Categories
Chicago Documentation Louis Sullivan People Salvage

Richard Nickel’s Chicago: A Review

by Michael R. Allen

This article first appeared in the Winter 2007 issue of the NewsLetter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Missouri Valley Chapter.

David Norris, friend of photographer, salvager and historian Richard Nickel, once said that “I think what Richard had to teach was that if you find some way to express your deepest convictions, you should exercise that talent to the very utmost of your ability. . .even if it leads somehow to your destruction.” Nickel died in 1972 while rescuing interior ornament from Louis Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange building, then under demolition. The attitude toward life’s work that Norris summarizes is readily apparent in the vivid, arresting images in Richard Nickel’s Chicago: Photographs of a Lost City, published at the end of 2006. The book amasses many of Nickel’s images of condemned Louis Sullivan buildings, as well as his glimpses into other long-gone parts of Chicago: Chicagoans enjoying the carnival at Riverview Park; a Loop landscape prior to the Congress Expressway; downtown offices with stenciled lettering on frosted glass doors; youth making a strong show of protest at Grant Park in 1968; other hallmarks of a vibrant urban culture in which the built environment is both backdrop for human action and a pivotal character.

Richard Nickel’s body of work is the result of chance. After serving in the Army immediately after World War II, Nickel was seeking a mission in life and use of the free tuition the GI Bill offered. Newly-divorced, the young man happened upon photography classes at the Institute of Design, founded and directed by Bauhaus transplant László Moholy-Nagy. There his primary instructors were noted photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Siskind taught a class in which he assigned his students to photograph the surviving buildings of Louis Sullivan. Because he was draft-exempt, Nickel was put in charge of the students’ efforts and an exhibition held at the Institute in 1954. No matter; the young photographer had enthusiastically taken up his assignment, and took steps that made the study of Sullivan’s architecture his life’s work. Under Siskind’s direction, Nickel embarked upon a still-incomplete book entitled The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan. After completing his courses, Nickel continued the book project but began to get sidetracked. Chicago seemed to be disappearing around him, and Nickel responded by documenting doomed buildings (Sullivan’s and others’) through drawing floor plans and taking photographs and then, when demolition was certain, salvaging ornament.

Most of the images in Richard Nickel’s Chicago were never printed in Nickel’s lifetime, making the book a remarkable document. Nickel took some 11,000 photographs in his life, but mostly made contact sheets unless a client was willing to pay for development. Even more remarkable than the book is the way in which Nickel was able to capture so carefully each scene without ever seeing a large print. Somehow Nickel was able to deftly find the drama in the still life of many architectural scenes, and carefully transmit the sorrowful scenes he witnessed directly. Those images are his best known, although most in the book are new to even his admirers. Less known are Nickel’s gentle shots of people at festivals, expressing the glee, anger or longing in what seem to be private moments between subject and photographer. Those images show a breadth to Nickel’s body of work previously unknown.

The architectural images convey both respect and resignation — a painful combination. The parade of lost masterpieces is staggering — Adler and Sullivan’s Schiller Theatre, Meyer Building, Rothschild Building, Babson Residence and Stock Exchange; Burnham and Root’s Church of the Covenant and First Infantry Armory; Holabird and Roche’s Republic and Cable building. Even the photographs of surviving landmarks like the Rookery and the Auditorium Building have a weary gaze, as if the photographer has doubts of their permanence at the hands of his society. Nickel conveys the glory of these buildings while making statements about Chicago’s arrogant disregard for them; he poses wry scenes that are statements of protest in which the beauty of the building makes the loudest statement.

Ever faithful to his subjects, Nickel avoids taking photographs that are easily digested or ignored. Nickel prefers wide views and the occasional vivid close-up to iconic images. At first glance, the photographs can seem carefully workmanlike. Then, a detail jumps out — the postures of men standing in the foreground of a demolition scene, words on a church wall next to a gaping hole made by wreckers, the appearance of a church steeple in a photograph of a roof. As one studies the photographs, the intentional nature of the details becomes apparent.

Nickel thought through his capturing of the details of every building he shot, just as the architects who designed them conceived of the intricate parts. Every foreground, background and shadow was chosen. The genius of Nickel emerges; he has taken photographs that reward a multitude of viewings and whose technique emulates the subjects’ complexity as much as any documentation can. Nickel’s photographs teach us the values of patience and observation, and of the power of making careful choices. These were the values that led Nickel to study and defend the works of Sullivan and other Chicago masters. These were the values that could have kept the buildings around as long as the photographs.

Cahan, Richard and Michael Williams, editors. Richard Nickel’s Chicago. Chicago: CityFiles Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-9785450-2-8.

Categories
Abandonment Historic Preservation Housing North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North

Left Behind

by Michael R. Allen

Here we see part of the fallout of the current housing market collapse, and a sign that large-scale projects pose only one obvious type of threat to the historic architecture of north St. Louis. This is a tenement house at 1102-4 Montgomery Street in Old North St. Louis, and is best known for the gaping hole in the side wall and giant grafitti tag prominent on Interstate 70.

This poor building’s condition is the result of a rehabilitation scheme gone awry. In 2005, Impact Real Estate Investment purchased this building, a house across the street and a house at the northwest corner of St. Louis Avenue and Hadley streets — all in Old North. Impact also bought buildings in other neighborhoods. Led by Marteese Robinson, former Director of Professional Scouting for the St. Louis Cardinals, the company had big plans.

In an article that appeared in the January 31, 2005 issue of the St. Louis Buisness Journal, Robinson’s redevelopment philosophy is reported:

When he buys a property, Robinson first replaces the roof and then guts the interior. When renovating the homes, he tries to maintain as many historic details as he can, recycling ornate woodwork and replacing worn-out hardware with modern replicas.

To appeal to today’s buyer, Robinson concentrates on making kitchens, bathrooms and closets larger than those found in the turn-of-the-century homes. He uses a mix of carpet, hardwood and tile on the floors. For some items, like 12-foot-high front doors that are hard to replace, Robinson has custom reproductions manufactured.

What’s not to like? Try the execution of the projects. Robinson’s crews did work best described as slap-dash on his Old North properties — and never even finished the ones on Montgomery. The house at Hadley and St. Louis was completed (all historic millwork was carted off in a dumpster) and supposedly sold for $225,000, but currently sits in foreclosure.

For 1102-4 Montgomery Street, Impact had a tall order. The rear section of the building needed masonry reconstruction of all three walls, while the front wall needed a corner relayed. Impact ignored the bid of a seasoned mason and hired the work to a crew so inexperienced with historic masonry, the work is agonizing to describe. The corner was relayed without boxes for either window, so the edges aren’t straight. Somehow the coursing didn’t work out, with bricks shaved under the window lintel on the first floor to compensate. The worst work was on the side where, after months in which Impact had demolished the entire wall and left the second floor joists sagging, a more experienced crew laid up a straight block wall to the second floor. Then an inexperienced crew laid brick over that, changing the sizes of window openings and making slopping connections to the existing wall.

Then, everything stopped abruptly in 2006. The wall stopped at the second floor, leaving the roof trusses unsupported. Part of the other side wall collapsed. The buidling was left completely unsecured. The pits dug on each side for foundation tuckpointing were never filled. The building was left structurally compromised and in violation of city codes.

Impact stopped paying taxes on the Montgomery buildings in 2006, too. The building across the street, at 1119 Montgomery, supposedly sold at a Sheriff’s tax auction in May to a Paul McKee holding company represented by Eagle Realty’s Harvey Noble.

The building at 1102-4 Montgomery awaits its tax sale next year. Marteese Robinson now works for the Washington Nationals. Residents of Old North have a nasty scar with an uncertain future. And the building manages to stay standing.

Categories
Agriculture Historic Preservation Monroe County Southern Illinois

Monroe County Corn Crib Still in Use

by Michael R. Allen

While driving in Monroe County, Illinois recently, I was delighted to find an intact historic corn crib still in use. This crib stands on the east side of Bluff Road between Fults and Kaskaskia roads. Corn cribs are used for storing whole ears of corn for livestock feed. Due to the widespread use of processed feeds since the middle twentieth century, corn crib usage is very low and corn cribs are poised to become an extinct agricultural building type.

The corn crib is part of a farm that includes a historic one-story, side-gabled frame house, replete with standing-seem metal roof, wooden window sashes and two additions. That level of historic integrity is not entirely uncommon on surviving farmsteads in southern Illinois. Many have been clad in newer siding, like this one, but metal roofs and wooden doors and sashes are common. Some farms still believe in the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” (Although I’m sure many farmers are simply working from “we’re broke, so we can’t fix it.”)

Categories
Historic Preservation National Register North St. Louis People The Ville

Chuck Berry House Headed for National Register

by Michael R. Allen

Photograph by Lindsey Derrington.

This modest flat-roofed, one-story brick house at 3137 Whittier Street in The Ville is where rock ‘n’ roll was invented. Well, if not outright invented, definitely made into something it had never been before. Chuck Berry bought this house in 1950 and lived there during his most productive early songwriting period. When he sold the house in 1958, Berry had recorded “Maybelline,” “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven.”

My colleague Lindsey Derrington, Researcher for Landmarks Association, identified this house last year as a landmark worthy of listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Rather than wait for someone else to take action, Lindsey wrote a nomination that received approval from the city’s Preservation Board last week and will be considered by the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation this Friday. After that point, the nomination is likely to face a tough time undergoing review by the National Park Service, which generally does not list in the Register properties associated with persons still living. This rule comes from fear of making hasty historical judgment. Lindsey’s nomination makes the case that Chuck Berry’s importance already has a permanent spot in the history books, even if he is alive and very well.

Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered the nomination of the house with a front page article; read that here.

Categories
Architecture Collinsville, Illinois Metro East Mid-Century Modern

Mid-Century Modernism in Collinsville

by Michael R. Allen

Across the street from each other on Main Street in Collinsville, Illinois are two delightful one-story mid-century modern office buildings dating to the 1950s. These buildings aren’t exceptional modern masterpieces, but simply nice examples of vernacular modernism: derived from the International Style and other sources by local architects or builders, highly functional and strongly stylized. These buildings are the modern equivalents of the nineteenth and early twentieth century vernacular storefronts lining other blocks on Main Street.

To the east is a later modernist pharmacy and medical office building — there was a clear and exciting architectural conflation between the clean lines of modernism and the promise of postwar medicine. However, the modern purity erodes here through stylized cursive lettering that softens the severity of the purpose houses inside.

In Collinsville as elsewhere, attemprts to make downtown more modern weren’t satisfactory enough for some businesses. One of those was the Collinsville Building and Loan Association, which in 1969 moved from Main Street to the sprawl of Belt Line Road. The Association still occupies that building, and its New Brutalist body hasn’t changed much.

Categories
Churches Collinsville, Illinois Googie Metro East Mid-Century Modern

Heavenly Bar-B-Q

by Michael R. Allen


This quintessential A-frame work of Googie-tecture stands at the northwest corner of Vandalia (State Highway 159) and Clay streets in downtown Collinsville, Illinois. According to the Conestoga sign on the pole in front, this is Bert’s Chuck Wagon with “Open Pit Bar-B-Q.” The high pitched roof overhangs the building to almost conceal the sides completely. Splayed columns add a whimsical touch, and the gabled entry overhang creates enough head space for a person to walk into the building through the door.

What is most striking is the large gable end facing the corner. The open glass wall provided exposure and a contrast to the heavy, almost foreboding side elevations. Now, that gable end provides a backdrop for religious expression.


The windows of the gable end display a rather expressionistic scene of Jesus Christ on the cross, done in bold colors with dark shadow lines. Disconcerting, though, are the white open eyes reminiscent of the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip.

Categories
Art Midtown

Get Rid of a Lamp, Support a Cool Project

Find out more here.

Categories
Architecture Historic Preservation South St. Louis Storefront Addition Urbanism

A Side-Style Storefront Addition

by Michael R. Allen


As I navigate the city, I am always on the lookout for storefront additions to historic homes. Regular readers will recall some recent posts of mine celebrating the sometimes-ungainly but always-intriguing vestiges of a city teeming with commercial life. The example above is located on the 2800 block of Lafayette Avenue just east of one that I chronicled seven months ago (Just Another Vacant Building?, December 21, 2007). That example was one of the prevalent types that stand in front of the parent house.

This one here, located at 2819 Lafayette Avenue, is of the gentler type. Built on the side lot of a stately single-family residence, the one-story flat-roofed addition creates more square feet of space on one level than the sort placed directly in front. I’m sure the builder’s concern was with the economy of the structure, but the end result led to an addition that left alone the lovely front elevation of the Romanesque Revival house next door, built in 1893. That move proved fortuitous, as the front elevation retains original its limestone porch, granite details and wooden windows. The addition itself, probably built in the 1930s, is complementary without being dull. Spaced courses of pale brick, a continuous soldier course over the storefront opening and a framed frieze of angled brick offer simple but forceful masonry expression. We still have dozens of these additions left, and each one is a unique compromise between cost and ambition, change and history, old and new. These additions remind us that cities are creatures built for growth, and “historic” architecture is a tangle of buildings — including historic buildings that block other, prettier historic buildings buildings.

Categories
Architecture Demolition Downtown

Your Building Here?

by Michael R. Allen

When the two old stucco-covered buildings at the southwest corner of Washington Avenue and 14th Street fell late last fall, few would have guessed that the site created would be an empty, open pit this summer. The buildings fell for the proposed SkyHouse project (see “SkyHouse Raising Issues,” April 29, 2007). That project seemed like a sure thing. Now, the project is dead in the water, and the site is the subject of rumors of foreclosure. We may not see a new proposal for a 22-story building on the site, but hopefully this site doesn’t become the Bottle District of Washington Avenue — just the Ballpark Village.

Categories
Historic Preservation Media

Post-Dispatch Publishes Special Section on Historic Preservation

by Michael R. Allen

Yesterday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch included a special Entertainment section on historic preservation written by Diane Toroian Keaggy and David Bonetti. The section includes lists of buildings most worth preserving selected by experts like Larry Giles and Kate Shea as well as an article about the “underground” documentation efforts of myself and others. Read it all here.