy process of establishing “Early Chicago Skyscrapers” as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The initial list of nine “Early Chicago Skyscrapers” were included due to their architectural significance and owners consent. Additional significant “Early Chicago Skyscrapers” would likely be added as this process advances.
  1. The Auditorium Building & Theater
  2. The Rookery Building
  3. The Monadnock Building
  4. The Ludington Building
  5. The Second Leiter Building/Leiter II Building 
  6. The Old Colony Building
  7. The Marquette Building
  8. The Fisher Building
  9. Schlesinger & Mayer/Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company Store
With thanks to:
AIA-Chicago
Preservation Chicago
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
The Alphawood Foundation
The TAWANI Foundation
Chicago Architecture Center
Landmarks Illinois
The Coalition in Support of a Pioneering Chicago Skyscrapers World Heritage List Nomination
  • Jen Masengarb, AIA Chicago
  • Ward Miller, Preservation Chicago
  • Gunny Harboe, Harboe Architects
  • Kevin Harrington, Professor Emeritus, Illinois Institute of Technology
  • Pauline Saliga, Society of Architectural Historians
  • Lynn J. Osmond, Chicago Architecture Center
  • Gary T. Johnson, Chicago History Museum

And with special thanks to:
Teddy Holcomb, Video Editor
Cathie Bond, Director of Events, Preservation Chicago
Eric Allix Rogers, Photographer

THREATENED: McPier Vetoes Casino Adaptive Reuse of Lakeside Center
(Chicago 7 2016 & 2021)
An architect's rendering of the Rivers Casino proposal for McCormick Place. Rendering Credit: JAHN
"And then there were three.

"Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has narrowed down the city’s five proposals for its first casino to three finalists: Bally’s at the Chicago Tribune Publishing Center, Rivers at The 78 and Hard Rock at the proposed One Central megadevelopment, the city announced Tuesday.

"The three remaining bids advanced by the city may represent the path of least resistance for a Chicago casino. But none has landed without some objections or concerns, which the city may have to confront before it whittles the group down to a single favored plan, which officials said will be by early summer. It would still need to win state approval.

"The city passed on the two proposals involving the McCormick Place campus after the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns the convention center complex, said it was not interested in transforming any of its facilities into a casino.

"The rejected proposals for what is expected to be Illinois’ largest gambling establishment include a $1.3 billion Rivers Chicago McCormick bid to redevelop Lakeside Center, which developers touted as an opportunity to repurpose and renovate the 50-year-old steel-and-glass exhibition hall. McCormick Place said it has 235 events scheduled there that could not be rescheduled without a replacement." (Channick and Pratt, Chicago Tribune, 3/22/22)

"Which leads to the third finalist. That’s Rivers 78 in the South Loop. I suspect it’s the front-runner. But full disclosure: I thought Rivers McCormick Place was the front-runner, too, until convention officials declared they couldn’t possibly do without the crumbling Lakeside East building Rivers wanted. So officials get to keep the money trap. I wish them luck finding the $400 million-plus needed to repair it without raising taxes, a political nonstarter anymore." (Hinz, Crain's Chicago Business, 3/28/22)

Read the full story at Chicago Tribune and Crain's Chicago Business

Chicago casino bidders down to three finalists: River West, South Loop and next to Soldier Field, Robert Channick and Gregory Pratt, Chicago Tribune, 3/22/22

THREATENED: Plans Emerge to Bulldoze South Shore Nature Sanctuary and 2k Old Growth Trees for Private Golf Course
(Chicago 7 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021)
South Shore Nature Sanctuary. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
South Shore Nature Sanctuary. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"Local activists are pushing for a question to be added to this June’s election so residents can give more input on preserving trees that could be cleared to make way for a Tiger Woods-led proposal to overhaul two golf courses.

"The Save Jackson Park group and other organizers filed a petition with the Chicago Board of Elections to place a question on June 28 ballots: 'Shall the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District stop cutting down trees in Jackson Park and preserve the trees in South Shore Cultural Center Park?'

"Voters in the 14th, 19th and 37th precincts of the 5th Ward can vote on the question if it is added to the ballot. The result would not be binding, but it could be used to gauge residents’ concerns about the trees.

"The referendum would give residents 'a voice in the planning process for these parks,' Marc Lipinski, Southsiders for Trees organizer, said after filing the petition at the Cook County building March 21.

"'Our issue here is that the residents have never gotten a voice into what is the future of Jackson Park and South Shore Cultural Center Park,' Lipinski said.

"Other activists have circulated a document claiming to show the golf course proposal could remove more than 60 percent of trees from Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses and the South Shore Nature Sanctuary.

"More than 2,100 trees would be removed of the 3,352 trees on the Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses and the South Shore Nature Sanctuary, according to the document" (Evans, Block Club Chicago, 3/30/22)





LOSS: Beloved Dinkel’s Bakery to Close After 100 Years In Business
Dinkel's Bakery, Since 1922, 3329 N Lincoln Ave. Photo Credit: Google Maps
"Dinkel’s Bakery, one of the most iconic bakeries in Chicago, is closing April 30 after more than 100 years on the North Side.

"The bakery, at 3329 N. Lincoln Ave. on the border of Lakeview and Roscoe Village, opened in 1922 under Joseph and Antonie Dinkel. It’s been run by four generations of the family, and questions about it being sold have come up before — but a closing sign was posted in the window Tuesday.

"'To our customers and neighbors. Thank you …… 101 years serving you,' the sign read. 'But it is time. Dinkel’s will close Saturday, April 30th.'

"The bakery has become a mainstay in Chicago, with lines going out on the doors on weekends — when people snapped up treats like pastries and doughnuts — and during foodie holidays like Fat Tuesday. Dinkel’s was also a longtime member of the Bakers Dozen, a secret society of leaders from the oldest family-owned bakeries in and around Chicago.

"Word of the closure spread quickly on social media, where Chicagoans lamented the loss. Customers poured into the shop Tuesday afternoon to stock up on their favorites.

"Norman Dinkel, 79, and the longtime owner, said it was closing so he could retire. 'It’s never a good time to close, so I’ve got a lot of mixed emotions,' Dinkel said. 'It’s a very traumatic day for me personally, for my stay and my customers. No one wants to see this, but it’s time.'

The future of the iconic Dinkel’s sign, which hangs vertically on the side of the building, is uncertain, Dinkel said. 'I’ve still got to figure out what’s going to happen to it,' Dinkel said. 'I’m told there might be some collectors interested, but I don’t know yet.'

"'When we walked in and they told us they’re closing, we couldn’t believe it,”' Staar said. 'It’s absolutely devastating because it’s always like this — full of people and good, local vibes.' (Wittich & Bauer, Block Club Chicago)






WIN: Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley House Receives $250,000 Adopt-a-Landmark Renovation Funds
Muddy Waters House, 1891, 4339 S. Lake Park Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
We’re thrilled that, after all these years of advocacy, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley home will be landmarked. Preservation Chicago played an essential role in coordinating all the stakeholders and ensuring that all the pieces were in place to allow the process to successfully move forward.

Preservation Chicago has been advocating for the Chicago Landmark Designation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley home since 2006. More recently, in 2017 we led another push for landmark designation. More recently, we have been an active supporter of the effort to secure Adopt-a-Landmark funding for renovation.

A special thanks to Naomi Davis of Blacks in Green, 20th Ward Alderman Jeanette Taylor, Maurice Cox Commissioner of Chicago Planning and Development, and the Chicago Landmarks Division Staff. Additional thanks to Mary Lu Seidel and Jonathan Solomon for researching and writing the outstanding Chicago Landmark Designation report.

WIN: Muddy Waters House Receives $250,000 Adopt-a-Landmark Renovation Funds
Muddy Waters House, 1891, 4339 S. Lake Park Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"The Commission on Chicago Landmarks voted unanimously during its March 3 meeting to award the Muddy Waters House, 4339 S. Lake Park Ave., with a $250,000 grant for exterior renovations from its Adopt-a-Landmark Fund. This award follows last October's designation of the North Kenwood home of legendary blues musician Muddy Waters (born McKinley Morganfield) as a Chicago Landmark by the City Council.

"Morganfield’s great-granddaughter Chandra Cooper — who owns the building and is leading the effort to convert it into a house museum — said during an interview with the Herald, 'I'm hoping that this place will end up being a place (where) young people and old people, and lovers of the blues, and people who want to be educated about the blues will have an incredible safe haven to come... and to learn to listen and to just really understand who Muddy Waters was. And the legacy of who he is and the fact that he is the king of Chicago blues.'

"The Adopt-a-Landmark grant will be used to weather-proof the house, including removal of some exterior paint, concrete stair grinding, and re-pointing of the face brick on the main east facade, window repair and replacement.

"'The work is expected to begin this spring and be finished by late fall. Once the work is done, 'the first floor will be occupiable and we will be able to open our doors,' said Cooper."

"During the meeting Commissioner Tiara Hughes asked whether the vacant lot to the north of the house would be acquired as 'an exterior gathering space.'

"Cooper said that the group behind the museum has had several conversations with Ald. Sophia King (4th) this week about the adjacent lot. 'It's hopeful that we will be able to one day obtain the lot. But right now there is nothing on the table for that,' she said.

"The Herald reached out to King's office for a comment about Cooper's desire to incorporate the vacant lot, which is owned by the City, as part of the museum, but did not receive a reply by press time." (Monaghan, Hyde Park Herald, 3/3/22)

In February 2021, the Museum House Ban ordinance proposed by Ald. King was defeated. If it had been approved, it would have directly prevented the Muddy Waters House Museum from moving forward.

Preservation Chicago is thrilled that the long-endangered Muddy Waters home has finally received the financial support it needs to be restored. Bravo to Chandra Cooper for her dedication in face of adversity and her fierce love for this important part of Chicago’s cultural heritage. Chicago collectively owes you a debt of gratitude for your efforts. We will continue to support this effort until the MOJO Museum celebrates its grand opening.

Preservation Chicago has worked very closely with neighborhood preservation partners and has played a strong role in supporting the effort to protect and landmark the Muddy Waters home. Additionally, our petition with nearly 33 thousand signatures and other efforts played a decisive role in publicizing the proposed House Museum Ban ordinance that would have been devastating for emerging house museums like the Muddy Waters home, and scores of arts and cultural centers across Chicago. We continue to advocate for a Chicago Jazz, Blues, and Gospel Thematic Landmark District that would recognize and protect the places and spaces where Chicago musicians made history.


WIN: Paseo Boricua Gateway Flags Approved as Preliminary Landmarks
Commission on Chicago Landmarks approved a preliminary landmark designation for the Paseo Boricua Gateway Flags on Division Street in Humboldt Park. The twin steel sculptures, built in 1995, mark the economic, social and cultural center of Chicago's Puerto Rican community. Image credit: Chicago Department of Planning and Development
"Humboldt Park’s beloved Puerto Rican flags may soon become official Chicago landmarks.

"The Chicago Commission on Landmarks on Thursday unanimously approved landmark designation for the towering steel flags that bookend the half-mile stretch of Division Street between California and Western avenues known as Paseo Boricua, the center of the neighborhood’s Puerto Rican community.

"Commissioners said the recognition is overdue. The nearly 60-foot-tall flags are among Chicago’s most celebrated civic art, serving not only as markers of the Humboldt Park’s Puerto Rican enclave but also as a powerful symbol of Puerto Rican pride throughout Chicago and the Midwest.

"'I can’t express how happy I am to see that we’ve come to this,' commissioner Alicia Ponce said. 'I can’t pass under this gateway without singing the song, ‘Que Bonita Bandera’ — what a beautiful flag. It’s such a sense of pride and culture. This is a great step forward.'

"The flags were erected June 6, 1995, on Three Kings Day, one of the most celebrated holidays in Puerto Rico.

"Local architecture firm DeStefano & Partners designed the sculptures to serve as gateways to Humboldt Park’s Puerto Rican community. The firm used steel to honor the Puerto Ricans who came to Chicago to work in the steel and welding industries.

"Jose Lopez, executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and one of the community leaders who pushed for the flags to be built, previously told Block Club a portion of I-290 had to be shut down in the middle of the night so trucks carrying giant pieces of the steel could get to the installation sites.

"Thursday’s vote was the first step in the Puerto Rican flags becoming a Chicago landmark. The designation still needs to be reviewed by the city’s planning department and City Council zoning committee, and pass a City Council vote."


WIN: 226 W. Jackson Receives Class L as part of its Renovation and Hotel Adaptive Reuse
Former Chicago & North Western Railway Company Building, Frost and Granger, 1905, 226 W. Jackson Boulevard. Tweet Credit: City of Chicago Landmarks Division
"The Commission on Chicago Landmarks has approved the final certification for tax incentives for the Chicago & North Western Railway Office Building at 226 W Jackson Boulevard in the heart of downtown The Loop. The historical building recently went through a full rehab converting it into a dual-flag Hilton hotel, located on the corner of Jackson Boulevard and S Franklin Street. The approval grants the project a Class L Property Tax Incentive which will provide it with tax breaks for the next 12 years.

"The 14-story Classical Revival-style building was erected in 1905 and designed by local architects Frost & Granger who also designed multiple stations for the namesake train line that occupied the building until 1929. At its peak the rail company operated over 10,000 miles of track across seven different states, greatly contributing to Chicago’s industrial economy. The building itself is clad in light-gray granite utilizing its vertical and spandrel elements to mimic the triple divisions of a classical column with a base, shaft, and ornate capital, while also using Doric-style columns to accentuate the main entrance.

"The approved tax incentive will reduce the property taxes by 10 percent for the first 10 years, 15 percent in year 11, and 20 percent in year 12, before returning to the regular rates in year 13. The incentive was successfully used to lure the hotel redevelopment and preservation of the historical structure after a failed attempt in 2018 to convert the building into a residential project." (Achong, Chicago Yimby, 4/11/22)

“In addition to its important role in Chicago’s economic heritage, the C&NW Railway Office Building is an excellent example of the Classical Revival style in the Loop. The high-rise headquarters building is clad with light-grey granite and reflects the tripartite division of a Classical column with a base, shaft, and capital divided by ornate projecting belt courses. Its entrance is highlighted by two large fluted granite Doric columns. The formal elegance and ancient Greek origins of the headquarters’ architectural style, designed by the significant Chicago firm of Frost and Granger, communicated the stability and prominence of the railroad company.” (Landmark Designation Report, 11/19)

Preservation Chicago applauds Phoenix Development Partners for pursuing the Chicago Landmark Designation. We fully support this development and played an active role throughout the landmark and Class L process. The C&NW Railway Office Building’s history and design made it a strong candidate to become a Designated Chicago Landmark.

Additionally, Preservation Chicago encourages the developer to rebuild the lost historic cornice as part of future improvements. The cost for cornice rebuilding is significant and Preservation Chicago encourages the City of Chicago to adjust existing codes to make cornice rebuilding more attainable. Further, we recommend additional incentives be made available to Designated Chicago Landmarks to encourage cornice restoration and reconstruction.






WIN: Preservation Chicago Leads and Coordinates Effort to Suggest 15 New Chicago Landmarks
Greater Union Baptist Church suggested for Chicago Landmark Status by Ward Miller of Preservation Chicago. Image credit: Helena @HD_documentor
Epworth United Methodist Church suggested for Chicago Landmark Status by Ward Miller of Preservation Chicago. Image credit: Helena @HD_documentor
St. Martin of Tours Church suggested for Chicago Landmark Status by Max Chavez of Preservation Chicago. Image credit: Helena @HD_documentor
Maxim's de Paris at Astor Tower suggested for Chicago Landmark Status by Max Chavez of Preservation Chicago. Image credit: Helena @HD_documentor
On March 29, 2022, Preservation Chicago lead the effort to suggest new potential Chicago Landmarks at the Program Committee Hearing Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Preservation Chicago staff testified on behalf of seven of the following buildings. Additionally, we played an important role supporting community members and coordinating community efforts with nearly all of the suggested buildings. This is an important first step on the long process for a building to become a Designated Chicago Landmark. Buildings formally suggested for Chicago Landmark Designation include:

  1. Altgeld School Building C 
  2. Altgeld "Up Top" Store
  3. Mars Candy
  4. 2150 E. 71st St.
  5. 1320 S. Kedvale Avenue
  6. Wax Trax! Records
  7. Greater Tabernacle Cathedral
  8. St. Michael the Archangel Church
  9. Century and Consumers Buildings
  10. Epworth Methodist Church
  11. Helstein House
  12. Astor Tower & Maxim's
  13. St. Martin of Tours Church
  14. Greater Union Baptist Church
  15. Phyllis Wheatley Home For Girls
POTENTIAL WIN: Helstein House Suggested for Chicago Landmark Consideration by Preservation Chicago
Helstein House view from street, 1951, Bertand Goldberg, 5806 S. Blackstone Avenue. Photo credit: BertandGoldberg.org / HB photo, n.d.
"The Bertrand Goldberg-designed Helstein House at 58th Street and Blackstone Avenue could be in line for a city landmark designation, as nonprofit Preservation Chicago formally suggested it be nominated at the March 29 meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

"The group said that the residence at 5806 S. Blackstone Avenue has both historic and architectural significance.

"Max Chavez, director of research and special projects for Preservation Chicago, noted during his introduction of the building that it 'was designed by Bertrand Goldberg, one of the most important architects that the city has ever produced.' Among many other buildings, Goldberg designed Marina City, with its iconic 'corn cob' towers, and the now-demolished Prentice Women's Hospital, which was located on Northwestern University's Streeterville medical school campus.

"He compared it to Maison Dom-Ino, a 1914 structural design consisting of concrete slabs and columns by the French modernist Le Corbusier that served as a construction template for other architects.

"The house on Blackstone was built in 1951 for prominent labor activist and attorney Ralph Helstein and his wife Rachel, a social worker and home maker. Ralph Helstein was the president of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) from 1946 until its merger with Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen in 1968.

"During Helstein's tenure at UPWA, the organization became active in the Civil Rights Movement. It supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott, formed its own anti-discrimination department and became a strong supporter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1962, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. described the UPWA support for SCLC as 'a mighty fortress protecting us.'(Monaghan, Hyde Park Herald, 3/31/22)




WIN: The Forum Receives $1 Million Restoration Grant from Andrew M. Mellon Foundation
The Forum, 1897, Samuel Atwater Treat, 318 E. 43rd St, Photo Credit: Bernard Loyd
"Efforts to revive Bronzeville’s historic Forum just received a $1 million boost.

"The Andrew M. Mellon Foundation awarded the grant through its Humanities in Place program this month. The money will support the development of arts and cultural heritage spaces inside The Forum, 318-24 E. 43rd St.

"Bernard Loyd, president of the Urban Juncture Foundation, which is spearheading the Forum’s renovation, has led efforts to bring the Forum back to life since buying the 127-year-old building in 2011. Before its decline, The Forum was one of the most significant assembly spaces on the South Side, hosting politicians, unions and social clubs above first floor storefronts on 43rd Street, he said.

"'We are delighted to accept the support of the Mellon Foundation, along with that of hundreds of residents and other stakeholders, and are hopeful that Ald. [Pat] Dowell (3rd) and the city of Chicago soon will offer their support as well,' Loyd said. 'The Forum is an iconic building that can play a central role in bringing Bronzeville residents together and moving us forward.'

"In its heyday, The Forum was the epicenter of Black life in Chicago, hosting everything from cotillions to “movement” meetings and live performances from world-renowned artists, including Nat King Cole and Muddy Waters.

"Built in 1897, The Forum closed in the 1970s and fell into such disrepair that pieces of furniture had sunk into the floor due to the amount of water damage. It was in danger of being demolished when Loyd bought the building and announced an ambitious, $20 million effort to reestablish it. Loyd used most of his own money pay for site remediation after buying the building.

"In May, City Council approved a rezoning of The Forum, which will enable Loyd and his team to revive it as a performance venue. It was previously approved for residential use, but the change to commercial zoning will allow for a banquet hall, retail and restaurant space.

"The City Council approval also cleared Loyd to use a $250,000 state grant to continue rehabbing the West Annex, which is expected to be completed this year.

"'The Forum was a civic, cultural, and commercial hub of our community, and we can now focus fully on bringing it back,' Loyd said last year." (Nesbitt Golden, Block Club Chicago, 4/1/22)


WIN: Monumental Baptist Church's Preliminary Landmark Designation Approved
Monumental Baptist Church, 1899, Patton, Fisher, and Miller, 729 E. Oakwood Boulevard in Bronzeville. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Monumental Baptist Church, 1899, Patton, Fisher, and Miller, 729 E. Oakwood Boulevard in Bronzeville. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"Monumental Baptist Church is one step closer to receiving landmark status.

"The 103-year-old church at 729 E. Oakwood Blvd. received a preliminary recommendation from the landmark commission earlier this month. The church will have to complete several steps before being recognized as as a landmark, but pastor Cleophus Lee said he is optimistic about its chances.

"Church leaders hope landmark designation could help them raise money to rehab the building and protect it. The sanctuary ceiling needs repair, and the mural above the choir section needs to be restored. Lee also wants to install a cooling system under the floor and have work done on the roof.

"The total cost of repairs would be close to $1.5 million, Lee said.

"The church was built in 1899 by Patton, Fisher and Miller, an architectural firm that designed dozens of institutions across the region, including the Illinois Institute of Technology. Its Romanesque Revival style — identifiable by its masonry construction, round arches and decorative plaque — was popular in the mid-19th century, especially for public buildings and residential mansions.

"At its height, Monumental had more than 800 members walking through its doors each week and was known for its extravagant production of Handel’s 'Messiah' every December. People from all over would pack the room, so much so that some were turned away, according to a December 1979 Ebony Magazine article." (Nesbitt Golden, Block Club Chicago, 3/24/22)




WIN: G.A.R. Rotunda Restoration Complete
Grand Army of the Republic Hall and Rotunda at the Chicago Cultural Center, 1897, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, 78 E Washington St. Photo Credit: Colin Boyle / Block Club Chicago
Grand Army of the Republic Hall and Rotunda at the Chicago Cultural Center, 1897, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, 78 E Washington St. Photo Credit: Colin Boyle / Block Club Chicago
Grand Army of the Republic Hall and Rotunda at the Chicago Cultural Center, 1897, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, 78 E Washington St. Photo Credit: Colin Boyle / Block Club Chicago
"Sunlight is shining into the Grand Army of the Republic Hall for the first time in decades with the completion of a year-long restoration in the Chicago Cultural Center.

"The building dating back to 1897 originally served as a library and a memorial hall dedicated to Northern soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Over the years, its ornate details had been obscured through now-outdated updates. But after a grant of services worth more than $15.4 million, visitors can experience how the space once was and learn about who it honors.

"Preservation Chicago Executive Director Ward Miller, who has frequented the space since he was a kid, said the restoration is one of Chicago’s best-ever preservation efforts.

"'This is really a commitment to Chicago’s architecture in this building, and it’s known as the People’s Palace,' Miller said. 'I think it’s further commitment to Downtown Chicago and the city as a whole and our architecture and our built environment.'

"The Cultural Center, originally Chicago’s first public library, was spared by the wrecking ball that gutted many historic buildings in Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s. It was renovated in the 1970s, became the cultural center in 1991 and received $2 million in upgrades in 1994.

"Technicians used precise blades, acetone and cotton swabs to revitalize the original details of the 125-year-old hall. The 62,000-piece glass dome 40 feet in diameter was placed under a cement-and-copper cover, and illuminated to prevent water damage in the 1940s. The stained glass was cleaned and reassembled, and now is protected with a clear cover.

"Cultural historian emeritus Tim Samuelson took the stage with preservation architect Gunny Harboe and joked, 'I really like what you did with the place.'

"'I worked in this building for years and it was pretty wonderful, but you knew that this building, this room, was kind of sleeping. Something had happened to it,' Samuelson said." (Boyle, Block Club Chicago, 3/25/22)




THREATENED: Salvation Army Rehab Center and Store Permanently Closed Before Anticipated Sale (Chicago 7 2021)
Braun & Fitts Butterine Factory / Wrigley Lodge / Salvation Army, Furst & Rudolph in 1891, with Art Deco/Art Moderne Remodeling by Albert C. Fehlow in 1947, 509 N. Union Avenue. Photo Credit: Serhii Chrucky
"The Salvation Army has permanently closed its adult rehabilitation center and thrift store in River West, citing 'significant disruptions' caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The River West thrift store, 509 N. Union Ave., has long been a destination in the neighborhood for cheap furniture and clothing. The closure comes as the Tribune Publishing Center, directly north of the thrift store at 700 W. Chicago Ave., made the city’s shortlist to host Chicago’s first casino.

"Both the thrift store and the adult rehabilitation center at 506 N. Desplaines St. next door closed all services earlier this month, the organization confirmed.

"Proceeds from Salvation Army thrift stores fund its adult rehabilitation centers, which offer drug counseling and programs to almost 175,000 people nationwide, the organization said.

"In a statement, Major Kendall Mathews, administrator of the Salvation Army’s Chicago Adult Rehabilitation Center, said losses during the pandemic, on top of ongoing building costs, have left the River West store and treatment facility no longer financially viable.

"In recent decades, the area surrounding the Salvation Army’s River West location has seen an influx of luxury condos, high-end retail and restaurants. The Tribune Publishing Plant site just north of the thrift store is among three finalists for the casino plan. Bally’s Corporation is behind the $1.8 billion proposal that would include 500 hotel rooms, a 3,000 seat entertainment venue, and several restaurants, bars and cafes along the Chicago River." (Myers, Block Club Chicago, 3/24/22)


LOSS: Demolition of Cassidy Tire / Tyler & Hippach Mirror Company Factory Has Begun
(Chicago 7 2021)
344 North Canal Street, built 1910 by Tyler Hippach Glass Company. Fencing went up around the building just recently. To be demolished/redeveloped for 33-story (375 ft.) 343-unit residential tower. Image credit: Gabriel X. Michael
One last photo of Cassidy Tire before demolition. Built as the Tyler & Hippach Mirror Company Factory (Henry J. Schlacks, 1902). Soon to be another highrise, which is fine but I wish they had found a way to incorporate this fine building. Image Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
WIN: Clarendon Park Community Center Renovation Approved by City Council
(Chicago 7 2015)
Rendering of Clarendon Park Community Center post-restoration. Rendering Credit: Booth Hansen
Rendering of Clarendon Park Community Center post-restoration. Rendering Credit: Booth Hansen
Clarendon Park Field House. Historic Postcard Credit: Chuckman Collection
"City Council has approved a funding package including $10 million in TIF for the renovation plan of Clarendon Park Community Center at 4501 N Clarendon Avenue in Uptown. Located in Clarendon Park, the community center is located at the intersection of N. Clarendon Avenue and W. Sunnyside Avenue. The Chicago Park District is leading the project.

"Originally built in 1916 as a beach bathhouse, the last time the center was renovated was in the 1970s. With a design by Booth Hansen, the renovation will accommodate the full range of users and make the entire building fully accessible. It will also upgrade finishes, lighting, mechanicals and address water infiltration issues.

"The building’s lobby and southern vestibule will be completely reworked, opening the building up to make it more transparent, allowing more light into the lobby. Sightlines will be further reworked throughout the building, introducing new windows and apertured to allow light into the building. The gymnasium and fitness room will also be renovated entirely with new diminishes and equipment." (Kugler, Urbanize Chicago, 2/28/22)

Preservation Chicago is thrilled to see this important building’s exterior restored to an appearance more similar to its original design in a multi-year, multi-phased project. The distinctive tall towers fronting Clarendon Avenue and the smaller towers fronting the beach, along with the entry colonnade and the verandas and open-air rooftop loggias were beautiful and distinctive architecture elements that should never have been removed. We hope to see the reconstruction of some of these missing features during a second phase of restoration which could elevate the Clarendon Park Community Center to its rightful place alongside the 63rd Street Bathing Pavilion and other important lakefront buildings from this period.

Preservation Chicago applauds Ald. James Cappleman for his commitment to seeing the Clarendon Park Community Center protected from demolition and for helping to solidify the necessary renovation funds. Preservation Chicago applauds the Chicago Park District for its flexibility, support and commitment to this important project. The Clarendon Park neighbors and community stakeholders played an essential role in this effort and deserve special recognition for their unwavering support for this wonderful outcome with a special thanks to Katharine Boyda, Melanie Eckner, Martin Tangora, Cindi Anderson, Stuart Berman, the Uptown Historical Society, the Clarendon Park Advisory Council, Uptown United and Uptown Chicago Commission.


THREATENED: Promontory Point - "It's not just the limestone that people are trying to save, but the way it has come to be a part of the community’s life and nature." (Chicago 7 2022)
Promontory Point, 1937, Alfred Caldwell, Chicago Lakefront between 54th and 56th Streets. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"The waves of Lake Michigan crash below while the limestone rocks wait to emanate a warm, comforting feeling within students like senior Feya Epel. Feya has always enjoyed visiting the Point.

"'I love just sitting on either the rocks or trees behind the rocks and just drawing, staring out or reading,” Feya said. “It’s just really a pleasant place to be.'

"However, with the city’s plan to tear out the limestone rocks and replace them with concrete slabs, the Point was named on March 9 to Preservation Chicago’s 'most endangered' list, an annual list that spotlights sites in danger.

"The 40-acre, human-made peninsula is a popular place for swimming and strolling. However, concealed within this joyful ambiance, the limestone revetments have always faced danger due to the lack of maintenance over its long history, which has caused them to erode. In 1980, the Chicago Park District, the City of Chicago and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked to develop a $300 million plan to repair and replace the revetments with concrete.

"Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, expressed how the concrete is often slippery and doesn’t have the same lifespan as the limestone rocks — 85 vs. 35 years for concrete. Furthermore, repair and rehabilitation is significantly less expensive than demolition and new construction of steel and concrete.

"'We feel that this is kind of an insensitive approach to this beautiful spot on Chicago’s lakefront,' Mr. Miller said. 'This sort of man-made peninsula that was designed with utmost care.'

"Promontory Point Conservancy, an organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the Point, follows a preservation approach to repair and rehabilitate the limestone rocks, rather than demolish them. Founder and president Jack Spicer said that in 2000, the Park District and the City’s Department of the Environment made preliminary plans for proposed changes to the Point.

"'I think virtually the whole community was really upset because the Point has always been a really special place for people,' Mr. Spicer said in an interview]. 'It’s a place where everyone feels welcome, and they can do what they want to do.”

"Over 20 years have passed since the first proposed changes, yet members of the Laboratory Schools community still echo similar sentiments of fear and concern regarding the replacement of the limestone rocks.

Feya fears the removal of the limestone rocks will impact the pleasure she experiences at the Point. 'The Point is one of the few places in Chicago where you can be by the lake peacefully,' Feya said. 'I just feel like it is such an important place to every Hyde Parker and Chicagoan in general, and if the limestone rocks were removed, I would be really sad.'

"According to Mr. Spicer, it is not just the limestone that people are trying to save, but the way it has come to be a part of the community’s life and nature.

"'When we try to save something, it’s not just the structure we are trying to save,' Mr. Spicer said. 'We are trying to save the kind of cultural and community activities and traditions that have grown up around a particular space.' (Nehme, U-High Midway, 4/6/22)


POTENTIAL WIN: Former Standard Club Building Sold to Hotel Developer
The Standard Club, 1926, Albert Kahn, 320 S. Plymouth Court (Dearborn Street Facade). Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"Depending on your age, you can stroll through downtown Chicago and see a lot of things that aren’t there anymore.

"For high society, there’s been a culling of places where the well-off and well-connected congregate in good taste. Gone are membership venues such as the Chicago Athletic Association, refashioned as a hotel, and the Tavern Club, now an event space. The University Club of Chicago and the Union League Club of Chicago soldier on.

"The Standard Club, long a center of Jewish life, used to be in this elite group where members could dine, imbibe, swim and socialize with their peers. You could stay overnight too. But the club closed its stately 13-story home at 320 S. Plymouth Court for good in March 2020, an event hastened by COVID-19 but independent of it.

"The Standard Club had been losing members and revenue, and repair bills on the 1926 building by Detroit architect Alfred Kahn were piling up. In 2019, club leaders asked members for extra money to keep it going, but it wasn’t enough. The club has sold the building and its future is uncertain.

"President Scott Glazer emphasized that the club still exists. The more than 300 members are paying reduced dues, taking part in virtual gatherings and eager to hear from a 'reimagination committee' considering how to move forward once the pandemic is past, Glazer said.

"The building, however, was sold in late February. The buyer was sometime hotel investor Remo Polselli, with a business address in Newport Beach, California, and a checkered history. News reports indicate failed ventures in Michigan, including an aborted attempt to revive a ski resort near Traverse City. Polselli served time in federal prison for income tax evasion. Records show he was released in December 2004.

"In late February, Polselli paid $9 million for the Standard Club building, according to records. However, the club gave him a mortgage of $8.6 million. He could not be reached for comment. In March 2021, he acquired the 359-room Inn of Chicago at 162 E. Ohio St., which has been closed for the pandemic. The hotel’s website says it won’t reopen until December.

"A financial adviser, Glazer insisted the price recorded for the Standard Club building didn’t reflect what it actually sold for, but he declined to give another figure. It’s possible Polselli paid more for fixtures and equipment. Glazer agreed that the seller-financing could allow the club to retake its building if Polselli doesn’t keep up payments.

"Experts speculated the building’s most likely use is as a boutique hotel while doubting the depressed market is ready for anything like that. Most thought the club was having trouble finding a buyer, but Glazer said two previous sales agreements weren’t closed. In the first one, the club retained the right to use part of the building, but it decided to drop that stipulation, he said.

"'We had to pivot,' he said, and make some tough calls. They included moving the archives, containing information about such titans as Julius Rosenwald and Max Adler, to the Newberry Library. Much of the club’s artwork — another requirement for places of this sort — was sold to members or auctioned by Sotheby’s. On behalf of the club, Sotheby’s online records said it sold a Jasper Johns lithograph for $201,600 and an Andy Warhol depiction of the Marx Brothers for $50,400, along with pieces by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miro." (Roeder, Chicago Sun-Times, 4/11/22)

Preservation Chicago encourages stakeholders to include a Landmark designation of the The Standard Club as part of the process moving forward to recognize its important history. The Standard Club was designed by Albert Kahn, an architect well known for his buildings linked to the automotive industry in Detroit, and one of only a handful of buildings by Kahn in Chicago. This club has an amazing history dating back to the early days of Chicago. Its exterior and interior spaces, including ballrooms, historic lobbies, murals by Sol LeWitt, and linoleum cuts of important events in Chicago history by Edgar Miller should all be protected by a Chicago Landmark Designation.




THREATENED: Petition Started to Landmark Our Lady Of Victory Church to Prevent Potential Demolition (Chicago 7 2021) 
Our Lady of Victory, 1954, Meyer and Cook (upper church) 5212 W. Agatite Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
Our Lady of Victory, 1954, Meyer and Cook (upper church) 5212 W. Agatite Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"A Northwest Side group wants a historical church that held its last mass last year to receive landmark status to prevent it from potentially being torn down.

"Our Lady of Victory, 5212 W. Agatite Ave., closed its parish as part of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Renew My Church consolidation plan. The building is still a Catholic church open for services under the archdiocese’s permission for now.

"While the archdiocese has no immediate plans for the building, it mentioned options for selling the property when it announced the closing in 2020. This sent parishioners and community members into a panic, as they want to make sure the building is preserved and stays a neighborhood asset.

"A petition by the neighborhood group Save Our Lady of Victory calls on elected officials to work with the city to grant the church landmark status.

"'It is one of the most fabulous pieces of architecture on the Northwest Side — we don’t want to lose it,' said Susanna Ernst, president of the Northwest Chicago Historical Society and an Our Lady of Victory parishioner who organized the petition.

"Our Lady of Victory, founded in 1906, is the oldest Catholic church on the Far Northwest Side. It has been home to Irish, Polish and German congregations. Its architectural significance, community outreach and growth between the 1920s and ’50s make it important to the area, Ernst said.

"The church has been suggested for landmark status to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks by the Northwest Chicago Historical Society, Ernst said. The commission, which is an arm of the city’s Department of Planning and Development, is responsible for recommending sites for legal protection as official city landmarks.

"Should the commission deem Our lady of Victory meets the historical, architectural and cultural significance requirements to become a landmark, aldermanic and ownership approval would be needed, according to the city’s landmarks ordinance. A public hearing, followed by a commission decision, is then taken to City Council before the landmark can become official.

"Preservation Chicago added the church to its list of 2021 endangered buildings and recommended it be repurposed as another religious space, an event venue or as housing. 'The church could still remain a sacred site but maybe be enveloped with other uses, maybe tied to the community, or maybe an educational facility,' said Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago. 'The landmark designation encourages the right kinds of ideas and a creative imagination being applied to these structures.'

"In addition to benefiting the Far Northwest Side, which has few landmarked buildings, the designation could benefit the archdiocese, Miller said. With the archdiocese closing churches and parishes around the area as part of its Renew My Church plan, its Catholic churches could see new life and sustainability with the city’s help, Miller said.

"The archdiocese 'could still landmark the outside of the building and encourage the city to maintain big structures, even if they are closing or in disrepair,' Miller said. Given that the archdiocese does not consider its properties for landmark status, Miller said ownership consent for religious buildings — added to the ordinance in 1987 — should be repealed." (Parrella-Aureli, Block Club Chicago, 3/1/22)



THREATENED: Uncertain Future for Avalon / New Regal Theater (Chicago 7 2012)
The Avalon Regal Theater, 1927, John Eberson, 1641 East 79th Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"Anyone who’s taken on a building renovation and gotten in too deep can sympathize with Jerald Gary.

"He’s been in that situation to the extreme since at least 2014 when he got control of the Avalon Regal Theater, 1641 E. 79th St. The place is magnificent, a Chicago landmark for its Middle Eastern-influenced design and its history with African American entertainers, but it’s been unused for years and has fallen into disrepair.

"Every system and decoration needs repair, replacement or cleaning if the theater is to host performances again. Gary has dealt with building code violations and there’s a pending court case involving repair of the façade, which the city regards as an urgent matter. In short, there are huge costs in plain sight and more hidden in every wall, parapet and minaret. Give Gary his due, though. When he led a tour of the theater in September, it was clear he loves the building perhaps more than reason should allow.

"He’s provided stop-gap repairs and tried to find financial backers. Back then, he estimated it would take $10 million to make the theater shipshape. While he has some connections and a banking background, he doesn’t have that money at hand. In 2018, the rapper Ye, known then as Kanye West, pledged $1 million to support Gary. Ye said the theater, often called just the Regal, was a cultural monument like Harlem’s Apollo. But it’s not known how much money, if any, he has given.

"Gary has intimated that 'big news' from Ye is just around the corner. But right now, the news involving the property is that Gary stands to lose it if he doesn’t act quickly. He hasn’t paid property taxes on the Avalon Regal. Records show he owes at least $210,000 dating from 2013, not including interest the county charges on late payments. The Cook County Land Bank Authority put a no-cash bid on the property, giving it a lien that entitles it to ownership if Gary doesn’t settle the debt in six months. It’s what the land bank was created to do — take control of problem properties and wipe out the tax debt so a new owner gets clear title. Gary did not return calls last week.

"The city of Chicago is involved too. The Avalon Regal could be the first application of an ordinance sponsored by the mayor that the City Council passed on March 23. It allows the city’s planning and housing commissioners to deal directly with the county land bank, acquiring its properties for little more than administrative costs.

"Eleanor Gorski, executive director of the land bank and a former planner at City Hall, said the ordinance figured in her agency’s action. 'This is on behalf of the City of Chicago. They do have some plans that involve repositioning the theater and the lots around it,' she said. Peter Strazzabosco, spokesman for the planning department, said if the city gets the property, it would probably offer it in a public request for proposals, with all comers welcome. It would fit the mayor’s Invest South/West program, which includes South Shore and the 79th Street strip as a target area. (Roeder, Chicago Sun-Times, 4/4/22)



THREATENED: Portage Theater Makes Slow Progress, but Needs Significant City Support to Reopen (Chicago 7 2012)
Portage Theater, 1920, Mark D. Kalischer and Henry L. Newhouse, 4050 N Milwaukee Ave. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"Repairs are inching forward on the long-closed Portage Theater, part of an ambitious, multi-million-dollar plan from its newest owner to revive the iconic venue.

"But owner Manuel Gliksberg said he has invested $1 million and navigated financial and legal difficulties, and he needs support from the city if he’s going to reopen the landmarked theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave. The extensive renovation will cost at least $10 million, he estimated.

"The theater closed in 2018. Gliksberg, an investor who owns a real estate company, bought it later that year. Gliksberg said he wants 'to make this a forever space for the community,' but the building needs costly upgrades so it’ll have more bathrooms, be up to code and to be ADA-compliant, among other things.

"Neighbors have long waited for the theater to reopen. Gliksberg, an avid rock music lover, said he wants to inject life into the Six Corners shopping district to spur economic development and reawaken the community anchor. But Gliksberg said there’s only so much he can do with private financing. He said he’s willing to put a significant amount of his own money into repairs, but city funds are also needed for the project to make financial sense.

"Portage Theater closed as a cinema in 2001 after operating almost continuously since its debut in 1920. Gliksberg is the third person to take over the space in the past two decades. Soon after taking over, Gliksberg was told he owed thousands in back taxes from the past three years. Those charges have since been taken care of and paid, according to Gliksberg and Cook County property tax portal.

"In the meantime, Gliksberg said he’s invested about $1 million in fixes to the building, including repairs to the exterior roof and rear façade, city records show. He also has done tuckpointing work on all of the exterior walls of the lobby and auditorium, replaced the roof membrane of the auditorium and put in new gutters and downspouts, he said.

"Hoping to help Gliksberg push forward with more renovations, the Six Corners Chamber of Commerce applied for an Adopt-A-Landmark grant for the theater’s exterior façade last summer. The group sought $242,300 from the city as part of a five-phase revitalization project to fix and replace terra cotta on the nameplate and monumental arch of the theater. Funds were also requested to repair brick issues that have been safety concerns along Milwaukee Avenue.

"The city’s Department of Planning and Development, which oversees the grant program, denied funding in January. City officials said Gliksberg did not yet have a comprehensive exterior and interior rehabilitation plan for making the theater ready for occupancy, and he still owed taxes on the building.

"Andy Pierce, the theater historian and chamber member who helped compile the grant application, said the chamber is on board to help Gliksberg apply for more government funding to complete needed repairs." (Parrella-Aureli, Block Club Chicago, 3/31/22)


LOSS: Final hours for the John Ramcke House at 2028 N. Seminary
John Ramcke House, 2028 N. Seminary. Built 1888. Demolished April 2022. Photo credit: E. Talon
John Ramcke House, 2028 N. Seminary. Built 1888. Demolished April 2022. Image Credit: Tweet by @Fynmere
"Over the years, the Lincoln Park neighborhood has seen many fights over historic preservation. They have pitted neighbor against neighbor and produced uneasy compromises to protect limited stretches while leaving most patches open to change.

"Preservationists have paid close attention to the Sheffield area on Lincoln Park’s western edge. Parts of it can take visitors back to the late 19th century. But when cheap money sloshes through real estate, things happen.

"In 2019, the advocacy group Landmarks Illinois counted 350 properties that have been destroyed or significantly altered in Sheffield since the 1990s, about a third of its building stock. People tear down homes and combine lots to build something bigger. They replace multiple units with single-family homes, which some contend disrespects the neighborhood’s character.

"Plopped into this little pot of tension is a Sheffield homeowner, Patrick Nash. He lives on Seminary Avenue, and he’s bought the three-flat next door with the intent to tear it down.

"He hit a local nerve because the three-flat was flagged in a historic resources survey as potentially worth saving. And he’s told people he wants the property as a side yard, a garden for him and his family to enjoy. It offends those who believe that where housing exists, it should stay.

"Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, called the teardown plan 'shameful' and said it reinforces the need for a deeper city review of potential landmarks.

"The building in question, at 2028 N. Seminary, carries an 'orange' rating under Chicago’s classification of older or historic buildings. It doesn’t protect it but puts a 90-day hold on any demolition order, providing time to get people to talk. Otherwise, the city can do little.

"Nash declined to speak with me on the record, which is his right, but it leaves me to conjecture about his side of the question. Some guesses: He’s not breaking any law, nor building anything schlocky. His yard might even beautify a neighborhood that prizes its annual garden walk. And the pandemic has taught us all to appreciate more fresh air.

"This will be one expensive side yard. Nash, a partner at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, paid $1.26 million for the property in September, records show. The city’s hold on his demolition permit expires in late January.

"Brian Comer, president of the Sheffield Neighborhood Association, said he relayed to Nash his board’s concern about changes to the historic character, but there’s nothing to stop the Seminary demolition. 'This is a wonderful springboard to have another conversation in our neighborhood about preservation,' Comer said." (Roeder, Chicago Sun-Times, 12/13/21)

Preservation Chicago worked with urgency to try to prevent this demolition. We initiated a rapid response advocacy campaign with community members to bring attention to the issue. We amplified the story through social media and through news articles. Ward Miller outreached to many decisionmakers and stakeholders including alderman, city officials, and the owner. In this circumstance, there were almost no policy tools that could prevent the demolition, other than convincing the owner to change directions.

With persistence, Ward was able to reach the owner and have a constructive conversation with him during which he presented a variety of alternatives, options and reasons to avoid demolition. The owner agreed to consider the many alternatives presented. The conversation seemed to have delayed the demolition by a few months, but the owner ultimately decided to proceed with the demolition.



WIN: Humboldt Park Methodist Church to be Adaptively Reused as Affordable Housing With Federal Funds
Humboldt Park United Methodist Church, 2122 N. Mozart St. Photo Credit: Google Maps
"A nonprofit developer is getting $2 million in federal funds to convert a Logan Square church into affordable apartments.

"LUCHA was one of 10 developers and community organizations awarded funding from Congress with support from Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, according to a news release.

"The funds will be used to convert the nearly 100-year-old Humboldt Park Methodist Church at 2122 N. Mozart St. into 22 affordable apartments, a project aimed at combating gentrification-fueled displacement in Logan Square.

"The financial support is a step forward for the project, which has been in the works since 2020.

"Church leaders teamed up with LUCHA to redevelop the church after deciding to move the congregation. The church is home to 11 affordable apartments run by the congregation, and church leaders want a developer to carry on their affordable housing work.

"LUCHA plans to renovate the church’s existing apartments and convert the church’s sanctuary and fellowship space into 10 more apartments for a total of 22 units. The church’s exterior would mostly remain as-is, Castañeda said.

"The apartments — a mix of studios and one-, two- and three-bedrooms — would only be available to renters who meet the city’s requirements under the Affordable Requirements Ordinance. Green space would be added to the right side of the building for families to enjoy, Castañeda said." (Bloom, Block Club Chicago, 3/21/22)


WIN: Shuttered Overton Elementary School to be Adaptively Reused as Community Center
(Former) Anthony Overton Elementary School, 4935 South Indiana Avenue. Image Credit: Chicago Architecture Biennial
"Two Bronzeville projects to improve food access and environmental sustainability are moving forward as part of a city program to support developments near public transit.

"Food Matters and the Overton Center for Excellence were among 11 community projects that received grants in the city’s Equitable Transit Oriented Development pilot program in October. Food Matter received $15,000 and Overton got $20,000.

"A key part of the city’s program is to reinvest in public transit, but it also aims to spur economic development and bring affordable housing, community centers and cultural venues to areas near train and bus lines.

"Overton, once a closed elementary school, is being transformed into a community hub where neighbors can shop, play basketball or view art installations. The former school, in the midst of a $14 million renovation, also is home to a rain garden installed with the help of Greencorps Chicago and the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

"With the city’s grant, the Overton team created environment-friendly demonstration projects to draw investors to the site, 221 E. 49th St., near the Green Line and the King Drive bus. (Nesbitt Golden, Block Club Chicago, 3/30/22)


WIN: Roof Repairs Underway at Glessner House Thanks to City of Chicago Adopt-a-Landmark Funds
Work has started on roof repairs, made possible by a $100K grant awarded to 
@GlessnerHouse by the Dept of Planning & Dev of the City of Chicago. Work is being done by Jones & Cleary w/masonry by Berglund Construction, under the supervision of Wiss,
Janney, Elstner Associates. Image Credit: Glessner House
"The Glessner House was built in 1887. What manufacturing magnate John J. Glessner imagined as a cozy, inviting home was seen as an eyesore to neighbors underwhelmed by its curb appeal. Built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style — a mixture of 11th and 12th century French, Spanish and Italian Romanesque characteristics — the home was distinctive for its time. Architect H. H. Richardson took a minimalist approach to design and installed an interior courtyard.

"The national landmark changed hands several times before being saved by a group of architects and preservationists in the mid-’60s. Public tours began in 1971, the house kept afloat through philanthropic efforts from individual donations and foundational support. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

"The city grant would help leaders complete roof work for the 134-year-old structure. With fundraising covering two-thirds of the cost, the $100,000 grant will help Glessner House reach its $300,000 goal for repairs.

"'In many ways, the efforts to save the home ushered in the modern preservation movement,' said William Tyre, executive director and curator of Glessner House. 'Since that time, it’s been extensively restored to its original appearance. The Glessner family has returned virtually all of the original furnishings, many of which were custom made for the family and the house.' (Nesbitt Golden, Block Club Chicago, 12/3/21)


WIN: Former West Pullman School Wins Driehaus Foundation Adaptive Reuse Award
Former West Pullman School, 1894, W. August Fiedler, 11941 S. Parnell Ave. Photo Credit: Celadon Holdings
"One of the schools closed during the mass school closings of 2013 has found new life as a home for older people — and it’s retained some of the flavor of its school days, including the chalkboards.

"The West Pullman Elementary School — a historic landmark whose three buildings were built in 1894, 1900 and 1923 — was among the 48 Chicago public schools closed by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013. Developers Celadon Holdings and Urbanworks renovated the buildings inside and out, turning them into an affordable apartment complex with 60 units for older people.

"The complex at 11941 S. Parnell Ave. was recently awarded the 2021 Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Award for Adaptive Reuse, with the organization honoring the developers for responding to neighbors’ 'desire to see these places restored and returned to usable space.'

"'Instead of children running back [and forth] and playing, now we have seniors there,' said Tiffany Moore, the director of operations for 5T Management, which manages the building.

"The buildings’ classrooms and teacher’s rooms were converted into apartments and lounges for residents. The developers thought it was important to remind older residents of their youth and the schools they attended, so they kept many of the building’s original finishes and features, Moore said.

"The exteriors also remained largely unchanged, with developers mostly restoring, not replacing, the original brick, stone and wood that makes up the West Pullman school.

"'We have to make sure that we’re respectful of the space, and so we still have a lot of original pieces, like we still have the chalkboards inside there,' Moore said. 'You can use the chalkboards as the headboards to your bed. Some of the cabinetry that was built into the building, we now have a storage for residents inside of their unit.'

"Moore thinks using existing empty buildings for housing is a sustainable solution to the growing need for affordable housing."


WIN: North Lawndale Sears Sunken Garden to Be Restored 
The Sears Sunken Garden. Photo credit: Colin Boyle / Block Club Chicago
"A century-old garden on the West Side that deteriorated over the years is being restored to its historic grandeur thanks to a community-led initiative.

"In the early 1900s, the Sears, Roebuck and Co. campus was the crown jewel of North Lawndale. Hidden within the stern Classical Revival-style buildings sprawled across the 40-acre headquarters was a pocket of lush greenery: the Sears Sunken Garden.

"The Foundation for Homan Square, which took over many of the Sears buildings, preserved the 2-acre park but has lacked the funding to continue the extravagant annual flower shows and water features it had at its prime, executive director Kevin Sutton said.

"Now, the foundation and several other groups are using a $150,000 grant to launch what could be a multimillion dollar overhaul to revive the space.

"'I’m certainly hopeful this will be an opportunity to cast a fresh light on the cultural, historical and in this case horticultural significance of this area,' Sutton said.

"The 2-acre park was an urban oasis that stood out against the red brick buildings and steel railroad tracks that surrounded it. The Sears Sunken Garden had fountains, reflecting pools, a greenhouse and flower beds unmatched by other parks of the time.

"'It was a place for Sears staffers, many of which lived in the community, to have a respite, a place of peace and relaxation and enjoyment,' Sutton said.

"When Sears began relocating its headquarters downtown in the 1970s, the local economy waned as residents were laid off from the warehouses and distribution facilities were being shut down. Many of the buildings were demolished, though some were preserved and turned over to the Foundation for Homan Square to be restored into schools, housing and office buildings for local nonprofits.

"The foundation preserved the Sunken Garden, which has been a National Historic Landmark for a century, Sutton said.

"Plans to redesign the garden are being spearheaded by Friends of Sears Sunken Garden, a nonprofit founded by a collaborative of neighborhood groups that had been organizing projects to improve the garden for several years.

"By incorporating the ideas of people who live in the area, the restoration of the Sears Sunken Garden can be a reminder of the neighborhood’s history and the fond memories many people have, Sutton said.

"'It’s really been amazing to have a community-led effort. Many people will tell you they have reunion pictures and wedding photos, all sorts of memories in the garden,' Sutton said." (Sabino, Block Club Chicago, 4/1/22)



THREATENED: Remnants of Decorative Art Deco Terrazzo Floor Discovered at Six-Corners 
"Some Far Northwest Siders are hoping rediscovered remnants of an ornate entryway from an old Six Corners clothing store can be saved as a developer takes over the property.

"Last week, a local historian and explorer came across an old Art Deco terrazzo floor at 4035 N. Milwaukee Ave. It was unearthed after two long-empty buildings were demolished last summer.

"Now, passersby peeking through the fence can see a layer of pink flooring amid the demolition rubble at 4033 N. Milwaukee Ave., a lot that was once home to the famous Mr. Steer Steakhouse. The floor features white and green lines with a circular mosaic of three women.

"The terrazzo entryway used to be part of the Three Sisters clothing store, which was in the neighborhood from the ’40s through the mid-’60s. Mavrek Development bought the property last month. Company representatives did not reply to a request for comment on what they plan to do with the lot or if they will preserve the terrazzo.

"Susanna Ernst, president of the Northwest Chicago Historical Society, said the custom entryway was a spectacular find. The logo represented the clothing store, which was part of a national chain under Miller-Wohl, a New Jersey company. Miller-Wohl operated 1938-1984, when it was merged with another company. Ernst thinks the store was active from about 1940 to 1952 — a long time for a store to be in business during that era, she said.

"But longtime Portage Park resident Cynthia Abbinanti remembers the store still going strong well into the ’60s. She grew up in the neighborhood and regularly shopped at Three Sisters with her friends when they were in high school. She bought a prom dress and pedal pushers from the women’s boutique during the early ’60s, she said.

"'Anything you can save that is old … we should save it. That is part of history,' Abbinanti said. 'Six Corners was always a big hot spot for shopping.'

"Dan Pogorzelski, local historian and writer of Forgotten Chicago, said the terrazzo is a link to the past that fits with his mission to highlight the overlooked environment of the past.

"'Many are familiar with the landmarks of our wealth of architectural treasures in Chicago, but less are aware of the landmarks which are present in every neighborhood of the Windy City,' Pogorzelski said. 'This terrazzo is part of the legacy of the architectural wealth that really helps it hit home how grand the Six Corners business district was in its heyday.'" (Parrella-Aureli, Block Club Chicago, 3/29/22)


BUYER WANTED: St. Paul's Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church Listed Again
St. Paul's Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1892, 2215 W North Ave. Photo Credit: LoopNet.com
St. Paul's Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1892, 2215 W North Ave. Photo Credit: LoopNet.com
"CONDO CONVERSION, CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS, LUXURY APARTMENTS, CHURCH OR SINGLE FAMILY CASTLE possible at this phenomenal location. Luxury condos estimated resale value $850,000 each. Potential for 8 parking spaces. ZONED B3-2. LAND SIZE 8073 sq/ft. 17245 buildable sq/ft. Wicker Park Richardsonian Romanesque Landmark Church.

"FULL AND VERY HIGH BASEMENT. Striking interior and stained-glass detailing; fine woodwork and wooden sanctuary ceiling. City landmark status. Needs work. Excellently located in the heart of the Wicker Park action. Very close to Damen / Milwaukee Blue Line. Cash deal only. No contingencies. As-is." (Loopnet.com)

“A 19th-century church building on North Avenue where two proposed residential conversions have failed in recent years is back on the market.

“The question for any potential buyer will be how many residential units will get the neighborhood’s blessing—or how few. In 2017, a developer’s plan to turn the former St. Paul’s Church into 28 apartments failed to get neighborhood support. In 2019, a different developer’s plan for 19 units did not move forward either.

“Under its current zoning classification, B-32, the roughly 8,100 square feet of land St Paul’s stands on would be allowed to have eight units of about 1,000 square feet each. The building itself is about 16,500 square feet, which would likely allow a redeveloper to get more than eight units approved.

“‘What we’re hearing is that based on (purchase) and rehab costs, it would be difficult to make anything work with under about 19 units,’ said Nicholas Zettel, who works on zoning issues for Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, in whose ward the building stands. Zettel said no proposals have been brought to the ward office since the 19-unit project’s developers backed out last year.

“The current condition of the church’s interior would not allow a new user to move right in without updates, Zettel said. “It’s in some kind of a state,” Zettel said. “It will have to be a rehab project if you want to preserve the exterior.”

“Demolition approval would be difficult to obtain because the building is in the Wicker Park Historic District, designated by the city in 1991.” (Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 7/8/20)



BUYER WANTED: Little Village Former Schlitz Tied-House For Sale
Little Village Former Schlitz Tied-House, 2600 W. 21st Street. Photo Credit: Google Maps
Little Village Former Schlitz Tied-House For Sale
2600 W. 21st Street , Chicago IL, 60608

For Sale: $351,000

ATTENTION ALL INVESTORS, BRING YOUR IDEAS TO LIFE IN THIS VERY UNIQUE HISTORICAL BUILDING WITH AN 8 CAR GARAGE. WALKING DISTANCE FROM MANY STORES INCLUDING Pete's Fresh Market, McDonalds, Walmart Neighborhood Market etc. THE MAIN FLOOR HAS BEEN PARTIALLY UPDATED. BUYER MUST ASSUME ALL OPEN BUILDING CODE VIOLATIONS. PLEASE SEE VIOLATIONS AND PROPERTY DISCLOSURES IN ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. PROPERTY SOLD AS-IS

BUYER WANTED: After Renovation, Larry Booth Designed 2104 N. Cleveland Listed for Sale
2104 N. Cleveland Ave, 1977, Larry Booth. Photo Credit: Redfin
2104 N. Cleveland Ave, 1977, Larry Booth. Photo Credit: Redfin
"The man who bought a modernist house designed by architect Larry Booth to prevent its demolition has completed a rehab and is putting it on the market.

"Built in the late 1970s with a glass-and-brick exterior and a mostly white interior, the five-bedroom Lincoln Park house is priced at $3.25 million, according to a 'coming soon' listing posted by Sarah Ziehr, a Redfin agent.

"When the children of the home’s original owners put it up for auction in June 2020, it had no protection from demolition. Its triangular lot at Cleveland, Lincoln and Dickens avenues could hold a five-story building with four to 10 residential units, Blair Thrush Lele, an Engel & Völkers agent and member of the family selling it, told Crain’s then.

"Bernard Bergeron, a software designer, paid a little under $1.66 million for the house. 'It would be pretty sad to demolish this,' Bergeron told Crain’s in August 2020. 'This was really a house of the future' when it was completed.

"Replacing the house with a five-story building 'would be wrong,” he said.

"When Booth originally designed the house more than 45 years ago, he was one of the Chicago 7 architects, a group of postmodernists who promoted an aesthetic departure from the austere look popularized by Mies van der Rohe.

"After buying the house in 2020, Bergeron told Crain's that he hadn't known much about Booth's work but that he 'fell in love when I walked in. The light, the flow of the house, everything was so carefully thought out.' He did not expressly say he planned to live in the house after the rehab." (Rodkin, Crain's Chicago Business, 3/31/22)



BUYER WANTED: The Bellinger Cottage, which Survived the Great Chicago Fire, is for sale
Bellinger Cottage, c.1860s, W.W. Boyington, 2121 N. Hudson Street. Photo Credit: VHT Studios
Bellinger Cottage, c.1860s, W.W. Boyington, 2121 N. Hudson Street. Photo Credit: VHT Studios
Bellinger Cottage, c.1860s, W.W. Boyington, 2121 N. Hudson Street. Photo Credit: VHT Studios
"A little over 150 years ago, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed about 17,450 buildings in the city, but not this one. That’s because Richard Bellinger, a Chicago police officer, was determined to keep his two-year-old honeymoon cottage standing.

"To eliminate the fire’s fuel, Bellinger ripped out the wooden sidewalk and fence and cleared away leaf debris. An often-told legend says he wet down the roof with cider from a barrel in the basement, but a few decades after the fire, Bellinger’s widow tried to put that story to rest. 'We did have a barrel of cider in the basement, sure enough, but we didn’t use it because we were able to get enough water' from nearby ditches, Mrs. Bellinger, whose first name Crain’s could not find, said in 1915.

"With or without the cider, the house is a survivor, one of very few structures left standing in the Burnt District. The house has a sibling relationship of sorts with two more famous structures that survived the same conflagration: the Water Tower and Pumping Station on Michigan Avenue. All three buildings were the work of W.W. Boyington, one of the most prominent Chicago architects in the years before and after the fire.

"In the early 2000s, Sophia de la Mar and Brayton Gray lived a few blocks from the Bellinger Cottage in Lincoln Park, and 'we used to say to each other, let’s walk past that pretty cottage,' Gray recalls.

"In 2005, they bought the house, on North Hudson Avenue (which was called Lincoln Place at the time of the fire). They did an extensive rehab, adding a multi-story section in the back that makes it a four-bedroom, 3,650-square-foot house with an attached garage.

"The lot is 46 feet wide, nearly double the city norm. Putting the dining room at ground level 'gave us the garden to walk out into,' de la Mar says.

"Trees and evergreen shrubs provide some privacy for the terrace, particularly when history buffs gather on the sidewalk to debate the veracity of the cider-on-the-roof story.

"Although Gray says coyly that the legend about cider 'is a very old story to be treated with skepticism, like the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow,' a previous owner was not as doubtful.

"On the fire’s 90th anniversary in 1961, the Chicago Tribune published this photo of the house’s then-owner, Albert Liebrich, an architect, with a mural made of wire that depicted Richard Bellinger pouring cider on the roof. Liebrich and his wife, Lucille, also kept a cider press in the basement, as a tribute." (Rodkin, Crain's Chicago Business, 3/3/22)



LOSS: Loss of Chicago’s two-, three- and four-flats Reduces Affordable Housing
Chicago Vernacular Three-Flats. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"Already disappearing before COVID-19, Chicago’s two-, three- and four-flats, long seen as sources of affordable homeownership and rental opportunities, may emerge from the pandemic with an identity crisis.

"The uncertainty of the past two years could alter some of the signature benefits for renters as landlords change their management style to adapt or consider selling altogether, a recent study found.

"That would mean one more hurdle for tenants, and one more challenge for communities as the city looks to combat a shortage of affordable housing.

"The findings were outlined in a December report by researchers from the American Bar Foundation and the University of Illinois at Chicago, which examined small, independently-owned rental properties in Chicago, such as two- and three-flats. The buildings make up a large portion of the country’s supply of unsubsidized affordable housing, and many of the landlords manage their properties in ways that benefit tenants, such as limiting rent increases, forgoing fees and being more flexible on partial or late payments, according to the study.

"But the basis for that management style might be more precarious than it once seemed. As small landlords grapple with financial challenges during the pandemic, some are considering reining in that flexibility.

"The findings follow a 2021 study from the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University that detailed how Chicago’s two-, three- and four-flats were disappearing even before the pandemic, often replaced with single-family homes or empty lots. The researchers fear the pandemic could hasten the loss of small rental housing and make two- and three-flats less appealing as a path to homeownership.

"'This sector of the rental market is really important because: one, it is more affordable, and two, there’s an understanding, somewhat supported by previous research, that landlords have these more flexible, lenient, tenant-friendly practices in this sector,' researcher Anna Reosti said." (Freishtat, Chicago Tribune, 3/5/22)


THREATENED: Fire Engulfs Stickney School Building from 1903 by J.E.O. Pridmore
Fire Engulfs Historical Edgewater Stickney School Building, 1903, J.E.O. Pridmore, 1054 W. Hollywood Ave. Photo Credit: Joe Ward / Block Club Chicago
"A heavy fire broke out in a historical three-story building in Edgewater, leading to rescues and a large Fire Department response.

"The fire broke out around 1 p.m. Tuesday at 1054 W. Hollywood Ave., just east of the Red and Purple line tracks and just west of the northern end of DuSable Lake Shore Drive

"The fire was contained to the building’s roof and top floor, according to the Fire Department.

"The building that caught fire is known as the Stickney School and is listed in the city’s historical survey. The school building was constructed in 1903 to house the Stickney School, a private school for the growing Edgewater community. Designed by architect J.E.O. Pridmore, the building was expanded in 1910 and 1917, according to the Edgewater Historical Society.

"More recently, the building was remodeled into six condos, according to a real estate listing. (Ward, Block Club Chicago, 3/15/22)


THREATENED: Early Warning Signs
Early Warning Signs - B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted building at 2519 N Halsted St is for sale. Per B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted, "we are proud to be the oldest blues bar in the world with live blues music since 1979."
Early Warning Signs - 2150 W. Monroe Street
Early Warning Signs - 115th and Michigan
Early Warning Signs - 1015 E. 82nd Street
Early Warning Signs - orange-rated Argyle-Clark Garage, 1919, Hall & Ostergren, 5006 N. Clark St.

THREATENED: 90-Day Demolition Delay List
The Demolition Delay Ordinance, adopted by City Council in 2003, establishes a hold of up to 90 days in the issuance of any demolition permit for certain historic buildings in order that the Department of Planning and Development can explore options, as appropriate, to preserve the building, including but not limited to Landmark designation.

The ordinance applies to buildings rated red and orange in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey (CHRS), but it should be modified to include all buildings included in the survey. These buildings are designated on the city's zoning map. The delay period starts at the time the permit application is presented to the department's Historic Preservation Division offices and can be extended beyond the original 90 days by mutual agreement with the applicant. The purpose of the ordinance is to ensure that no important historic resource can be demolished without consideration as to whether it should and can be preserved.

Preservation Chicago is advocating to extend the existing Demolition Delay Ordinance to at least 180 days or longer, in order to create the time community members, stakeholders, decision makers, and elected officials need to conduct robust discussions regarding the fate of these historic buildings and irreplaceable Chicago assets. The support of the Mayor and City Council is necessary to advance this effort.

Additional Reading
Address: 344-346 W. 65th St., Englewood
#100956171
Date Received: 03/14/2022
Ward: 20th Ald. Jeanette Taylor
Applicant: McDonagh Demolition, Inc.
Owner: City of Chicago
Permit Description: Emergency wreck and removal of a two-story, multiple-unit, masonry building per an Administrative Order dated October 20, 2021, deemed to be imminently dangerous to the public and in hazardous condition.
Status: Released 3/17/22
344-346 W. 65th St., Englewood. Photo credit: Google Maps
Address: 3920-3922 N. Lincoln Ave., Lake View
#100944882
Date Received: 02/23/2022
Ward: 47th Ald. Matt Martin
Applicant: Longford Design, Development + Construction C/O Brian Connolly
Owner: 3914 N. Lincoln
Permit Description: Demolition of a three-story masonry building.
Status: Under Review
3920-3922 N. Lincoln Ave., Lake View. Photo credit: Google Maps
Address: 2127-2129 W. Crystal St., Wicker Park
#100937432
Date Received: 01/13/2022
Ward: 2nd Ald. Brian Hopkins
Applicant: 2300 Crystal Development
Owner: Luba Mjkhaylova
Permit Description: Demolition of a 3-story masonry church building.
Status: Under Review
2127-2129 W. Crystal St., Wicker Park. Photo credit: Google Maps
Address: New Devon Theater / Assyrian American, 1618 W. Devon Ave., Rogers Park
#100946230
Date Received: 12/3/2021
Ward: 40th Ald. Andre Vasquez
Applicant: Alpine Demolition Services, LLC
Owner: Doris Eneamokwu
Permit Description: Opening of closed existing windows, install new window frame and glazing, repair existing glazed brick as needed (tuckpointing) [removal of ornamental masonry panel]
Status: Under review
Decorative Terra Cotta Ornament Stripped from New Devon Theater / Assyrian American Association on September 2, 2021. New Devon Theater, 1912, Henry J. Ross, 1618 W. Devon Avenue. Photo Credit: Photo Credit: Belli @bellisaurius

"As of September 2, 2021 it seems that the beautiful terra cotta face that has looked down over Devon Avenue for more than 100 years is no more. No one is quite sure what happened, but there was scaffolding on the building and someone was chipping away at it in the morning, and it was gone by the afternoon. And the Assyrian American Association name is no longer on the building either.

"The New Devon Theater, with its distinctively austere glazed block façade featuring a large arch and a large bust of a woman’s face, was built in 1912, and was quickly eclipsed by the nearby Ellantee Theater. It disappears from news listings after October, 1917.

"By 1923 it had been converted to a Ford dealership. By 1936 it had become an American Legion hall. In the 1950s it operated as a radio and TV store. Since 1963, it has served Chicago’s Assyrian community as the home of the Assyrian American Association of Chicago." Cinema Treasures.org

Address: 1535 N. Maplewood Ave., Humboldt Park
#100898128
Date Received: 11/23/2021
Ward: Ward: 1st Ward Daniel La Spata
Applicant: Soma Design Consultants, Inc. C/O Bryan W. Hudson
Owner: Greg Fordon
Permit Description: Partial demolition of a two-story, masonry residential building to accommodate a third-floor addition.
Status: Released 02/24/2022
1535 N. Maplewood Avenue. Photo Credit: Google Maps
Address: 2028 N. Seminary Ave., Lincoln Park
#100945948
Date Received: 10/26/2021
Ward: 43rd Ald. Michele Smith
Applicant: Quality Excavation Inc. C/O Anne Quinn
Owner: Patrick Nash
Permit Description: Wreck and removal of the three-story, masonry residential building and a frame garage.
Status: Released 01/24/22
2028 N. Seminary Ave., Lincoln Park. Photo credit: E. Talon
Address: 17 S. Oakley Boulevard, Near West Side
#100934954
Date Received: 10/01/2021
Applicant: Thomas Montgomery
Owner: Sam Brashler
Permit Description: Wreck and removal of the existing roof structure on a two-story, masonry residential building, to accommodate the construction of a new rooftop addition
Status: Under Review
17 S. Oakley Boulevard, Near West Side. Photo Credit: Google Maps

LOSS: 'Spotlight on Demolition' March 2022
  • Cenacle Sisters Building, 513 W. Fullerton Parkway, Lincoln Park
  • 3040 N. Lawrence Avenue, Albany Park
  • Women's Treatment Center, 140 N. Ashland Ave, West Loop
  • 3318 W. Montrose Avenue, Albany Park
  • 2018 & 2022 W. Webster Ave., Bucktown
  • 3600 N. Paulina Street, Englewood
  • 1532 S. Trumbull Ave, North Lawndale
  • 3322 N. Halsted St, Lake View
  • 3844 N. Claremont Ave, North Center
  • 1934 W. Patterson Ave, Roscoe Village
  • 7519 S. Cottage Grove, Grand Crossing
  • 2139 S. Pulaski Road, Lawndale
  • 2622 N. Dayton St, Lincoln Park
  • 4323 N. Paulina St, Sheridan Park
  • 1519 S. Kilbourn Ave, Lawndale
  • 7739 W. Summerdale Ave, Oriole Park
“It’s an old, common cry in a city where demolition and development are often spoken in the same breath, and where trying to save historic homes from the wrecking ball can feel as futile as trying to stop the snow. My Twitter feed teems with beautiful houses doomed to vanish in the time it takes to say ‘bulldozed.’ Bungalows, two-flats, three-flats, greystones, workers’ cottages. The photos, posted by people who lament the death of Chicago’s tangible past, flit through my social media feed like a parade of the condemned en route to the guillotine,” mused Mary Schmich in her Chicago Tribune column on July 12, 2018.
"Spotlight on Demolition" is sponsored by Chicago Cityscape

Cenacle Sisters Building, 1967, Charles Pope Jr., 513 W. Fullerton Parkway. Lincoln Park. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Lynn Becker
3040 N. Lawrence Avenue, Albany Park. Demolished March 2022. Image Credit: Chicago Fire Media Tweet
Women's Treatment Center, 140 N. Ashland Ave, West Loop. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
3318 W. Montrose Avenue, Albany Park. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
2018 & 2022 W. Webster Avenue, Bucktown. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
3600 N. Paulina Street, Englewood. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
1532 S. Trumbull Ave, North Lawndale. Demo March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
3322 N. Halsted St, Lake View. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
3844 N. Claremont Ave, North Center. Demoed March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
1934 W. Patterson Ave, Roscoe Village. Demoed March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
7519 S. Cottage Grove Ave, Grand Crossing. Demoed March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
2139 S. Pulaski Road, Lawndale. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
2622 N. Dayton St, Lincoln Park. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Albert David
4323 N. Paulina St, Sheridan Park. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Albert David
1519 S. Kilbourn Ave, Lawndale. Demolished March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps
7739 W. Summerdale Ave, Oriole Park. Demoed March 2022. Photo Credit: Google Maps


Preservation In the News
Op-ed: Transform McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center into a recreational center that would serve all (Chicago 7 2016 & 2021)
Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, 1971, C.F. Murphy and architect Gene Summers. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"The mayor’s new working group appointed to review our Museum Campus should seriously consider transforming McCormick Place Lakeside Center into a year-round, state-of-the-art, municipal athletic-recreation facility that would serve residents from all over the city and attract visitors from all over the world.

"Chicago lacks such a state-of-the-art athletic facility, but with more than 600,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space, a large veranda and a massive flat roof, a Lakeside Athletic Center would be the largest indoor sports facility in the country and on the scenic shore of Lake Michigan.

"The McCormick Place Lakeside Center has weathered claims that it is underused, as well as calls for demolishing it or turning it into a casino. But instead, let’s turn this building right on the lakefront into a destination for health, exercise, enjoyment and play. Instead of inward-facing exhibits for out-of-town conventioneers, let’s use this massive, centrally located facility to offer access to the lake to everyone, Chicagoans and visitors, all year.

"Make it a destination for active recreation to complement the passive recreation of attending nearby museums and concerts. Design the indoor space so that sports offered in Chicago parks in the summer — baseball, tennis, volleyball, basketball, swimming, rowing, running, climbing, table tennis, pickleball, golf and more — can take place year round. Use the spacious, sheltered outdoor veranda as well, for food service, bike parking, concerts, dances, games and other gatherings. Turn its massive flat roof into a garden that continues the native plantings along the lakefront and incorporates complementary uses like bird-watching and stargazing, kite-flying, insect studying and similar activities also offered by the Chicago Park District and nearby museums.

"Most Chicagoans, and especially our youth, rarely experience the lakefront from a vantage point like Lakeside Center. They might make a trip to the beach or Navy Pier in the summer, hopefully an annual trip to the Museum Campus. But a Chicago Lakeside Athletic Center would provide a whole new world of year-round access to Lake Michigan for school groups, teams, families and clubs, lured by sports and athletics in state-of-the-art facilities. Make it free to Chicagoans, and charge visitors accordingly.

"What has been called Chicago’s 'Berlin Wall on the Lake' could become a beloved destination. Make it accessible by building gentle sloping berms of earth on the north and south to connect the bike path to the veranda, enabling all to walk or ride up and enjoy a fantastic view not available anywhere else!

"Most of Chicago’s athletic/park facilities are pretty worn down. We don’t have a public indoor Olympic-size swimming pool, for example, or many other high-quality public facilities that other cities have. But they would all fit at Lakeside, and there is built-in parking and transit access.

"In fact, Lakeside already hosts numerous national amateur athletic events and tournaments. What if the space were re-imagined by sports tourism and sustainability professionals with the goal of a multiuse, multisport showcase for Chicago’s commitment to health, play and all its residents?

"The Lakeside Center and adjoining underground parking facilities are built on Chicago Park District land and leased to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority in an escalating arrangement totaling more than $48 million by 2042. Surely this arrangement can be renegotiated, with the potential for sports tourism, and revenue from sponsorship and naming rights that could underwrite upgrades to neighborhood park facilities as well.

"Add to the mix the 4,192-seat Arie Crown Theater, 'Chicago’s largest first-class legitimate theater,' according to McCormick Place, that is part of Lakeside Center and would also benefit from reimagination and repurposing.

"A municipal athletic facility at Lakeside Center would provide active recreation and access to the lake instead of wasting valuable lakefront access for private events. It is large enough to provide space for multiple activities to take place simultaneously, larger than any other indoor sports facility in the country. What better opportunity to create state-of-the-art facilities that would attract Chicagoans from across the city to participate in athletics and recreation, exposing them to new people and activities? We don’t need an Olympics to do this; we can do it for ourselves. It would make Chicago a healthier city, and it is an opportunity to combine nature and athletics, intentionally and creatively.

"As a city, we owe it to our citizens to look at all the possibilities for a unique, valuable and underused civic resource like the Lakeside Center and to consider the highest and best use for all Chicagoans. I urge the working group to investigate what sports, tourism, sustainability, culture and architecture professionals think about this opportunity, including revenue options from sponsorship and sports tourism.

"What a great opportunity to serve the most diverse cross-section of Chicago in the most meaningful way. (Koenen, Chicago Tribune Op-ed, 3/28/22)


Op-ed: Helmut Jahn and I re-imagined Lakeside Center in 2011. The city can still take advantage. (Chicago 7 2016 & 2021)
Potential Adaptive of Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, 1971, C.F. Murphy and architect Gene Summers. Rendering Credit: JAHN
"In a recent Tribune op-ed, Barbara Koenen called on city leaders to convert McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center exhibition hall into the country’s largest municipal sports and recreation complex. Koenen wrote that, instead of catering to 'inward-facing exhibits for out-of-town conventioneers,' why not repurpose the aging structure into a state-of-the-art amenity for all Chicagoans and visitors to enjoy?

"World-renowned architect Helmut Jahn, who with Gene Summers designed Lakeside Center, which was completed in 1971, spent many years asking similar questions about the building. Lakeside Center represented an evolutionary outgrowth of the modernist principles Jahn and Summers honed together — executed on an unprecedented scale. The structure is undoubtedly an important piece of 20th-century architecture, but Helmut and the team of architects he led at JAHN until his passing in 2021 revisited the building, exploring ways to unlock its untapped potential and incorporate the latest technology.

"In 2011, Helmut and I embarked on a significant design exercise for Lakeside Center, and we arrived at a solution similar to Koenen’s: turn the building into a year-round hub for athletics and recreation that emphasizes public access and sustainability. Under our conceptual plan, the massive exhibition hall would accommodate an Olympic-sized indoor pool, speed skating rink, sports museum, go-cart circuit and more. A new winter garden — perhaps more compelling now that Navy Pier’s is gone — would contain restaurants and retail set among lush landscaping. A 'sky terrace' projecting above the roofline would provide unbeatable views of Lake Michigan and the downtown skyline.

"The building’s architectural profile — with its Miesian grid system and broad Prairie School-influenced overhanging eaves — would be preserved but updated to reflect its new use. The sprawling opaque roof would be transformed into a vast array of solar collectors for generating on-site electricity and allowing natural light to fill the interior spaces. The redesign aligns with the city of Chicago’s latest sustainability goals and vision for powering buildings with renewable energy by 2035 and would correct a historical wrong by reglazing Lakeside Center with bird-friendly glass to minimize collisions during migratory season.

"Helmut and I also saw opportunities to convert the site’s hardscaped plazas and loading zones into new park space and landscaped bike and pedestrian connections to the Chicago Lakefront Trail. The location is rich with multimodal transportation options and would welcome Chicagoans from all communities by offering easy access to DuSable Lake Shore Drive (with parking below ground), as well as service from the Metra Electric and South Shore lines that currently stop at McCormick Place. The location will have even more connectivity should the transit center at the proposed One Central project near Soldier Field become a reality.

"JAHN incorporated many of these same design, sustainability and accessibility principles into its McCormick Place Rivers Casino bid in partnership with Rush Street Gaming, Farpoint Development, McLaurin Development Partners and Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives. The plan even earned the support of esteemed organizations such as Landmarks Illinois, Preservation Chicago and Friends of the Parks. Although the city is moving in a different direction for the casino, JAHN believes Chicago’s leaders should understand the inherent benefits of repurposing Lakeside Center in a way that prioritizes equitable access for the public to health and wellness opportunities and lakefront green space.

"As an important piece of Chicago’s modernist architectural heritage, Lakeside Center is too valuable to further neglect or consider for demolition. The building requires an estimated $400 million in repairs, but replacing the renowned structure would cost substantially more. Doing nothing is not an option.

"The concerns the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority raised over the casino and loss of meeting space will need to be addressed. Lakeside Center is still important to McPier for attracting conventions of a certain size — especially its lower-level exhibition space.

"We believe it’s possible to retool the building with the flexibility to accommodate the needs of McPier while still creating recreation and entertainment opportunities that will complement, rather than compete against, what McCormick Place and Arie Crown Theater offer. The addition of recreational programming would attract tourists near and far, and special sporting events, concession sales and naming/branding deals could be some major cash generators for the city.

"Chicago’s lakefront is the envy of the world because it is “forever open, clear and free.” Let’s return the site of Lakeside Center to the people of Chicago and make this iconic building a shining beacon — rather than an exception — of that ideal.The adaptive reuse of Lakeside Center can provide Chicagoans with the vibrant lakefront jewel they so deserve. Philip Castillo is managing director at JAHN."


Sun-Times Editorial: Casino or not, city has big decisions to make regarding Lakeside Center (Chicago 7 2016 & 2021)
Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, 1971, C.F. Murphy and architect Gene Summers. Photo Credit: Serhii Chrucky
"Lakeside Center, the oldest building in the McCormick Place complex, has also been the quietest in recent years, seemingly overshadowed by the convention center’s larger and flashier additions to the west.

"But as the Lakeside Center finds itself being eyeballed for possible reuse as a casino — and also needing $400 million in repairs and upgrades to remain in use as a convention center — it’s time to pay more attention to the flat-roofed, steel-and-glass building at 23rd Street and the lake, and for officials to focus on making important decisions regarding its future.

"But in response to the possibility of a casino being put there, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority issued a report about Lakeside Center last month that contained details that make it clear city and state officials should start talking about the building and its future now.

"According to the report issued by MPEA CEO Larita Clark, there are 253 events scheduled for Lakeside Center between now and 2035.

"This flies in the face of conventional thinking that Lakeside Center is hardly used — and thus expendable. Just six years ago, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration cited the alleged disuse as a reason to wreck the building in an ill-fated attempt to construct the George Lucas Museum on the site.

"In 2019, State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) tried to pass a bill authorizing the demolition of the above-ground portions of Lakeside Center for more open space; the demolition would have been paid for with a one-dollar surcharge on ridesharing fares. But the bill has gone nowhere.

"If Lakeside Center were demolished or converted into another use, Clark’s report indicated the MPEA would need a replacement building that could cost as much as $1.7 billion.

"But what about the building’s expected $400 million repair bill? MPEA says the cost includes a new roof, parking structure repairs, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing upgrades. Interior work and exterior glass replacement are also included.

"Last year, MPEA helped pay its bills by borrowing $15 million from the state. This year could be just as bad, raising the possibility that taxpayers could be on the hook for some portion of Lakeside Center’s repairs — or its demolition — unless the economy improves.

"So Chicago has a public building that can’t be ripped down or reused without having to be replaced. Not to mention the structure’s architectural significance as a high-point in modernist architecture, the city’s stock-in-trade." (Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board, 3/21/22)


Sun-Times: Thompson Center Revamp Could Boost LaSalle Street Corridor
(Chicago 7 2016, 2018, 2019 & 2020)
Rendering of Thompson Center post-renovation. Rendering Credit: Jahn Architecture
"Back in December, Gov. J.B. Pritzker executed a spin move that would have scored well in an Olympic competition for policy shifts. After months of talking down the prospects for the state-owned Thompson Center in the Loop, suggesting it was good for nothing but a teardown, he accepted a proposal to not only save the building but for the state to still own about 30% of it.

"Preservationists loved the move, as did those who, regardless of how they viewed the architecture, liked the sustainability of using what’s already there. The deal got the state out of a financial tangle. And it promises a shot in the arm for a part of the Loop that needs it — provided that Pritzker’s chosen developer, Michael Reschke, can pull off his end of the bargain.

"The Thompson Center is a critical piece of the central Loop, that part of the main business district that centers on La Salle Street, long the city’s financial hub. La Salle is full of distinguished buildings, with the street seeming to cut through cliffs of limestone and terra cotta that stop at the Chicago Board of Trade Building at Jackson Boulevard. It’s a classic urban vista.

"But it’s facing capitalism’s version of climate change. Business anchors such as BMO Harris and Bank of America are moving elsewhere downtown, drawn to high-rise views and naming rights on buildings. Financial exchanges don’t draw physical crowds of traders anymore. And some regard the office space as too outmoded for today’s needs. Sources say the vacancy rate around La Salle Street is 20% or more for both offices and retail.

"The Thompson Center, occupying the full block at La Salle, Clark, Randolph and Lake streets, threatened to deaden the area further. Pritzker’s pirouette kept it from sitting empty. Reschke, chairman of Prime Group, insists the building, costing him $70 million to buy but much more to fix up, can lead a La Salle revival.

He’s had time to analyze what he agreed to purchase. Reschke said he hopes to close on the sale with the state this summer and to start the expensive overhaul in the fall. His remarks betray no buyer’s remorse.

"'We’ve been getting a lot of interest in this building. We are very excited about its prospects,' he said last week. 'People are starting to realize the benefits of a central Loop location again,' he said. Those would include superior transit access. The building itself is the L’s hub, with six transit lines stopping there. Reschke said when businesses shop for space, “it’s really not so much about [rental] rate, believe it or not. It’s the intangibles, the transit, the air purification systems. Employers are more concerned about conveniences and amenities, anything that makes for a cool, nice environment.”

"Sometimes, all it takes is one flashy project to make an area fashionable again. People love or hate the Thompson Center, but if it powers the central Loop’s turnaround, it will have earned the right to be called a landmark." (Roeder, Chicago Sun-Times, 3/14/22)


Sun-Times Editorial: A federal case: U.S. government shouldn’t wreck two Loop skyscrapers in the name of safety
Century Building, 1915, Holabird and Roche, 202 S. State Street and the Consumers Building, 1913, Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, 220 S. State Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"The federal government has given Chicago some pretty good buildings, from the giant Art Deco Old Main Post Office — now enjoying reuse — to the superlative midcentury federal center downtown.

"So why would the U.S. General Services Administration now raise a hind leg to this legacy by wrecking the Century and Consumers buildings, two early 20th Century skyscrapers at 202 and 220 S. State Street?

"U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-IL, last month earmarked $52 million for the GSA to demolish the terra-cotta clad towers and two small buildings between them, replacing the ensemble with a safety buffer to protect the Dirksen Federal Building, which is located a block west on Dearborn Street.

"The GSA owns the buildings and has been seeking the demolition since 2019, about two years after then-U.S. District Court Chief Judge Ruben Castillo told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin his concerns that Century and Consumers sat close to the Dirksen’s eastern side.

"But is this reason enough send the towers to a landfill — when the federal center is surrounded by buildings and through-streets? The Berghoff Restaurant buildings, 17 W. Adams St., nearly touch the Dirksen’s north edge, but the GSA tells me it has no plans to come after those structures or others.

"The feds won’t create a moat around the federal center, but replacing the Century and Consumers with a 'secure and landscape[d]' site, as the GSA spokesperson says, is no good either.

"The buildings’ demolition would create an economic and pedestrian dead zone on State Street, something neither the street nor the city can afford.

"And it would be a shameful waste of some really good Chicago architecture." (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 4/3/22)



Chicago Magazine: Think TikTok is Obsessed with Goth Target? Meet Ward Miller.
Think TikTok is Obsessed with Goth Target? Meet Ward Miller. The Chicago native, architect, and executive director of Preservation Chicago on why buildings like the Sullivan Center should be protected. Photo Credit: Mary Lu Seidel / Preservation Chicago
"When Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, walks by the Sullivan Center, he can’t help but to go inside. It’s not the Target drawing him in. It’s the architecture.

"The terra cotta fortress — once the home of Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company — was designed by Louis Sullivan and built over a century ago. A Chicago school-style skyscraper, it’s one of the most quintessential of its time. And with its wrought iron ornamentation, steel frame design and sweeping glass windows, it pushed the limit on 19th century technology. Landmarked by the city in 1970, the twelve-story structure is by no means modern, but to Miller it is an enduring marvel — and his favorite Chicago building.

Why is this your favorite building?

"I started being a patron of Carson’s as a child and being very curious about that beautiful, whimsical, organic ornament that outlined the base of the store. It was so exuberant and breathtaking. When I was a teenager, the base of the building was restored by John Vinci and his firm. Vinci located a formula from the early days of Carson’s existence for painting the whole cast iron base brilliant vermillion and coating it in olive green. While the olive green was still wet, it would be wiped with newspaper so some of the red came through, giving you the effect of a bronze color.

What we see now is so bold and straightforward. The building has this black ornamental base and really unique, straightforward upper floors. The cornice was missing when I (was growing up), but now that it’s visible, you really see the original version of the building.

"The Sullivan Center has gone viral on TikTok, with users dubbing it “goth Target” for its wrought iron exterior. Do you think people are overlooking its beauty or appreciating it in a different way?

"When you use the term “goth Target,” I just start cracking up laughing. But at the end of the day, this is all wonderful stuff, because people are looking at buildings and are being very observant. They’re realizing there’s more to the structure than the store inside, in this case, a Target. “Goth” has a wide definition in our DNA, and I don’t think you would have gotten the same reaction 20 years ago.

The idea that it’s gone wild on social media is really beautiful. People are understanding that the structure is significant, that it speaks to them, and that they find it really intriguing. It almost doesn’t matter how you categorize these buildings or what you call them. I think the general feeling of the spirit is that this is a wonderful building. It shows the flexibility, vision, and the brilliance of these great architects for Chicago, and especially people like Louis Sullivan. Let’s celebrate that.

"Why is the building important to Chicago?

"I think we often forget that reinvestment in our historic buildings, especially our landmarks, is development. It brings about incredible heritage tourism. So if Chicago lost buildings like Carson, Pirie, Scott, would we be the same city? I don’t think so.

If we’d saved more of those earlier buildings, perhaps we’d be even more recognized on the world scale. It’s really important that we save these structures, tell these stories and continue to celebrate our landmarks across Chicago. This is a very special place.

"What, in particular, made the building special to you growing up?

"Around 1970, we picked up my stepmother from work and I remember getting in the car and my dad saying, “This is a wonderful day. The Carson, Pirie, Scott store became a landmark.” This idea of landmarking the building brought about a curiosity in me: There was something special about it that must be protected.

"It’s no different than looking at a work of art, where you never get tired of seeing it and it’s always a bright spot in your day. I’m always honored to walk past the Carson, Pirie Scott store and many of our Chicago landmark buildings, and I go out of my way to experience these structures because they are so incredibly beautiful. There’s never a time where they don’t shine." (Abrams, Chicago Magazine, 5/1/22)


WIN: After 25 Years Leading Chicago Architecture Center, Lynn Osmond Tapped to Run Choose Chicago
Lynn Osmond, Chicago Architecture Center CEO, tapped as head of city’s official destination marketing organization, Choose Chicago. Photo credit: Chicago Architecture Center
"Lynn Osmond, Chicago Architecture Center CEO, tapped as head of city’s official destination marketing organization

"Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and Choose Chicago announced (March 15, 2022) that Lynn Osmond has been appointed as the new CEO of Choose Chicago. Osmond, the first woman to helm the city’s tourism agency, was most recently the President & CEO at the Chicago Architecture Center.

"'Lynn Osmond’s thorough experience leading the Chicago Architecture Center will be a great asset to Choose Chicago—and we’re proud she is the first woman to take on the job,' said Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot. 'As the city continues to see a rise in tourism, Osmond’s intimate knowledge of this city will ensure that we will continue to safely encourage and delight those who come to Chicago for work or play.'

"Officials and colleagues were quick to point out the deep history Osmond has with Choose Chicago and the Chicago tourism and hospitality community. They say this means Osmond will hit the ground running.

"'I’m proud to welcome Lynn Osmond’s historic appointment at the helm of Choose Chicago as we welcome visitors from near and far back to the nation’s third largest city,' said Gov. JB Pritzker. 'Reinvigorating our tourism industry is a key component of my economic recovery plan, from investing in commercial corridors to funding tourism convention bureaus from Chicago to Carbondale. Our best resource in this work is local leaders who know the ins and outs of our state’s greatest treasures, and when it comes to the Chicago tourism and hospitality community, there’s no one better than Lynn to take the Windy City’s global reputation to new heights.'

"'We’re very grateful to have had an impressive pool of candidates who went after the position—and particularly pleased with how strongly Osmond stood out,' said Glenn Eden, Chair of the Board of Directors for Choose Chicago, and head of the CEO Search Committee. 'The search committee was very excited about her experience in leading an impressive and local organization like the Chicago Architecture Center. We are ecstatic to welcome her to the Choose Chicago team. Not only does Lynn bring deep knowledge of Chicago’s tourism and hospitality community, as a former Choose Chicago board member, Lynn also knows our organization. We are thrilled that she will be able to hit the ground running to promote our city on the national and global level.'

"I am excited to have been selected for this important position as President & CEO of Choose Chicago. This is a logical next step for me in a career with key leadership positions in nonprofits including theater, symphony orchestras, and architecture. I love Chicago and believe we have a tremendous opportunity to build back meeting business and provide audiences with experiences that will have them returning many times over,' said Osmond.

"Under Osmond’s leadership the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) grew from a $2.4-million operation in 1996, with an audience of 150,000 to a $25 million organization in 2019, with an audience of 700,000, making it one of the top cultural attractions in the city and the largest architecture center of its kind in the world. It was her vision that gave the city Open House Chicago and the Chicago Architecture Center, with the interactive city model at 111 E Wacker Drive. This past year the Chicago Architecture Center tour aboard Chicago’s First Lady was voted the #1 boat tour in North America by USA TODAY’s 10Best Readers’ Choice 2021 Awards."


WIN: Lee Bey Becomes Architecture Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times
Architecture Critic Lee Bey. Image credit: www.leebey.com
"It’s a good time to be an architecture fan in Chicago. Historian, photographer, and critic Lee Bey will have a monthly column in the Sun-Times Sunday edition beginning in April. Ever since Blair Kamin announced his resignation from the Chicago Tribune early last year, the third-largest city in the country has been without an architecture critic in a major local publication.

"The collapse of local news has been unkind to architecture critics. At their best, critics serve as voices that make design accessible and engaging. They help explain the political structures and planning policies that shape streets and neighborhoods. In the process, they have the power to shape public opinion and the future of cities. Without them, real-estate development and city planning become dangerously opaque and muddled by marketing jargon and flashy or misleading top-down narratives.

"Bey is a lifelong Chicagoan who brings to the role decades of insider knowledge about architecture from the perspective of community groups, architecture firms, and local government. He was the Sun-Times’ architecture and urban-design critic from 1996 to 2001, leaving his post to serve as deputy chief of staff for planning and design for the Richard M. Daley administration." (Budds, Curbed New York, 3/28/22)





Sun-Times Editorial: Writing a new chapter for Avalon Regal and Congress theaters
The Avalon Regal Theater, 1927, John Eberson, 1641 East 79th Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
The Avalon Regal Theater, 1927, John Eberson, 1641 East 79th Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
The Avalon Regal Theater, 1927, John Eberson, 1641 East 79th Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
The Avalon Regal Theater, 1927, John Eberson, 1641 East 79th Street. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"We applaud the city’s proposal to kick in $20 million to help fund a major restoration of Logan Square’s Congress Theater.

"But we’re also watching with interest what could be a compelling follow-up act: an effort to bring new life to the South Side’s grand, but long-dormant, Avalon Regal Theater.

"The Cook County Land Bank Authority purchased the back taxes on the 95-year-old Moorish Revival theater, 1645 E. 79th St., within the last two weeks, the Sun-Times Editorial Board has learned. The agency would own the property for the next three years while Chicago officials put together a redevelopment plan for the 2,250-seat theater.

"If successful, the redevelopment of the Congress and Avalon Regal theaters would represent a remarkable sea change in Chicago’s attitude toward its classic former movie theaters. The city built some of the nation’s finest movie theaters between 1910 and 1930 — then callously wrecked almost all of them when the venues began falling into disuse in the closing decades of the 20th Century.

"The Avalon Regal Theater, built in 1927, was designed by architect John Eberson, who gave the building Middle Eastern architectural details — inside and out — inspired by an intricate metal Persian incense burner he found in a Royal Street antique store in New Orleans’s French Quarter. The theater hosted movies and live shows before closing and being converted into a church in the 1970s.

"The theater went though a series of owners after the Gardners, the last being entrepreneur Jerald Gary, who rebranded the venue as the Avalon Regal and admirably kept the unused building in the public eye for a decade.

"Gary fought to reopen the theater while struggling with the crumbling venue’s near-monumental maintenance — but falling behind on its real estate taxes, which allowed the Cook County Land Bank Authority to seek ownership. Gary can still pay the back taxes within six months and win back ownership of the building, however. And let’s not kid ourselves: Putting the Avalon Regal back into use will be an expensive proposition.

"'The [Avalon Regal] theater is a strategic part of a broad, community-based vision to revitalize the 79th Street commercial corridor through Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s INVEST South/West initiative,' city Department of Planning Commissioner Maurice Cox said.

"When downtown theaters such as the United Artist’s, the McVickers, the Clark and others began falling in the 1970s and 1980s, the equally-doomed Chicago Theater was spared — with city help — and is a jewel of the Loop.

"The city’s few remaining neighborhood theater buildings such as the Avalon Regal, the Congress, the Ramova — not to mention North Lawndale’s Central Park, which was listed Wednesday on Preservation Chicago’s annual most-endangered buildings list — deserve the same positive ending." (Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board, 3/9/22)


South Side Weekly: The South Suburbs’s Little Known Underground Railroad; Historians and activists push to recognize the history of Underground Railroad stops and guides in the south suburbs
The former Jan and Aagje Ton Farm, which is listed in the national registry, sits on the Little Calumet directly south of the area generally referred to as Altgeld Gardens and the Golden Gate neighborhood. The actual site of the original home and outbuildings of the Ton Farm is now home to Chicago’s Finest Marina, a Black-owned motorboat marina located at 557 E. 134th Place in Chicago. Photo Credit: Collection of Larry McClellan
"The Underground Railroad was neither a railroad nor was it underground. It was a secret network led by people that included free Black and anti-slavery white people who helped escaped slaves, or freedom seekers, travel north for the promise of freedom. Along the way, they were offered shelter in secret hiding places, small amounts of money on occasion, clothing, and food.

"Many of the trails fanned across Illinois and into what is now the south suburbs of Chicago. According to Larry McClellan, a historian and retired professor who has researched and published on the subject, 'ten to fifteen percent of the activity of the Underground Railroad came through Illinois, literally through our backyard.'

"Despite the region’s significance in the Underground Railroad, Illinois is rarely included in conversations about that history. McClellan and other members of the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project are leading the way to recognize and memorialize the places and people around Chicago who played a role.

"Even though The Underground Railroad had nothing to do with an actual railroad system, railroad terminology was often used to confuse slave catchers and maintain secrecy. Terms such as stations referred to safehouses, passengers were freedom seekers, and lines were another way to indicate the roads being followed. Guides were known as conductors while trains and engines were covert references to farm wagons and teams of horses. Freedom seekers made their way into the south suburban regions of Chicago from various locations in an effort to escape bondage. According to McClellan, one known example involved the journey to freedom undertaken by Barney Ford.

"'The stories of Illinois need to be included in the national story of the Underground Railroad and currently, they are not,' McClellan said.

"McClellan, who said that he was increasingly drawn to the history of the region and particularly to places reflecting African-American settlement, wrote the book titled The Underground Railroad South of Chicago, which came out in 2019. He has been researching the subject for over thirty years. 'Along the way, I ran into references to the Underground Railroad and began to see that this has been a vital but almost forgotten part of our region’s history.'

"While the nature of the Underground Railroad was a secret, current efforts are not, and there is an attempt to identify former Underground Railroad sites and garner national recognition for them in the south suburbs. Tom Shepherd—who is the lead organizer of the Little Calumet River Underground Railroad Project—McClellan, and other members of the group are spearheading it, but similar efforts date back to 1999.

"In order to be recognized as an historic site in the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom registry, a site must be a location that has a demonstrated and verifiable association with the Underground Railroad, and applications are accepted twice a year in January and July.

"Making a case for these sites and raising public awareness has been the focal point for the group. 'We have three particular missions,' said Shepherd, 'and one is to get some type of a memorial at the Ton Farm site or nearby.' The former Jan and Aagje Ton Farm, which is listed in the national registry, sits on the Little Calumet directly south of the area generally referred to as Altgeld Gardens and the Golden Gate neighborhood. The Golden Gate neighborhood extends from 130th Street south to the Calumet River. The actual site of the original home and outbuildings of the Ton Farm is now home to Chicago’s Finest Marina, a Black-owned motorboat marina located at 557 E. 134th Place in Chicago.

"'We’re also looking at the Beaubien Woods and the forest preserve,' he said. The farm was located near the Beaubien Woods Forest Preserve and is said to have been one of the stops where freedom seekers could find shelter." (Robinson, South Side Weekly, 3/13/22)


Billdr: Researching the History of your Home in Chicago
Frederick R. Schock House, 186, Frederick R. Schock, 5804 W. Midway Park. Photo Credit: Eric Allix Rogers
"The world’s first modern skyscraper was erected in Chicago in 1885. Now, the city’s skyline shares space with an array of architectural styles from Late Modernism to Millennium Modern and the Chicago School. At the neighborhood level, it’s common to see Prairie School houses, as well as workers cottages and Chicago bungalows.

"No matter where you call home, every building has a story. 'Learning the history of your home can help you to appreciate it more deeply, helping you to place it within a larger story about Chicago,' says Max Chavez, director of research and special projects for Preservation Chicago, a not-for-profit organization committed to protecting and revitalizing Chicago’s historic architecture and urban spaces.

"Interested in learning about your Chicago home? Learn about the resources available throughout the city and online with advice from the city’s experts.

Start by gathering essential information
"'A homeowner's first step involves assembling the tools and terms they need to search their home's history,' says Chavez.

"This includes the present-day address and former addresses. Depending on the home’s age, it’s possible the street name could have been changed. If the home was built before 1909, the year Chicago city planners renumbered many streets, your home may have also had a different number. You should also note the property’s PIN number, which you can easily find on Cook County's Map Application.

Search with free local resources
"The bulk of Chicago’s urban area was constructed before 1920. Fortunately, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has digitized the microfilm rolls of the 'ancient' building permits, which are free to peruse online. The Chicago History Museum is another resource that allows visitors to view their microfilm rolls and get help from their research librarians.

"The Chicago Public Library offers a collection of historic maps that are available online and searchable by address, which means some research can be done from the comfort of your home. 'All you need is a library card,' says Emily Wallrath Schmidt, preservation program manager at the Chicago Bungalow Association, which equips homeowners with energy efficiency programs and educational resources to maintain and preserve their homes and neighborhoods.

"Wallrath Schmidt’s favorite resource is The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. 'Most neighborhoods have editions from at least the 1920s and ’50s, so you can see how your building and neighborhood changed,' she explains. 'In addition to showing the footprint of the building, because they were insurance maps concerned with flammability, they also detail building materials.'

"Another essential tool, according to Chavez, is the Chicago Historic Resources Survey. 'It is searchable by street, year of construction, architect, style, and neighborhood and can help fill in some of the gaps during research.' He also suggests looking up Chicago museums, local historical societies, and preservation organizations. 'Places like the Chicago History Museum, the Newberry Library, and the Art Institute all have extensive records and archives that can be accessed by the public,' he says.

"Newspapers.com, an online collection of decades of easily searchable newspaper scans, is another popular search tool. From construction announcements to obituaries, newspapers can provide all sorts of clues about the history associated with a certain address.

Discover stories about your neighborhood
"The beauty of learning the history of your home is discovering some of the stories connected to your home.

"'As a preservation organization, we are always helping Chicagoans who have uncovered fascinating histories and want to dig deeper,' says Chavez. One such story involves the Phyllis Wheatley Home, which was included on Preservation Chicago’s 2021 list of Most Endangered Sites in the city. 'The owner had no idea of its extensive history as a settlement for Black women during the Great Migration when she purchased it, and now it's a confirmed part of Chicago's rich Black history,' he shares.” (Karydes, Billdr, 3/3/22)


WTTW CHICAGO: The Lions and Lambs of March Are a Great Excuse to Introduce the Work of a Prolific Chicago Photographer: Deborah Mercer
The Lions and Lambs of March Are a Great Excuse to Introduce the Work of a Prolific Chicago Photographer. Photo Credit: Deborah Mercer
"A few years ago, Deborah Mercer was scrolling through the thousands of photographs she’d taken of Chicago’s architectural features and started grouping them into collages.

"Decorative lions and lambs, carved into stone and terra cotta, formed a natural grouping. You know, because of the saying, 'March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.'

"Recently, she dug up the collage and posted it to Twitter, where she’s amassed 1,100 followers, including this reporter, who’ve come to know her, in a social media kind of way, as one of the unofficial documentarians of Chicago’s urban landscape.

"No one is more surprised by that description than Mercer herself. For the retiree, it’s been an interesting, and unplanned, second act.

"Terra cotta ornaments were her gateway, and eventually led to neon signs, turrets, ComEd substations, and eventually anything that struck her as unusual.

"It’s when she challenged herself to visit neighborhoods she’d never been to that Mercer’s work began to focus almost exclusively on the South Side, a large swath of Chicago that, for most of her life, had been 'this place you just didn’t go.'

The graystones and brownstones on King Drive are among her favorites to photograph, along with 'ghost signs' on West Madison and everything in Pilsen. Lately Mercer has been venturing into Back of the Yards and Canaryville, where she finds the presence of old industrial buildings infinitely more interesting than the city’s residential areas. They’re puzzles to solve in some ways — what were they once used for, and when, and by whom?

"Remnants of the city’s manufacturing and commercial past, some of them dating to the mid-1800s, tell the story of Chicago’s working life, she said, a story that’s being written over by redevelopment.

"'That’s why the North Side is such a problem, so much new stuff is being built,' said Mercer. In West Town, she said, 'Every other building is one of those modern rectangles.'

"Mercer recalled the first time she stumbled across the Central Manufacturing District in McKinley Park, which was just named to Preservation Chicago’s 'Most Endangered' sites.

"'I thought, ‘How did I not know about this? This is amazing,' she said. 'I would hate to see all that erased.'

"The thrill of turning a corner and coming across something new, to her at least, is what keeps Mercer heading out with her camera week after week, she said. 'It’s like a treasure hunt to me.'" (Wetli, WTTW Chicago, 3/1/20)




WTTW CHICAGO: “Anything Goes” - Arts and Culture in Jane Byrne’s Chicago (3:57)
WTTW CHICAGO: “Anything Goes” - Arts and Culture in Jane Byrne’s Chicago (3:57) Image Credit: WTTW Chicago
Preservation Events & Happenings
Ward Miller Guest Lectures at University of Chicago Historic Preservation Class
Ward Miller was the "first ever historic preservation speaker in the first ever historic preservation class at the University of Chicago." On April 4, 2022, he presented 'Historic Preservation in Chicago; Creative Solutions for Endangered Buildings' as part of the The Historic Preservation Studio Chicago Studies Urbanism Lab at the University of Chicago. Photo Credit: E. Talen
"Ward Miller was the "first ever historic preservation speaker in the first ever historic preservation class at the University of Chicago." On April 4, 2022, he presented an insightful, fast-paced, information-packed lecture and presentation titled 'Historic Preservation in Chicago; Creative Solutions for Endangered Buildings.' The course is taught by Emily Talen, Professor of Urbanism. The Historic Preservation Studio is part of the Chicago Studies Urbanism Lab at the University of Chicago. The following email of appreciation is shared with permission.

"Dear Ward, 
 
"I want to thank you again for taking the time to talk to my students as your brilliant lecture was so inspiring and upbeat, despite the setbacks you also related. I know the students absolutely loved and appreciated the deep dive into Chicago’s historic preservation journey, as did I. Consider us all huge fans of Preservation Chicago! 
 
"Thanks so much!
 
"Emily
 
"Emily Talen | Professor of Urbanism"
Pullman National Monument Presents
National Park Week 2022
April 16 to 24, 2022
Exploring the 'Houses of Tomorrow: Solar Homes from Keck to Today’ Image credit: Schweikher House
Pullman National Monument Presents National Park Week 2022. April 16th to 24th. All events hosted at 610 E. 111th Street, Chicago, IL 60628.

Yoga at Pullman, Saturday, April 16th @ 10 AM - 11AM

Create a Pullman Haiku, Sunday, April 17th @ 9 AM - 5 PM

Coffee with the Superintendents, Monday, April 18th @ 10 AM - 11 AM

Accessibility Scavenger Hunt, Tuesday, April 19th @ 9 AM – 5 PM

How to Become a Ranger, Wednesday, April 20th @ 9 AM – 5PM

“Dig” for Pullman Archaeology, Thursday, April 21st @ 9AM – 5PM

Earth Day Seed Giveaway, Friday, April 22nd @ 9 AM – 5PM

Annual Spring Clean Up, Saturday, April 23rd @ 9 AM – 1 PM

Fireside Stories & Jazz, Sunday, April 24th @ 6 PM – 7:30 PM

Historic Pullman Foundation Presents
Bon French's in-depth and personal exploration of RAILROADERS: Jack Delano's Homefront Photography
May 15, 2022
WATCH Trailer for "Drawn to Combat: Bill Mauldin & the Art of War"
As part of the Pullman Railroad Days event and the 2022 Speaker Series, Historic Pullman Foundation is excited to share this riveting presentation by Bon French, patron saint of the exhibit, about the people featured in RAILROADERS: Jack Delano's Homefront Photography.

Become a Member of Historic Pullman Foundation to attend Bon French's Speaker Series event for free, and receive a 10% discount on Pullman Railroad Days tickets. Plus, you’ll receive exclusive access to HPF events, news, and more all year long.

Those who purchased tickets to Pullman Railroad Days 2022 can attend the talk for free. Seating is limited. Reserve your spot today.

Sun, May 15, 2022

4:00 PM – 6:00 PM CDT

Greenstone Church, 11211 South Saint Lawrence Avenue

$10


Film & Books
Uptown: Portrait of a Palace
A Documentary by John Pappas and Michael Bisberg
Uptown: Portrait of a Palace (2006) by John Pappas and Michael Bisberg (25:58 min)
"What happens when a building slips through a crack in time? Leftover from an extinct era and useless in modern society, the Uptown Theatre has done just that. Closed in 1981, the 85-year old movie palace has sat in decay on Chicago's North Side. This film explores the history of the Uptown and why the biggest and arguably most elaborate movie theatre in the country has been left vacant for almost thirty years. Is the Uptown a stoic remnant of the long-forgotten past, or is it, as Rapp & Rapp remarked when they built it, a theatre 'not for today, but for all time'?"

Lost Chicago Department Stores
by Leslie Goddard
Lost Chicago Department Stores by Leslie Goddard. Image Credit: Lost Chicago Department Stores
"For decades, Chicago was home to some of America’s grandest department stores. Clustered along a mile-long stretch of State Street, stores like Marshall Field’s; Carson, Pirie, Scott; Sears; Wieboldt’s; Montgomery Ward’s; and Goldblatt’s set new standards for retail innovation, customer service and visual display. Generations of Chicagoans trekked to these stores for holiday shopping, celebrations, and fun.

"Within thirty years of the Great Chicago Fire, the revitalized city was boasting some of America's grandest department stores. The retail corridor on State Street was a crowded canyon of innovation and inventory where you could buy anything from a paper clip to an airplane. Revisit a time when a trip downtown meant dressing up for lunch at Marshall Field's Walnut Room, strolling the aisles of Sears for Craftsman tools or redeeming S&H Green Stamps at Wieboldt's. Whether your family favored The Fair, Carson Pirie Scott, Montgomery Ward or Goldblatt's, you were guaranteed stunning architectural design, attentive customer service and eye-popping holiday window displays. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, advertisements, catalogue images and postcards, Leslie Goddard's narrative brings to life the Windy City's fabulous retail past."

"In this illustrated lecture, historian and author Leslie Goddard, Ph.D., revisits Chicago’s fabulous retail emporiums and explores their rise and fall."

176 pages, 95 color plates
$21.99.00 paper

Schiller/Garrick Theatre Visualization as part of Romanticism to Ruin, the Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright by Wrightwood 659
Schiller/Garrick Theatre Visualization. (16:25 Minutes) Image credit: Wrightwood 659
"Wrightwood 659 is pleased to announce the virtual release the Schiller/Garrick Theatre Visualization which premiered at Wrightwood 659 as a key element of the exhibition Romanticism to Ruin, the Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright. Working under the guidance of John Vinci and Angela Demma, with new drawings by Vinci along with reference photos, drawings and sketches from the Richard Nickel collection as well as insights into coloration discovered during the preparation of this exhibition, Bangladeshi architectural animator Razin Khan spent the better part of a year 'rebuilding' the Garrick as a virtual 3D model, providing the most overwhelming approximation of the experience of the structure to date. Khan’s spectacular animation allows viewers to relive one of Louis Sullivan’s most spectacular works."


Architecture with Stewart: The Simple Idea by Mies van der Rohe that Changed Chicago
Architecture with Stewart: The Simple Idea by Mies van der Rohe that Changed Chicago. (13:29 Minutes) Image Credit: Architecture with Stewart
"In Chicago, black or silver colored towers designed by Mies van der Rohe are sprinkled across the city from the north to the south. They all sprang up within a relatively short period of time and constitute — in combination with some faithful homages — what’s called the Second Chicago School of Architecture. This timeline makes it seem like Mies' strategies sprang out of nowhere and like they were born already fully developed. This video takes a look at how these tower strategies evolved from smaller projects to larger ones by paying special attention to their section. Whereas open plans promise ultimate fluidity, in section, Mies' buildings present another idea entirely. In this direction, difference and discretion dominate and symmetry rules. All of this is in service of developing a close connection between the occupant and the distant horizon.

__Chapters__
  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 01:16 Altas VPN Sponsorship
  • 02:20 Farnsworth House
  • 02:52 Friedrichstrasse Tower Competition
  • 05:09 Barcelona Pavilion
  • 08:21 Tugendaht House
  • 09:43 Crown Hall
  • 11:12 860 - 880 Lakeshore Drive


Starship Chicago: Thompson Center
A Film by Nathan Eddy
(Chicago 7 2016, 2018, 2019 & 2020)
Starship Chicago: A Film by Nathan Eddy (15:50 Minutes) Image Credit: Starship Chicago
"Architect Helmut Jahn’s kaleidoscopic, controversial State of Illinois Center in Chicago, which shocked the world when it opened in 1985, may not be long for this world. Today the building is a run down rusty shadow of its former self, occupying a lucrative downtown block and deemed expendable by the cash-strapped state legislature.

"Despite initial construction flaws and hefty refurbishment costs, this singular architectural vision of an open, accessible, and inspiring civic building—defined by its iconic, soaring atrium--remains intact. Four years after the stinging loss of brutalist icon Prentice Women’s Hospital, Chicago preservationists, along with the building’s original champion, Governor James R. Thompson, are gearing up for a major battle to save the city’s most provocative architectural statement."

Includes interviews with:
  • Lynn Becker, Archtecture Critic
  • Tim Samuelson, Cultural Historian, City of Chicago
  • Chris-AnnMarie Spencer, Project Architect, Wheeler Kearns Architects
  • Bonnie McDonald, President, Landmarks Illinois
  • Blair Kamin, Architecture Critic, Chicago Tribune
  • Helmut Jahn, Architect
  • Greg Hinz, Polticial Writer, Crain's Chicago Business
  • James R. Thompson, Governor of Illinois, 1977-1991
  • Stanley Tigerman, Principal, Tigerman McCurry Architects


At Home In Chicago; A Living History of Domestic Architecture by Patrick F. Cannon and photos by James Caulfield
At Home In Chicago; A Living History of Domestic Architecture by Patrick F. Cannon and photos by James Caulfield. Image credit: At Home In Chicago
"At Home In Chicago; A Living History of Domestic Architecture by Patrick F. Cannon and photos by James Caulfield

"Imagine a book that takes you into more than fifty of Chicago’s most striking homes. No need to knock or ring. Here’s your chance to take a slow ramble through lavish dining rooms, working kitchens, private bedrooms, and cozy patios of homes that reveal the city’s 184-year history.

"You’ll be accompanied by an experienced docent. And you’ll join Chicago’s preeminent architectural photographer, who will show you things you might never notice.

"Open your eyes and take in At Home in Chicago: A Living History of the Domestic Architecture, the first comprehensive look at the city’s most private residences. You’ve probably heard of some of these places: Frank Lloyd Wright’s sleek Robie House, Mies van der Rohe’s groundbreaking 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, Jeanne Gang’s sublime Aqua Tower. But most are off limits from Chicago’s famous architectural tours.

"At Home in Chicago is the sixth book by Patrick F. Cannon and James Caulfield. Now they focus on Chicago’s domestic architecture: the log cabins, cottages and bungalows, greystones, three-flats and mansions. The houses that made Chicago.

"The authors travel across the metropolitan region to present an eye-opening look at the city’s 200-year history through different home styles. They inspect houses built before the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, walk through the mansions that rose during the Gilded Age, check out the apartments finished before the Depression, and scrutinize mid-century and new-century homes.

"At Home in Chicago tells an astonishing story about Chicago. It reveals the city’s history through a chronological procession of dwellings―both big and small. These homes show how we lived and how we continue to live in the place we call home."

SUPPORT PRESERVATION CHICAGO
Support Preservation in Chicago
by Supporting Preservation Chicago!
Every Donation Counts.
Chicago Town and Tennis Club / Unity Church, built 1924, George W. Maher & Son, 1925 W. Thome Avenue, Demolished June 2020. Photo Credit: Joe Ward / Block Club Chicago

 
 
  • Be Heard! Attend community meetings and make your voice heard!
 
THANK YOU from your friends at Preservation Chicago!
Preservation Chicago is committed to strengthening the vibrancy of Chicago’s economy and quality of life by championing our historic built environment.

Preservation Chicago protects and revitalizes Chicago’s irreplaceable architecture, neighborhoods and urban green spaces. We influence stakeholders toward creative reuse and preservation through advocacy, outreach, education, and partnership.


Your financial support allows Preservation Chicago to advocate every day to protect historic buildings throughout Chicago. For a small non-profit, every dollar counts. Preservation Chicago is a 501(c)(3) non-profit so your donation is tax-deductible as permitted by law. Donating is fast, easy and directly helps the efforts to protect Chicago’s historic legacy.

For larger donors wishing to support Preservation Chicago or to make a donation of stock, please contact Ward Miller regarding the Preservation Circle details and a schedule of events at wmiller@preservationchicago.org or 312-443-1000.