Wednesday, October 25, 2006

BADDITION® - Time Capsule

Thanks go out to Bertblogger for this sweet find.
It's a veritable archaeological dig of Chicago building materials in the last 40 years:
You've got your Tudor, your brick, your white vinyl siding.
6 different window replacements, glass block, a window ac that was at least centered, a shut up porch, a balcony and a balcony shut up with an old door with what appears to be that wavy green glass from the 70's.
Alas - as so many of its peers - its value as a landmark has been dismissed and it is slated for tear down.
For shame. For shame.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Now that's the Chicago I remember. Not the baddition, but the close house next door. We lived at 3306 Clifton Ave. N. (or was it Clinton?). Anyway, there was a school across the street and we could walk to the "el". The owner of our 3 flat lived in the building. A little old Swedish lady whose husband had been a landscaper for the City of Chicago back "in the day". She had a double lot so one side was beautifully landscaped with a wood privacy fence around it. The other side was out our kitchen window where we had a brick wall that we could touch if we opened the window and leaned ever so little out. The building was cantilevered over the sidewalk that separated the two lots from front to back. Needless to say we kept the shades drawn on that side of the house and open to the landscaped side.

As far as the baddition. I own a 5 plex that someone did an equally stupid job of "upgrading". The original is brick with a third floor addition of masonite siding painted peach of all things. Another owner enclosed the front porch with white vinyl siding. Casement windows in some rooms, double hungs in others. It's a nightmare, but will be upgraded little by little. I can't wait to remove the white vinyl!