Just saw this site in today's Crain's Chicago Business and thought I'd post it for anyone who is interested. It's a national site for salvage, not just for the Chicago market. They do exchanges and you can post if you are looking for something - and it's free.
Crain's also had some interesting coverage of the teardowns in Chicago and ranked neighborhoods by the number of demolition and new construction permits. Our area came in 37th with 15 new permits issued in 2004. Just to get a comparison, Lakeview, home of the Chicago Cub's historic Wrigley Field, came in #2 with 199 permits.
Maybe some of you remember that teardown next door to us. Well, they have had some problems. The original contractor was fired for a number of reasons. We talk to the developer, who inherited the property from his mother, and he said the porches were not built to code. As you may know, we don't mess around with porches in Chicago anymore. We also heard that the trimwork was installed shoddily and all has to be redone. He has a new builder working on the project now, who seems a lot better.
The building is still not done. I've been waiting for the landscaping to go in to post photos of before and after. Maybe by the fall they'll have the landscaping in.
5 comments:
Neat site, thanks. I book marked it. Of course, I drool over salvage, but sometimes I worry about the market becoming so big and competitive that I will be priced out. I also worry about "architectural theft". I've heard about some large cities having problems with people stealing architectural elements from old buildings so they can resale them. Have you ever heard of this happening in Chicago?
That definitely happened in Philadelphia when we lived there. It was a HUGE problem with old iron fences and gates. Practically had to lock them down - but to what?
I could spend a lot of time on that site. Thanks for the link! Bummer that the teardown next door is having so many problems, but it's nice to hear that he noticed the crappy work and is having it redone instead of just covering it up and selling it to some unkown person!
Greg- I heard of one instance where someone stole a beautiful entry set of hardware off someone's building in a neighborhood called Wicker Park- I believe it happens. I think it's worse in rural areas where no one is around. I read an article about people's vacation homes/farm houses being pillaged while they were vacant too.
When I saw Becky's post of that abandoned old farmhouse that was the first thing I thought- I hope no one strips the place and heads for eBay.
Thanks for the link, I love browsing these type sites. Greg is right, I hope we don't get priced into the stratosphere like so many things have on ebay. I have known about architectural theft for years. Once watching Antiques Roadshow someone brought in a weather vane from an old barn in Pennsylvania (probably stolen). It was valued at a ridiculous amount of money because it is considered American Folk-Art. The appraiser went into a story of how these were being stolen off of the tops of barns all across the Northeast because of their incredible value and also mentioned the theft of hardware from doors, etc. Very unfortunate and very sick since you know most thieves who steal these kinds of items aren't hoodlums who live on the streets but are those educated in knowing their worth and are probably doing pretty well.
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