Chicago Bridges

Chicago bridges. The La Salle Street Bridge, The Clark Street Bridge, and the Kinzie Street Railroad Bridge, aka the Chicago and North Western Railroad Bridge.

The Kinzie Street Bridge has been unused since 2000, but is still technically active status and is raised and lowered once a year. The bridge in the background is somewhat famous, or infamous, because of an incident in 2004 when Dave Matthews tour bus dumped 800 lbs of toilet waste as it was crossing the bridge, directly onto an architecture tour boat full of passengers.

U.S. Grant in Lincoln Park

 

Lincoln Park, Chicago. The Ulysses S. Grant Monument in the distance. It was commissioned after the president’s death in 1885. Louis Rebisso, an Italian immigrant, was selected to design the monument. When it was completed in 1891, it was the largest bronze statue cast in the country, and over 250,000 people attended its dedication.

Assumption Church

Assumption Catholic Church in the River North neighborhood of Chicago. This parish was founded in 1881 as the first church in Chicago specifically to minister to Italian-speaking Catholics. The church building was completed in 1886.

 

Dearborn Station

 

Dearborn Station was the first of six intercity train stations servicing downtown Chicago. It was designed by Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz, who is best known for One Times Square, the original building of the New York Times. The Romanesque Revival structure, built with red pressed brick walls and pink granite, opened in 1885. It originally featured a steeply pitched roof atop its clock tower, which was lost in a disastrous 1922 fire. As passenger train travel declined after WWII, the intercity train stations saw less and less use. When Amtrak began operation in 1971, the city’s train traffic was consolidated to Union Station, and the Dearborn Station closed. The train yards and sheds were demolished and redeveloped into the Dearborn Park neighborhood. The station sat derelict for years until being renovated into offices and retail spaces.

The Obama Center

The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois.

The text that wraps around the upper floors is from Obama's 2015 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights March in Selma. It reads:

"You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed.

America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word 'We.' 'We The People.' 'We Shall Overcome.' 'Yes We Can.' That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone.

Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours."

Happy Fourth of July.

740 Broadway Eagle

 

Ornament above the entrance to 740 Broadway, corner of Broadway and Astor Place.

Cozy Soup 'n' Burger

 

Cozy Soup 'n' Burger was opened by Greek immigrant brothers in 1972. It's been on Broadway steps away from the NYU campus for 54 years. But as with so many businesses these days, rent and operating costs have been too much, and tomorrow they will close their doors after half a century. I went to grad school at NYU and passed this place every day, but I think I only ate there once and it gave me diarrhea. But it still makes me sad to see such a recognizable local landmark go away.

Prospect Place

 

This Queen Anne-style house is on Prospect Place in Park Slope. Built in 1887, it was designed by C.P.H. Gilbert. Gilbert was known for designing mansions for the elites of Manhattan, but his first New York projects were residences in Park Slope. I drawn a few of his houses before, here and here.

The Crown Building

 The Crown Building, at Fifth Avenue and 57th St.

It was built between 1920-22 by developer and philanthropist August Heckscher. The architecture firm was Warren & Wetmore, who designed several prominent New York buildings, including Grand Central Station.

Its French Renaissance facade is made of limestone, brick, and terracotta. In the 19802, 1,363 ounces of 23-karat gold leaf were added. It was one of the first buildings to meet the mandates of the 1916 zoning code, which required setbacks in tall buildings to allow light and air to reach the street.

In 1922, it towered over the wealthy mansions of 57th Street. Originally named the Heckscher Building, it was marketed as "The Tower of Trade." The gound floor featured shops and retail showrooms, with offices in the tower. Tenants included the publisher Alfred A. Knopf and Universal Pictures. The Museum of Modern Art held its first exhibition there.

Over the years, ownership changed hands. In 1981, Imelda Marcos, wife of the Phillipine Dictator, purchased the building behind a series of frontmen, including a Saudi Arabian arms dealer. It was renamed the Crown Building in 1983. Its ownership status was murky for many years after the Marcos regime collapsed. Today it continues to house luxury retailers on the ground floor, including Bulgari and Chanel, while the upper floors are the Aman New York hotel and luxury apartments.

The Knabe Building

 

This 11-story Beaux Arts building on the corner of 39th St. and Fifth Ave. was built in 1905-06 by Horace A. Hutchins, a businessman from Cleveland, Ohio. It was designed by the prominent architect C.P.H. Gilbert, who was primarily known for his mansions and townhouses for the wealthy class of Manhattan. I've drawn some of his Brooklyn townhouses, like this one and this one.

The ground floor and basement were leased to Knabe & Co., a piano manufacturer, for their showcase, and the building became known as the Knabe building. Other tenants included a book publisher, a real estate firm, the American Automobile Association, Mrs. Adeline Stanhop-Wheatcroft's "new Dramatic Studio," and the studio of photographer Edward S. Curtis, known for his documentation of the American West and Native Americans.

In 1928, Knabe & Co. moved to a new building further up Fifth Ave. The space was taken over by Ovington's, a retailer of high-end imported China. Ovington's hired architect Frank H. Hutton to modernize the building. Much of the ornament, decoration, and cast iron balcony railings were stripped away. In 2016, it was restored by Scott Henson Architecture.

History source: Daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com

No 35 West 54th St. - Walter Tower Rosen House

 

In the 1880s, the north side of West 54th St. was dominated by the large campus of St. Luke's Hospital. The rest of the area consisted of respectable, but not particularly extravagant, brownstone rowhouses built after the Civil War. That began to change as John D. Rockefeller and other wealthy elites began building mansions along Fifth Ave. In 1896, the hospital was demolished, making many lots available and leading to the rapid development of mansions for the wealthy.

No. 35 was built in the Italianate style, and was originally owned by businessman Edward Scheitlin, an importer of hosiery and gloves. Dr. Allan M. Thomas, who had developed a proto-incubator for infants, purchased it shortly after 1900 and gave it a makeover, replacing the facade with an up-to-date Beaux Arts facade of brick and limestone.

In 1916, it was purchased by Walter Tower Rosen. Rosen was a lawyer and a banker, and also a pianist and art collector. His wife, Lucie Bigelow Dodge, was also a musician and a patron of the arts. Among the artists they supported was the Russian inventor Leon Theremin, inventor of the eponymous instrument. Now known primarily for 1950s retro Sci Fi soundtracks, the theremin was originally intended as a concert instrument for avant-garde music. Lucie performed as a part of a 10-person ensemble of theminists at Carnegie Hall in 1930.

Walter Rosen died in 1951; Lucie in 1968. In 1977, the mansion was converted to apartments.

No. 35 West 57th St - Schieffelin Bowne House

 

On West 57th St., between 5th and 6th Avcnues, stands this lone Beaux Arts-style mansion. Large vacant lots flank it, awaiting construction, and a graint I-beam structure to its west seems to be holding it up.

In 1891, it was given, fully furnished, as a wedding gift to Maria Louise Vanderbilt, great-granddaughter of "Commodre" Vanderbilt, patriarch of the Vanderbilt dynasty, and William Jay Shieffelin, a descendent of John Jay, the first chief justice, by Maria Louise's mother. At the time, the area was block after block of these brownstone mansions. Several of the Vanderbilts lived in the enclave, including Cornelius Vanderbilt.

They only lived there until 1898. Commercial development began to encroach into the area, and the "hustle and bustle of that area made the residence undesirable," according to Wayne Craven's book, Gilded Mansions. So Maria Louise's mother built and furnished another brownstone for the couple, this one on 66th Street. The 57th Street building was sold to a business man named Samuel Bowne in 1899. By 1910, most of the mansions on the block were demolished, but No. 35 somehow survived and was converted for commercial and business use. 

In recent years, the first two floors were occupied by restaurants, Cafe Classico and The Great American Health Bar. In 2021, demolition permits were filed by the ownder, Solow Reality, who tried to push out the commercial tenants. However, the tenants had leases that ran through 2040, and the owner of Solow died in 2020. The company in now owned by his son, but no new permits have been filed. Cafe Classico is gone, but The Great American Health Bar is still there. But it's unclear if it's actually still in business. I've seen workers going into the space, but it didn't look like an active business. It stands there in this weird, kind of surreal limbo.  I can't imagine this building remains very much longer.

Sources:

Ephemeral New York: 35 West 57th Street

Dayton in Manhattan 1891 Schieffelin Bowne House

New York Yimby: Demo Permits Filed For 35 West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan

Patch New York: Old Vanderbilt Mansion Billionaires Row Be Demolished

15 Greene Ave

 

A row house in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It was built in 1860, along with its two neighbors. Designed by Nicholas Rhodes, they followed the Italianate style typical of brownstones of the time, but featured peaked roofs which distinguished them from the usual flat-roofed buildings around them.

Yu Interiors, on the first floor, has been there for a long time. I used to live in this neighborhood in the early 2000s, and it has been there at least that long.

M Schames Sign

I sketched this distinctive storefront some years ago. The business relocated many years ago, but its sign remained. I just heard that the building is being demolished, but the cool news is that the sign was saved by the New York Sign Museum.

Coignet Stone Company Building

The Coignet Stone Company Building in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

Built in 1872-73, this is the last remaining structure of the Coignet Stone Company complex, which occupied five acres of land along the Gowanus Canal. The company manufactured a type of pre-cast cement material patented by Frenchman François Coignet. This material was used in St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Metropolitan Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History, as well as an alternative to brownstone in residential buildings. The company boasted that it could produce the facade of a building in a single day. This building looks like a mansion, but it actually served as a showcase for the product, and is the oldest remaining concrete structure of its type in New York.

The Coignet Company went out of business in 1882. The building was used by the Brooklyn Improvement Company until 1957. In the mid-1960s, it was covered in imitation red brick and had various occupants, but by the 1980s it was abandoned and left to deteriorate. Nonetheless, in 2006 it was designated a New York City Landmark.

The previous year, Whole Foods had bought the Coignet factory site, though not including this building. Whole Foods agreed to pay for its restoration, I guess as part of a deal to secure permits and zoning for the rest of the property, or maybe just because they didn't want a dilapidated eyesore next to their fancy new supermarket. Whole Foods built their store, and after a few lawsuits and fines were levied, made good on their promise to fund the building's restoration, even being awarded the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award for "excellence in restoration" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

The building was then put on the market for $5 million, and then again in 2019 for $6.5 million. However, there were no buyers, because despite the excellence in restoration to the exterior, the interior is still dilapidated. It's currently back on the market with an asking price of $2.99 million.

Auction Winner!

I donated a house portrait commission for my kids' school fundraiser, and this was the highest bidder! I think they liked it.

Syracuse

More drawings from when I was in Syracuse last month. The city has lots of cool architecture, from when Syracuse's heyday when the Erie Canal passed directly through the downtown. That prosperity has long passed, but the architecture remains.

Crouse College, aka Crouse Memorial College, at Syracuse University. Located high on a hill, overlooking the campus and the city, it was the tallest structure in Syracuse at the time it was built. Built in 1889, it was funded by John Crouse, "undoubtably the richest man in Syracuse," who'd made his fortune from grocery stores and banking. It was originally called the John Crouse Memorial College for Women, in honor of his wife, Catherine , who had died in1885. Supposedly in honor of her, though not named after her. It was designed by Archimedes Russell, a prominent architect in Central New York, whose firm, King + King Architects, continues as the third oldest architectural firm in the country. It now houses the visual and performing arts departments of Syracuse University.

100 Clinton Square, aka the Community Chest Building and The Third National Bank, It was also designed by Archimedes Russell, in 1885. Third National was the first commercial bank to erect its own building. The bank closed during Great Depression. Between 1956 and1973, the building housed the Community Chest, later known as The United Way of Central NY, and then a casket company for a decade. In 1980s, it was combined with a neighboring structure into one building and converted to offices.

Maybe the most striking building I saw, the Niagara Mowhak Building. Built in 1932. this Art Deco skyscraper was the headquarters for the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, the largest electric utility of the time. It was designed by Melvin L. King. The facade incorporates color-changing light fixtures, and near the top is a 28' (8.5 m) tall statue called "The Spirit of Light."

Syracuse Houses

Last month, I was in Syracuse, NY for a theater job. I was able to sneak in a little bit of drawing. I was surprised to discover how much Victorian architecture there was in city, particularly of the Queen Anne style. Remnants of the city's heyday as a hub of the Erie Canal.

The Louis Will House was built in 1885. Louis Will was a candle manufacturer and mayor of Syracuse from 1914-1916. It features stained glass windows which are thought to be early works of the Tiffany Studios. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

Nearby is the Truesdell-Schoeneck House. It was constructed in 1892 from an elaborate kit purchased from a mail-order catalogue. Its original owner was John Truesdell, and later it was owned by Edward Schoeneck, who also served as mayor and was later a New York lieutenant governor.

This house was near the apartment where I was staying. There's no special history to it that I could find; it's just a house.

Our Lady of Pompeii, 2011 vs 2014

 I don't often revisit a subject, but when I drew this church in the West Village, I remembered that I'd drawn it before. I didn't realize it had been 13 years! Interesting to see the comparison. I think I've improved a little bit?

Pike Place Market

 

Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington.