Where once I did dwell...



One of the few structures extant by Sullivan’s last draftsman/protege Parker Noble Berry. Berry worked with Sullivan in the tower of the Auditorium Building before striking out on his own. He designed two banks (one in Manlius, IL, and the other in the neighborhood of Hegewisch [since demolished]), an “old ladies home” in Princeton, IL, and the below apartment building. It appears to be in need of better upkeep, with buckled and broken plaster, peeling paint, and general dinginess. Though I did enjoy the unseen presence of a practicing oboe player on the first floor, lending a bit of musical melancholy to my visit.
(from another blog)
 



Original plans for the building were much more
elaborate with a crowning roof garden.
Above the first floor the building is really two
separate entities with no access one side to the
other. In the ten years I lived here the very
expensive boiler had to be replaced twice...
the board just had no clue as to maintaining it.

My little apartment was the office of the dentist who commissioned the building in the first floor right wing. It was unhelpably cramped, small and drafty.  Those six windows on the west side turned it into an oven, summer afternoons.
My refrigerator was on wheels as I had to move it back and forth to access either the bathroom or egress out the back door into the common laundry room. The bedroom was so small it would accommodate only a double bed and nothing else. The good fellow that sold Me this gem even hinted that there was a ghost somewhere in the building...he had correctly surmised that this would be a plus to Me. This fine little place was the very first piece of real estate I ever owned, it was a co-op, an arraignment you see more back East. The space was all mine from the surface of the walls, ceiling and floor and I kind of miss the place. 

My old front door.
This was the only apartment in the building 
with it's own outside front entrance.

 


 
I can recall that one of the older residents died in Her bathtub
one Sunday morning. The ambulance crew had a very hard
time negotiating the very narrow stairwells.

 


Still I would consider buying back in after I am geriatric
and have defenestrated myself of all My stuff (junk).
It was always kind of a nightmare dealing with the elected
board. Some were old and afraid of lawsuit, some were young and
would morph into "little Nazi's" with the first taste of power
they had ever wielded. Young or old they all seemed to have
peculiar and quirky notions about maintenance, rules and such.