JG - Postcard Past / Present Photo (Page 7)

A merged image of the 1941 postcard of the Hotel Crane and the 2022 photo

Jan 18, 2024 San Francisco California

Hotel Crane, San Francisco

After 75 years as a residential hotel, the Crane's owners tried to force out the tenants, was sued by the city, settled, and have left it vacant ever since—its 110+ units part of the 15,000 SRO units SF lost between 1970 and 2000.

Jan 9, 2024 Chicago Illinois From the archive

The Russian Oil Co., 1128 W. Newport Ave., Chicago

A plucky little survivor from 1894 that outlived the railroad that brought it to life.

Jan 4, 2024 Chicago Illinois From the archive

Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, Chicago

Legendary photographer Gordon Parks described Chicago’s Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church as “a temple of hope to thousands of Negro people caught in the backyard of this vast city” when he visited this African American congregation on the city’s Near West Side in 1953.

Jan 2, 2024 Copenhagen

Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen

The culmination of a project to turn sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen into a national icon for the emerging Danish nation-state–Thorvaldsen as a sort of Danish demigod with this museum-tomb as his pantheon–this is a distinctive example of national mythmaking, architectural innovation, & adaptive reuse.

Dec 20, 2023 Chicago Illinois From the archive

Leaning Tower of Niles, Illinois

God this one is even more bonkers than I realized. It’s wonderful. Chicago industrialist Robert Ilg built his employees a 22-acre countryside ‘pleasure park’ in the suburbs and–since a regular old water tower would be inelegant–had it disguised as a half-size replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.