Chicago 7
Preservation Chicago released its “Chicago 7” list of endangered Chicago landmarks on Monday, and one of them was very close to my heart – the “old-fashioned” wood window. I have often spoken about the virtues of old wood windows – made of stronger, straighter, better insulating wood, and how with a little caulk and a storm window they can outperform any vinyl replacement unit. You can scroll back through the old blogs – in November I reglazed one of my windows in my 110-year old house and marveled at a project that cost a couple hours and $20, versus the hundreds it would have cost if I broke a “modern” replacement window. I even had an installation in the “Department Store” with Felicity Rich this past fall featuring old wood windows surrounded by the barrage of advertising that has made replacement windows a force to be reckoned with in the last decade. The bottom line? People replace their windows because of the advertising, not because of any value in the new windows – or any failure of the old.
End of the year roundup
from deep in the thickness of the holidays, a time when we celebrate traditions that seem to be really old but really aren’t, some reflections on the current state of preservation in Chicago and elsewhere….
Al Capone’s house – there was a lengthy article on the Al Capone house, a modest c. 1915 red brick flat building in Park Manor on the South Side. When this was proposed for the National Register back in 1989, I remember all hell broke loose thanks to a collection of Italian-American organizations objecting to giving the mobster any honor. Of course, landmark designation is not “honoring,” otherwise we wouldn’t landmark things like the Vesey Street staircase or Manzanar, but the media sweatfest was enough to torpedo the designation. Now, the owner of the house since 1963 is selling it, so the Capone history has come back in the form of a big article in the paper and a $50,000 boost on the sales price. People are always in favor of preservation when it pays off – the trick is seeing the payoff when it is still in the distance.
Barack Obama got elected, so we may get the 2016 Olympics, which means the Olmsted landscape in Washington Park will be affected. Keep an eye on this one.
Institutions – especially schools, hospitals and churches – are sometimes more likely to cause demolition of valuable historic resources than private developers. A classic example is the move of Children’s Memorial Hospital from Lincoln Park to Streeterville. The move not only threatens the buildings they are leaving – serviceable and urbane but not spectacular – but also the neighborhood they are moving to. Turns out Ronald McDonald House has to move with them, putting a landmark up for sale in Lincoln Park and potentially leading to the demolition of two buildings on the near north side. First, they are planning on building a new Ronald McDonald House by demolishing a nice 1887 warehouse – again serviceable and urbane but not spectacular. (See September 4 2008 blog) Second, they are NOT re-using Prentice Women’s Hospital, one of Bertrand Goldberg’s great buildings. This would have been a natural. I guess that would require a contemporary high-definition widescreen preservation vision. Too much to ask?