At noon on Wednesday, February 28, Preservation Chicago released its annual Chicago 7 list of most endangered buildings. Each year for the past 15 years, the local historic preservation advocacy organization has used this list to draw the public’s attention to threatened elements of Chicago’s built environment. Whether they face specific and urgent threats, or longer-term and more diffuse ones, failing to preserve these places would erase important parts of Chicago’s history and harm the distinctive and celebrated built environment of the city.

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Every inch of Chicago’s lakefront has been shaped by human hands. Transforming a swampy scrub into terrain suitable for a major metropolis is no small project, and the contours of the shore have been aggressively adjusted to make space. Continue reading »

Very few vintage row homes persist in the condo canyons of River North, but this holdout from 1888 at 154 W. Superior will get a new lease on life. A stubborn owner stood his ground while the world changed around him, but passed away in 2015. Despite being marketed as a redevelopment opportunity, the purchaser of the house will gut-rehab it for use as offices – preserving one of the neighborhood’s last links to its early history.

Not many houses were built in Chicago, or anywhere in the US, in the 1930s and 1940s. Between the Great Depression and the Second World War, resources were scarce and most families could not afford to build new. This house at 6025 N. Leader in the leafy South Edgebrook part of the Forest Glen community area, is a rare exception. Tax data puts the year of completion as 1942, but the City’s Historic Resources Survey indicates that it may have been constructed in the 1930s. It was designed by architect J.G. Steinbach, who also penned a number of Tudor Revival châteaux in the same area. But this house is unmistakably Art Deco, with clean lines and planes, minimal ornamentation, and some seriously sexy curves. Just check out the railings flanking the front door!

This photo was taken in April 2009.