Leave the Seat Empty: 1342 North Oakley Boulevard

 Leave the Seat Empty consists of photos taken of buildings in Chicago in between the time a demolition permit is issued and the time the wrecking crews come.

The vast majority of the city's demolitions are vernacular residential buildings in areas that are either seeing immense new investment or immense ongoing disinvestment. In most cases, the doomed buildings are not deemed architecturally or culturally notable enough for proactive preservation efforts to succeed, where such efforts exist. They are most frequently replaced by new single family homes, or by empty land. These patterns aren't universal among demolitions, but are common outcomes of Chicago's current legal and market environment around land use, building vacancy, and new construction.

Despite its international reputation as a destination for architecture tourism, Chicago's policies around building demolitions often fail to protect historic structures. There are no easy answers to the question of which buildings should remain standing under which circumstances, but residents lack easy access to information about upcoming demolitions, leaving them unable to campaign effectively against demolitions they might oppose. I seek to document many of Chicago's doomed buildings in their final days, often with green demo fencing already up, and be present to acknowledge their disappearance.

1342 North Oakley Boulevard
Permit issued 11/02/2023

 Typically, when I write about a building in Chicago that experienced a long period of vacancy before demolition, the building in question was located in a severely disinvested neighborhood. Often, it was owned by somebody who lives in an economically thriving north side neighborhood or a white collar suburb. This one, then, is unusual - a home in Wicker Park that sat empty for more than a decade after its owner seemingly moved to the city's far south side.

Permitted for construction on January 14, 1890, this building was commissioned speculatively by a developer as part of a bundle of new brick cottages and two-flats on the same block, mostly built to the same plan but given different facade details to distinguish them from each other. At the time of its demolition, the structure retained an elaborate roof cornice and other features that were likely part of the original design, and which were also likely common to other projects from the same 19th century builder.

 Occupied in its early years by the family of a city-employed draftsman, this home's history of ownership and use largely followed the course of the neighborhood around it - a series of Polish families lived there during the early to mid 1900s, giving way to Latino families later on. Technically two units, the building seems to have gone back and forth between multi-family and single-family use at times. In the mid-1980s, a woman named Lillian moved in. Though related public records are sparse and I wasn't able to find a longtime neighbor to talk to and confirm my interpretation of the records I was able to find, I believe Lillian was the final occupant of the building.

In 2011, Lillian (or somebody sharing her full name and the style of her signature) purchased a home down in Beverly on the far south side. Shortly after that, this building up on Oakley began receiving city citations for vacancy and lack of property upkeep. Going by public records, it appears this home sat empty from the time of Lillian's south side purchase until its eventual demolition.

In 2022, a mortgagee filed for foreclosure on this property, but the foreclosure was not completed at that time. Seven months after the foreclosure filing, Lillian sold the home to a trust controlled by a local realtor in an off-market transaction for a sum of $410,000. The home was immediately listed public for significantly more money - some realtors make an entire career out of negotiating below-market-value purchases from people who are underwater on their mortgage obligations and then quickly flipping the subject properties.

 

In May of 2023, the empty house fetched $600,000 from a truffle importer and a hospitality industry manager. The couple moved to tear it down and construct a new single family home in its place. Their new home now stands on the property.