Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Today I chatted with Eric of Urban Remains. He's the person who has the rights to the demo of the Nortown. By now it should be clear to everyone how I feel about the tear down of this building - I hate it on so many levels. But it's a done deal now, and it's not Eric's fault.

Eric is taking a very archaeological approach to the demolition. He's interested in the lives of the men who built the buildings and their construction techniques and is learning about this via items he's finding in the walls.

He has graciously agreed to put together a package of Nortown fragments and other odds and ends that have been discovered during the demolition for the the Rogers Park / West Ridge Historical Society.

With an advanced degree in molecular biology, he has an appreciation for education and is working on putting together seminars that will be held at Urban Remains. Stay tuned for more information on that.

I'll be looking forward to talking with Eric again to get his input for a story about the Nortown in the Preservation Chicago fall newsletter. He's a cool guy.

2 comments:

karen T said...

I am very happy to hear that the Historical Society will be having this on display and keeping these happy memories. However I am concerned that when I had history of some of the local schools (from the (30 and40s) as well as more recent community information-- I was told that the society just had no room.

Admin said...

I am glad to see saved what could be be saved, I have a plaster piece from the interior, a bit crumbly and not really very sophisticated, but very lovely.

The orignal terra cotta Art Deco panels, (two having faces on them one just the design) on the theater facade caught my eye months ago, these were almost 31" wide and 20" high, as well as about 6" thick, and that's HEAVY.

I was thinking of looking into buying one for my personal collection, but as a sculptor who specializes in re-creating Victorian and Art Deco elements, I decided to sculpt reduced sized models of the 3 panels myself from photos.

These would be a more apartment/home friendly size of around 21-1/2″ by 14-1/4″ which is a practical size to display on today’s modern sheetrock walls.
Hopefully these attractive designs will now live-on another way and be readily available to anyone for wall or garden decorating.

I expect to be starting on the first one in one week, my blog will show the model's progress as the work begins and each is completed.

Randall

Randall's Lost New York City.
Sculpture studio and web gallery of historic lost NYC buildings and ornaments.
Lost NYC blog