dmercer.bsky.social

Working on a drawing

Red terra cotta decoration on a red brick building. In the center is a terra cotta ring with the face of a young boy, possibly African American, memorialized inside it. Around him are terra cotta leaves and branches. Bordering all of this at top and bottom are rows of square terra cotta tiles with a flower on each one.

Red brick two-story residence. It has a flat roof and many places where the brick has been patched, probably due to the removal of an oriel window that was once there and to put in replacement windows. There is a rough stone arch over the entryway. There are two unglazed red terra cotta panels on the top of the building. One is the one from the previous photo. The other is larger and includes only flowers and foliage. There is a smaller, similar panel above the entryway arch.

July 11 1890 Chicago, Tribune: "E. A. Fitcomb, two-story and cellar dwelling at No. 1378 Millard avenue, to cost $3,500." 1378 is the pre-1909 address for 2801.

For sale ad from December 1890: "FOR SALE-GREAT BARGAIN. New 2-story pressed brick 8-room house, with oriel bay window, colored class, concrete basement, furnace, laundry tubs, oak staircase, oak buffet, four mantels, reception hall with mantel, porcelain bath-tub, electric gas lighting fixtures, bells, and burglar alarms: woodwork finished in oak, mahogany, walnut, cherry, and natural Georgia pine." $5,500. price 55,500, including house, barn, and su-foot lot, No. 1318 Mlllard-av., corner 28th-st. Apply to owner, 383 West Madison-st.

I've wondered about this little boy for a while now because he doesn't look white, which seems very unusual for a 19th century building in Chicago. I wish I knew his story. 2801 S. Millard, Chicago. The building was built in 1890.

🙄

Drooping white flowers, dripping with raindrops, on spring green stems

Our neighbors' snow drops

Obama: Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day we’re told by those in high office to fear each other. Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated, and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.

😡 It is wrong.

It’s ugly no matter what.

Haha! Yes!

I call them tumors!!!

😀

Photos of 12 ghost signs painted on brick buildings in Chicago. From top left, l to r: Wizard Oil, Kroll Krib, Val Blatz, Gold Medal Flour, Climax Plug Tobacco, Grocery and Market, Fox Deluxe Beer, Furniture, Gossard Corsets, King Beer, Debbie's School of Beauty Culture, Stern Clothing

A ghost sign collage from a while ago. Not sure how many of these still exist. All in Chicago (I think).

🤓 Nerds gotta do what nerds gotta do.

thank you!

1886 map of Chicago showing the corner of Ashland and Jackson. There is a row of five brick buildings with stone/concrete facades set back from the street at the northwest corner.

I saw the 1892 date in the building permits, but I also found this on the 1886 map.

Three attached 1.5-story brick cottages with gable roofs. The one at right has light brown brick, a dilapidated front porch, and boarded up windows and door. The center house is yellow brick with a small front porch. Both of these have a diamond pattern of lighter brick on each side of the second floor window. The one at left has been "fixed up," i.e, ruined, by covering it with large black squares of unknown material separated by thin white lines. The original double window in the gable has been replaced by a smaller one with no interesting features. To the right of the entrance is a closed-in section fitted with dark windows with black trim. It looks like crap.

The same three cottages a few years ago. The two at center and right are the same as in the previous photo. The one at left is pinkish brick with the entrance on the left and the closed-in section fitted nice multi-paned white-trimmed windows with transoms. On the second floor is the same diamond pattern that is on its two neighbors.

It doesn't take much to set me off these days so this has me fuming. Look at what they did to this c. 1890 cottage at 5168 S. Wabash! 🤬😱🤯

My thought exactly!

Two-story store front plus apartment built of Chicago common brick. It has a flat roof with some simple brick dentiling along the top. Three windows in the second story have arched stone window hoods with trapezoidal keystones. The first floor has two tall windows, a main entrance, and a side entrance on the right. The windows have plain stone sills.There are "for sale" signs in the windows and plastered on the building.

1896 clipping from The Chicago Chronicle: "John D. Peckham. . .attended a grand opening in a saloon at 867 South Halsted. . .and fell asleep during the festivities. When he awoke he was short $480. C.E. Fourney and David Johnson, proprietor and bartender, were arrested. . ."

#FormerTavernFriday 2210 S. Halsted, formerly 867, Chicago. I could be wrong, but this building may have been standing there since at least 1872, when there was a millinery shop there. In 1880 it was a boiler shop, then a barbershop, and in 1896, a saloon.

Clipping from May 5, 1946, Chicago Tribune titled "Downtown Amusement Project." It is a rendering of a sleek design by Edward H Nordlie company for the Stork Club, to cost $1,500,000 and to be built on the site of the former Cort Theater at 126-132 N. Dearborn. The drawing shows a towering blade sign with STORK CLUB in large thin letters running from top to bottom.

Nordlie designed this building in 1946 to be built at 126-132 N. Dearborn. I'm assuming it never got built because if it did and this in the first I'm learning about it, shame on me!

Google screen shot of a one story brick building with terra cotta facade showing how it is attached at the rear to a two-story stone front Italianate apartment building.

It's physically attached to the big 1880s building behind it, which seems weird.

Cafe Penelope from the 1980s to early 2000s. I did a Tribune search. I remember the cafe although I don't know if I ever ate there. Looks like it was a greasy spoon in the 1950s and 1960s. However, appropriate for #FormerTavernFriday, it was a bar in the early 1940s!

Thanks!

Two-story-plus-dormer brick residence with a rough stone facade on the first floor and yellow brick with stone trim on the second. The entrance is on the right under a flat-roofed portico. Could be a mansard roof or maybe a flat roof with a false parapet A gabled dormer decorated with carved wooden gingerbread sits above a wide second floor window. Under that window is a row of stone disks (I guess) that kind of look like someone stuck pierogi there.

1914 map showing four brick dwellings attached to each other at the rear by three-story frame structures.

Aerial shot showing the same buildings, still attached.

2121 W. Concord Place, Chicago. This is one of four houses on this street (formerly Alice Place) that are (is?) connected to each other at the rear by 3-story structures. So odd. Also, what would you call that strange decoration under the second-floor window?

I still feel that you might not smell that good.

One-story brick building with a beautiful terra cotta facade of large white tiles, light pink zigzags and stripes, and gold flowers and foliage--all very Art Deco.

B.A. (before awning)

She deserved it.

Thanks!

It’s the Shield of America!