Fire and Ice

All of us who care about Chicago's architectural legacy owe Robert Powers a tremendous debt of gratitude for his tireless pursuit of documenting this city's less heralded buildings. Through his blog A Chicago Sojourn, I have leaned to appreciate some previously overlooked and in some instances in my case anyway, despised building styles, now seeing them in a new light.

Not a minor fringe benefit of his labors are the occasions when we suddenly lose a wonderful building. That was the case this past week when a tremendous fire consumed the Pullman Couch Company Warehouse, which was part of the historic Central Manufacturing District on the south side at 37th and Ashland. Firefighters battled the stubborn blaze for days as it rekindled many times over several days in the bitterly cold weather. In the end a spectacular shroud of ice covered the ruins of 1912 building.

Of course Robert Powers photographed the building a while a ago in happier days. Here is his post on yet another loss of one of our great but lesser known buildings.

Lynn Becker also photographed the warehouse building before the fire. Here is his post with historical context from his blog Architecture Chicago PLUS.