A Lotta Terra Cotta

It was a random comment by a friend that made me realize concretely something that I was already dimly aware of: Andersonville is just loaded with great terra cotta. It is terra cottalectible. Terra cottalicious. It's terrificotta. It's terra cottacular. It's the place to go when you gotta terra cotta.










The king and queen of Clark Street are this pair, the former Swedish American Bank Building on the left, and the ex-Calo Theater at right.











That last pic there is one of two mostly-nude maiden bedecking the Calo Theater facade. Their rather decadent leers take on a whole new meaning with Andersonville's ascendancy as a popular gay and lesbian destination.

There's no shortage of lush ornament and no end to the variety of styles. Beaux Arts reigns, but Sullivanesque, Deco, and Classical are all represented.









If you're willing to stretch the definition of Andersonville a bit, you can pick up still more impressive buildings. Most people probably consider the neighborhood to end somewhere around Foster, but in architectural terms it essentially runs all the way down to Montrose, the continuity bolstered by several large and beautiful buildings.









And remember our Egyptian car repair friend? He's located in this neighborhood too!



Small wonder that Andersonville is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Egypt comes to Chicago

Pure Egyptian Revival was briefly all the rage in the early 1920s in the wake of various archeological expeditions, and any American city worth its architectural salt has a few examples scattered about. In Chicago, we have two outstanding examples in the northern neighborhoods.



The first is in Uptown, at 4015 N. Sheridan north of Irving Park, and is currently home to Nick's Uptown. It was built in 1920 as the Marmon Hupmobile Showroom, and designed by architect Paul Gerhardt.






The second and more prominent is a fireproof store warehouse on Clark, the Reebie Storage and Moving Company. It's a beauty, festooned with stylized decoration, including virtually the same "winged" design as the Uptown bar.



Much like the fireproof warehouse up near Howard Street, this one is basically just a huge brick box, with applied decoration on the front. But oh, what decoration it is!

Gotta face the face

A mini-theme: three buildings with human faces as a prominent decorative element. The first is on Clark Street in Andersonville:







This is 5006 N. Clark, originally the Fred Heyden branch of the Chicago Motor Car Company circa 1916; today the New Clark Auto Repair and Body Shop.


Much further down the road, a heavily Deco-styled face on Clark Street in Lakeview:




Back up the road - Devon at Clark - a more traditional face, on the Assyrian American Association, 1618 W. Devon. Originally this was the New Devon Theater, built in 1912, playing "Photoplays" in 1915, and converted to a car dealership by 1923.






If you were wondering about the secondary decorations on that first building, it's a winged wheel, a common element in the 1920s:



Same idea, different style, on Halsted Street:

Storefront losses

It's not hard to walk the commercial streets of Chicago and find recently vacant storefronts, their former occupants victims of the Great Recession. The economy of the last few years has claimed several local and personal favorites. The little watch shop and jeweler that once operated out of the ground floor of this Lincoln Square flatiron, for example, disappeared in 2009.






Around the corner, the long-standing Meyer Delicatessen vanished in 2008, along with its two fantastic neon signs.





This story has a happy ending, though. The space has been completely remodeled by a boutique grocer, adding a second story and a handsome new facade.



And inside, the mounted sign has returned, now hanging proudly at the head of a new staircase. I nearly did a backflip when I saw it - it's a wonderful repurposing of a wonderful bit of neon.



My only complaint is that the store's deli is actually to the left. And downstairs.


Perhaps my favorite back-lit plastic sign disappeared with the closing of the Rogers Park outlet of the Dulcelandia Mexican candy store, a local chain.




The most architecturally alarming loss is Erickson Jewelers. This Andersonville storefront features a sleek black Vitrolite facade, elegantly engraved with the company's name and signature product, combined with a delightful neon sign and clock advertising Omega Watches. Dating from the 1940s, the renovation that created this sleek commercial space is sufficiently obscure that not even the AIA Guide can identify an architect or exact date.




Occupied - 2007


Vacant - 2010



In business since at least 1924, Erickson Jeweler was still open in 2007, but closed by the end of 2009. Much to my regret, I never photographed the neon sign while it was in operation, and it would take an unusually enlightened and daring tenant to leave the business-specific facade intact.

Fine Arts Building Annex coming down

The lovely thin little building attached to the back of the Fine Arts Building is being demolished. Already mostly gone is the dull skyscraper that stood alongside it.


December 2006


April 2010

Dumb. Wasteful. Unlikely to be an improvement in the short or long run. Most unfortunate.

The thick metal framing in front of the Annex indicates an intent to either disassemble the facade for later reconstruction, or else preserve it in place while a new structure goes up behind it. Either way, it's the dreaded facadectomy, and is likely to lose the impact of this tall, thin facade with an incredibly long, thin building behind it. Nor will it preserve the old tiki restaurant sign painted on the side walls.

* Link: Landmarks Illinois lists the building in its Chicagoland watch list, 2008.

St. Joseph Ukrainian Catholic Church

It's been my experience that the Eastern branches and populations of Christianity (Greek Orthodox, Ukrainian, Russian) really don't care much what the outside of the church looks like - they're sticking with traditional styles on the inside, no matter how bizarre the resulting contrasts may be.

And so it is with St. Joseph Ukrainian Catholic (1975, architect Zenon Mazurkevych), another one of those churches that seems like an alien spaceship that landed from another world. Even though it is surrounded by MidCentury houses and flats, their conservative style does nothing to prepare you for this rocketship of a building.



On the outside, it's almost entirely concrete and glass. A large central dome is surrounded by a dozen reflective glass tube towers, each structured in tiered concrete and topped with a smaller gold dome, representing Jesus and his disciples. The only ornament consists of small crosses atop each dome.

Inside, however, it's a completely different story.





Ornate and rich, the traditionally styled artwork is impressive in its complexity, but it simply doesn't work with the barebones nature of the building. It doesn't even try.

There's no hiding the modern structure of the space, of course, but the iconography sure as heck tries!



Turn away from the center, and a few bits of Modern style reveal themselves, undiluted by the traditional artwork. The only contemporary decoration is the lamps in the tower, and they have not been maintained, as many of the globes are broken and missing.





It seems like a surprisingly simple space, but in truth that's a result of the clashing art styles. In a properly decorated building, art and architecture merge into one entity. Here, however, the art exists separately from, and in opposition to, the building that contains it. Neither enhances the other, leaving both feeling incomplete and lacking.





It's a bit baffling why a congregation would choose such a space age building design, then do a complete about-face on the interior. It's a disappointment, as the exterior is truly mind-blowing. And there are plenty of churches where the artwork would be a beautiful enhancement of the interior volumes - but this is not one of them.