Final Bell at Riis School
(photos by Lee Bey)
You can only sit in the crosshairs--or stay perched on the highwire--for just so long before the inevitable happens. Such is the case at the former Jacob Riis School at 1018 S. Lytle on the city's near West Side which is being demolished this week.
It sat there for years, empty and seemingly defiant, as new development surrounded the school and inched its way closer. Preservation Chicago named the school to its Chicago 7 endangered building list three years ago. The 90-year-old classical revival building is being pushed aside for the expanding Roosevelt Square development. Foundations for the new homes are already showing up on the south end of the school's former playground. So one last look is in order.
Yet one can't help but wonder what Jacob Riis himself might have thought of the fate of the school named after him.
Comments
This is a shame..wait...sham. The building couldn't have been concerted to condos? Losing this great building is terrible. This era of school design and construction is gone forever. A building of this (admittedly relative plain) caliber could never be built again. They converted the old St. Micheal's school building to condos in Old Town, why not here.
Posted by: Mendel | October 18, 2007 10:05 AM
"Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water and stupid men." - Richard Nickel
Big loss for the city! Here are my photos from May of this year.
Posted by: Chuck | October 19, 2007 01:48 PM
horrible.. an institutional building typically is well constructed so another use of the building to save it would have been worth the effort. The cities today are spineless in holding off the 'new age vandals' known as the development community. The come armed with wrecking balls, bank accounts, lawyers, hoarding. Their tactics are demolition, boarding up, stigmatization, legal challenges to zoning.
Until the public votes for a candidate who will stand up this will continue.
Its sad when you see buildings several hundred years old in Europe or even central America or South America. How have we been conditioned to accept the erasure of our heritage for a dollar. Maybe that is the heritage. Depressing if it is true.
Posted by: jannx | October 24, 2007 10:01 PM