Gabriel X. Michael

[g-x-m]

[g-x-m]

209 West Lake Street, built 1872 - 1874

I've been checking on this building since its late August appearance on the city's delay list for demolition but it's now imminent for this post-Fire building. Plans are to replace it and the parking garage to the west with a 33-story apartment tower. The building is identified for historic significance in the Historic Resources Survey, but the delay review period elapsed and a permit was issued to demolish. Plans for this site include a 33-story apartment tower.

It is one of about 15 extant Loop buildings erected immediately following the Great Chicago Fire. But a third of those, including 209 West Lake, have not been protected by city landmark ordinance. It's estimated this building dates to 1872-1874, supported by the presence of tiered window hoods detailing an Italianate limestone facade.

[g-x-m]

Couch Place, demolition of 215 West Lake Street

The parking garage at 215 West Lake Street is under demolition, after closing for business on September 30th. 

The building at the far right is 209 West Lake Street, rated as historically significant (orange-rated) and recently released from the 90-day demolition delay hold. It is significant as one of about a 15 post-Fire Loop buildings--erected in the years after the Great Chicago Fire to recreate the downtown area.

Plans for redevelopment of this site include a 33-story apartment tower. 

[g-x-m]

Near West 13th Street and South Oakley Avenue, Illinois Medical District

[g-x-m]

Lake Street at Oakley Boulevard: 1935 / 2015

In the top photo from the UIC Digital Collection, you see the demolished Oakley station on the CTA Lake Street elevated rail and many 19th-Century storefronts that served this former heavily residential neighborhood. Today, none of the buildings remain, and the area is completely industrial, except for the Westhaven Park residences that replaced the Horner Homes public housing project in the early 2000s.

[g-x-m]

3 Years Ago Today: photographs I made at the 2012 NATO Summit protests in downtown Chicago. Chicago Police Department Superintendent Garry McCarthy is seen in the first and last photographs.

[g-x-m]

street art, 1400 block of South Wood Street, Illinois Medical District

[g-x-m]

West Lake Street at North Oakley Avenue, Near West Side

[g-x-m]

Workers Cottage style buildings and Italianate incised designs have been on my mind a lot recently. The Workers Cottage was designed to provide an elegant, efficient & replicable, and therefore low-cost, single family home for Chicago’s emerging working class in the 1870s-1880s. The stone incisions decorating window hoods and doorways are a classic Italianate motif, depicted in geometric, floral and abstract designs. There is a sense of romantic mystery to these patterns, unintelligible and viscerally appealing at the same time. These photos were taken over the past week in East Garfield Park.

[g-x-m]

824 South California Avenue, built 1894, former Wm. Ruehl’s Hall, East Garfield Park

[g-x-m]

3860 West Washington Boulevard, built 1889, West Garfield Park

[g-x-m]

operational safety signage in former Brach's Candy Factory, 2010-2012, part three

[g-x-m]

operational safety signage in former Brach's Candy Factory, 2010-2012, part two

[g-x-m]

operational safety signage in former Brach's Candy Factory, 2010-2012, part one

[g-x-m]

700 block of West 47th Street, Back of The Yards

[g-x-m]

rail embankment wall, 2500 West Warren Boulevard, Near West Side

[g-x-m]

824 South California Avenue, former Wm. Ruehl's Hall, built 1894

(January 2014, May 2014, July 2014, December 2014)