A Cool Antique High Rise

Although about a mile and a half or so south of us the lakefront is festooned with thirty and forty story condo and apartment buildings, once you make your way north of Loyola University into East Rogers Park you are in the land of three or four story buildings--except for this one. It is our sole lakefront high rise, built in 1923 if you are to believe the cornerstone. (An aside here--when one builds on sand, which really does provide the underpinnings of most of the land near the lake in our neck of the woods--one has to expect that the building will settle. Forever, maybe. Our six-flat, built in 1920, is STILL settling. I shudder to think how that settlement plays out in THIS edifice, cool though it is.)

The wonderful thing about this building is not its general Addam's Family ambience, although that is atmospheric indeed. It is its strange stonework that sets it apart--you won't find anything like it in modern architecture, and certainly not in a modern apartment block.

For example... the atlantes that support the faux gothic window pediment:

Atlantes--isn't that a wonderful word? Thank goodness for Jeff's little architectural details field guide!

Here's a closer look:

Thing One and

Thing Two.

Now let's pull back a little, and look at the central facade detail:

Notice the sculpted lozenges set in regular rows all up the front of the building. Perhaps they are simply decorative geometric motifs or a more ambitious array of heraldic shields? Mais non, mes amis.

They are faces.

Here are a couple of examples:

Mr. Get-Out-of-My-Yard-You-Young-Hooligans! and

Mr. He-Found-WHAT-Lurking-in-the-Pantry?

Now, scroll back up to the photo of the whole building and turn your attention to the demi-turret that hugs the corner. Near the base of this turret, at one story above ground level, are three friezes.

Two bratty little girls with sloppy socks (here is one) flank an Old-King-Cole-esque figure:

He's even identified as "the owner."

But my favorite parts of the building are these:


These caricatures put me in mind of similar stone heads that adorn the walls of the Temple Church in London. This is but one phalanx of these caricatures--there are two of them, and not one head is the same on either of them.

Here, take a closer look:

There's this world-weary fellow,

and this big lug, who looks kindly enough (but I wouldn't let him pet any rabbits),

but my favorite is THIS guy, who is clearly belching!

I love this building. I have no idea what it looks like inside, and I'll bet after 85 years of settling there is not a level floor or plumb wall in the entire pile, but the stonemasons who carved the details of this facade were masters of their craft. I'm so glad that such a building still stands, and so close to me.