JG - Postcard Past / Present Photo (Page 9)

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.

Dec 13, 2023 Chicago Illinois From the archive

St. James Methodist Church, Ellis Ave. at Forty-sixth Street, Chicago

Interested in living in one of the first racially-integrated churches in Chicago? A developer is working on converting this striking Gothic church into 29 rental apartments and a small co-working space…a slightly unusual one, but a preservation and housing win nonetheless.

Dec 6, 2023 Copenhagen

The Interior of Copenhagen Central Station, Denmark

Chief Architect of the DSB Heinrich Wenck wanted to create a station "suitable for Denmark–for our country's situation and its character–so that the last impression that departing Danes got was the same as that which met the arriving foreigners: something Danish”.