**************** ELGIN * ATION ******************* Emanations from Chicago Street, Elgin, Illinois: architecture

Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Second District Appellate Court House - A Rare Look

The Illinois
Second District
Appellate Court House

55 Symphony Way
Elgin, Illinois 60120

On Monday, April 30. 2012, the Downtown Neighborhood Association coordinated, with the Illinois Second District Appellate Court in Elgin, and offered a rare tour of the Court House, located at 55 Symphony Way.

It was a rare opportunity to enter and view the inside of the entire building.

The building was completed in 1966, after a legislative restructuring occurred in 1964.

Elgin was selected as the seat of the district, part of the civic urban renewal center that included the Elgin City Hall and Police Department, Gail Borden Public Library, the main U.S Post Office and the Hemmens Cultural Center.

The current district encompasses all the northern tier counties of Illinois from Lake Michigan west to the Mississippi River, with the exception of Cook and Will Counties.

The tour was hosted by Robert Mangan, Second District Appellate Court Clerk, Judge Ann Jorgensen, and a representative from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Entrance from the Lobby into the Courtroom.

Skylight in the Courtroom -
the pyramidcal roof seen from the outside.

Original gallery chairs, still in perfect condition.

Courtroom and gallery from the Bench.

The walls are made from oiled teak wood.

The bench: three justices sit at a hearing.

Current case file.

Case call board, no longer used.
Below the panel is a resolution
honoring former long-time
court clerk Clifton Simmons.

Portion of the Law Library. Eventually this will be closed
and replaced with online access.

Judges' deliberation and conference room.
Many important law decision are made at this table.

Clerk's office and staff area.
They have a panoramic view of The Centre.

The courtyard from inside. The open-window design
blurs the lines from inside and out.

Wall of former judges serving the Second District.

The most fascinating area of the building is the second floor. It was designed to provide overnight accommodations for judges. It is seldom used anymore, but at one time, due to travel time, many justices from the western reaches of the district came in and stayed for the week.

The furniture is all original, and is in pristine condition. It is as though it virtually a time capsule of modern 1966 design. It was never upgraded and modernized. The reason was lack of funds to do so from the state. It is a credit to those maintaining the building that what was there was so well taken care of.

The table is always set. It is still used for
breakfast and luncheon meetings.

Dining area with patio overlooking Elgin.

View from the dining room; the police department is
off in the distance.

Vintage clock and floor model television.
The television has been modernized to
some extent - there is an HD converter
box and antennae turner, but apparently
there is no money in the budget for
cable or satellite TV.

A thank you letter from Vice President Spiro Agnew.
Yes, he spent the night in Elgin once, and slept here.

Vintage sitting area.

Former Chicago Bear Bob Thomas, now an
Illinois Supreme Court Justice, served here
prior to his current position.

The south end of the lobby, viewed from the reception and security desk.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Elgin Daily Courier-News - The Sorry Decline

South of Prairie Street, the land along the Fox River opens up into a wide flat area. South Grove Avenue passes through the center of this range toward the southeast, terminating at National Street and the site of the once great Elgin National Watch Company plant.

These days, the Grand Victoria Casino complex, Festival Park, and a townhouse development straddle the street. At one time, however, this section just beyond the main part of the central business primarily consisted of car dealerships, the level geography lent itself perfectly to the large lots needed to store new vehicles that for sale.

It was halfway up the rise out of the valley toward the east in the 1950s that the Copley Press determined that the new headquarters of its Elgin newspaper, the Elgin Daily Courier-News should be built. It was to be a full service operation, as all newpaper operations were back then, from the reporters out on the street, through the printing of the the newpaper, right to the delivery at everyone's doorstep. It would be right in the center of the city, at the center of the action of the city's life.

If the building remains, hopefully the cornerstone will stay untouched.

The tan brick building facing was a huge statement to the power of the local press. The Courier-News, an afternoon daily, was the main source of information for the entire region, and everyone subscribed to it. It seemed like nearly every kid in town was a paperboy or papergirl at one time or another in their lives.

It stood on the side of the hill at 300 Lake Street, a short and steep little side street, at the intersection of Michigan Street. The building, looking at it from the front, was deceptively large, stretching nearly a block back toward the north back to where the printer was. From the side, however, it was on prominent display from South Grove Avenue, The Fox River and up on the bluff across the river on State Street. It was a proud and powerful statement that couldn't be overlooked.

The newspaper was a major employer and a major force in Elgin. It was a jewel in the midst of the golden age of newsprint. So important was The Elgin Courier-News that it published a complete Sunday newspaper in the days when many smaller-town dailies didn't. At one point, if I'm not mistaken, the circulation for the CN surpassed 35,000, a phenomenal number given the actual total population of the city. It was almost required reading if you lived and/or worked in Elgin.

The site was an attraction. Field trips to the all-inclusive newspaper operation by school children and groups were as common and as a required requisite of growing up in Elgin as much as a trip to a Chicago museum was.

From around lunch time one, Lake Street became a flurry of activity, with reporters scurrying in and deliveries going out. An afternoon daily had to hit the stands and the doorsteps of its subscribers by the end of the work day and before suppertime.

It seemed like a perfect storm of destruction began to brew, though. Elgin itself began its ugly swift descent into oblivion. Downtown Elgin, the core of the city's livelihood, had been decimated by surrounding regional shopping malls. A big recession hit in the early 1980s and the city, in desperation, closed off a main thoroughfare and turned it into a pedestrian mall that actually turned out to speed up the decline of the area. The result was a stagnant advertiser base for the newspaper. The demographics of the city were changing rapidly as well, and many people moving in had no interest in what reading was once considered to be a necessary part of life.

Rusting unused relics of the past, left behind.

Another suspicion on my own part (since confirmed by a former editor of the paper who wrote about it) was a general disinterest in the management of the operation from the owners.

The aging presses were not replaced, and the printing of the paper was sent out of town. An afternoon daily printed out of town had to be shipped in, which meant any timely news of the day couldn't make a reasonable deadline, and thus the news was old by the time it hit print. The major newspaper from the East, The Daily Herald, a booming publication which was moving into every Chicago suburban territory in existence, set its sites on Elgin and initiated an Elgin edition.

The internet was on the rise, and despite efforts to save the Courier-News, including switching to morning delivery, nothing worked well.

The paper, along with its sister publications in Aurora and other cities, were sold to the Chicago Sun-Times. Eventually, due to poor management, a decaying building, and consolidations within their suburban newspaper system, economics eventually dictated moving the operations, including the reporting staff, of a purely American local newspaper out of town.

Left over sign, nothing has been touched.

At $1.00-per-copy newsstand edition price for a flimsy ghost of a newspaper, it is amazing that it even has survived. It is a testament to those who held it together toward the end that it is still in circulation.

With the faraway writers and printers doing what they can to keep it viable and local, it has lost a lot of its luster anyway, despite their good efforts. It bills itself as local, but when reading it, it doesn't project itself quite the way that it used to.

The building remains for sale. I hope whoever buys it uses it with respect and holds it in the esteem it deserves. It was the center of chronicling the daily existence of Elgin for decades.

It is hidden behind a row of townhouses now, a sign of Elgin's rise back to the top. However, it remains a nice looking building. All things considered, it still presents itself with a statement. It just needs a new life.

It is just too quiet on that street now.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Door to Door - 0 Line (Chicago Street Bridge and The Fox River)

The Chicago Street Bridge, West-0-East

The Fox River marks the zero-line between east and west in Elgin's numbering system. The Chicago Street Bridge, in it's current incarnation, was built in 1939. Until the Highland Avenue Bridge was built, it was the only span across the river in the center of the city.

It was originally part of the designated Illinois State Highway 5, which ran from East Dubuque, Illinois to Chicago. It eventually became part of US Highway 20. After the US 20 Bypass was built in the 1960s, it was part of US Business Route Highway 20 and Illinois Route 58. After a while, BR20 was decommissioned and Route 58 termination was changed to IL Rte 25 (Liberty Street) instead of IL Rte 31 (State Street).

As a result, the only highway designation through downtown Elgin today is north and south Route 31.

The bridge contains abutments along the sidewalk jutting out over the water, providing good views up and down the river, and good places to toss a few stones or throw a fishing line.

Unfortunately, they also provide opportunities for people to toss litter into the river below.

View looking south from the Chicago Street Bridge, with the Grand Victoria Riverboat downriver.

View north from the Chicago Street Bridge, with the Highland Avenue Bridge and the Hemmens Cultural Center upriver.

Door to Door - 100 W Chicago

Elgin Pace Bus Terminal, 100 West Chicago Street

Opened in 1985, the Elgin Bus Terminal serves The Regional Transportation Authority's Pace Suburbans Bus service.

Straddling along the west bank of the Fox River, it was designed with sharp angles and a narrow building.

It contains four bus lanes which send buses all over Elgin and to other suburban points, principally Aurora, Streamwood, Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg/Woodfield.

It is across the street from the Chicago Street Train Station, making for convenient transportation connections.

Althought the address is on Chicago Street, it also fronts Highland Avenue on the other side. With Chicago being one way eastbound and Highland one way westbound, the buses enter and exit from both sides. Most eastside buses exit on Chicago Street, most westside buses on Highland Avenue.

The passing trains on the railroad tracks immediately alongside the terminal can be big hindrance to bus traffic, but the convenience of the terminal directly across the street from the train station create in important transportation center for the city.

Until 2010, it also hosted Greyhound Bus service, which provided the only direct inter-city transportation outside of the Metra commuter rail across the street.

The waiting room inside is deceptively larger than the building would indicate outside. The seating and decor are very spartan, but the windows provide a sweeping view of the river and downtown Elgin. The skylights and high ceiling provide a bright and airy indoor waiting area out of the weather, which cloak the otherwise potentially dingy environment.