Please sign the Save These Victorian Rowhouses from Demolition Petition.
Unless urgent action is taken, these three 1880s-era rowhouses will be demolished shortly after the 90-Day Demolition Delay Hold Extension expires on March 8, 2019.
These authentic, beautiful, charming historic Chicago rowhouses will be bulldozed to create a vacant lot. The likely strategy is that the urban blight from a vacant lot will help the developer to push through an unpopular plan for a massive parking garage and generic glass-box tower on the site.
Preservation Chicago STRONGLY OPPOSES THE DEMOLITION of these three, architecturally significant, orange-rated rowhouses at 42, 44 and 46 East Superior dating from the 1870s and 1880s. The adjacent seven-story Art Deco limestone building and historic four-story red brick Giordano’s building are also endangered.
The clock is ticking as development pressure intensifies and developers have begun to actively target the last remaining clusters of intact, low-rise, historic buildings as development sites.
“And with the continued demolition of other shorter, older buildings in the area, that there are only a handful of the original McCormickville buildings left. We need to value every inch of space where there are historic buildings that tell the story of the neighborhood.” Ward Miller, (Curbed Chicago, Koziarz, 12/8/16)
Preservation Chicago urgently requests the City of Chicago and 42nd Ward Alderman Reilly not to release the Demolition Delay Hold and not to issue a Demolition permit until after the public approval process for the new development has been completed. There are many examples, the most notorious being Block 37, in which significant time passed between when the demolition of the existing historic buildings and when the new construction broke ground.
Additionally, Preservation Chicago urgently requests the City of Chicago and 42nd Ward Alderman Reilly to create a new “McCormickville” Landmark District comprised of the handful of remaining historic buildings. It would be a powerful tool to protect this neighborhood’s historic building fabric and strengthen the vibrancy of this community.