I will be posting to this weblog throughout the year-long design period to document my design process, ideas and more. Check back often to see how I'm doing, and add comments to the entries if you'd like.
This week I completed my pre-thesis proposal booklet, which is basically a document of the three sites, three programs and concepts which I will be using for my pre-thesis class and eventually whittle down to a single site with a single program to make up my pre-thesis book.
Below are the pages for the booklet, so click on them to see the whole page or click here for the PDF.
On Wednesday I stopped by the Solvay site after spending the better part of the day following the abandoned rail line south to Oklahoma Avenue and couldn’t help but notice that they tore down a building! It was not one I had intended to keep, as it was just a crummy garage on a triangular portion north of the main site. On my expedition to Solvay in July I briefly looked inside, but didn’t look around because it was obvious someone was living there, and I would rather not encounter its crazed occupants so I left it alone. When I returned back to my bike later that day (I went through the main site and exited, much more easily, on the west end) I noticed two sketchy looking guys walking under the bridge. As they passed by the garage they disappeared, so it wasn’t like they were going down to the WATER Institute or the city’s coal yard. Let’s also just say they weren’t carrying any camera equipment…nor did they really look like bums. My suspicion at the time was that the garage was being used as a drug house or meth lab, but I never confirmed my suspicions, nor was I particularly motivated to do so.
After looking up the permit file with the city, it appeared that they ordered the building to be razed because, “building is unsecure and variants [are] living inside.” Oh, well. No permits filed for demolishing any part of the main site so far. But the owner has not exactly done things by the book when they failed to have the asbestos removed before they tore down the coke facility in 2004. I wouldn’t be really surprised if I came by someday and found the whole site flattened.
Below are a few photos I snapped of the demolished building as well as a before image. I also found a pretty cool tree that has grown into the railway guardrail.
The third site is more ambiguous than the other two. It is roughly called the Washington Street Interlock and encompasses the area bound by South Water Street on the east, the Amtrak railway on the west, Florida Street on the north and Washington Street on the south. The site formerly was the location of a major crossroads of rail lines from the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago and Northwestern rail lines. The C&N entered from the south-east and exited the north-west in the 3rd Ward, and the Milwaukee Road entered from the south and exited to the north-east to downtown and the Menomonee Valley. The area between this triangular form was used as a yard, called the Florida Yards terminating at Florida Street. The area saw very heavy rail traffic for over 100 years as it was the primary route to Chicago. Today it has been broken up into a number of different uses. The railway corridor, formerly the Milwaukee Road is now operated by the Soo and carries Amtrak traffic to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and freight to the Menomonee Valley. The former C&N line is abandoned. The north branch now is the parking lot for Summerfest and the Italian Community center and the rest of the line north was ripped up to become a bike trail running past the Art Museum north through the East Side. The south branch passes by the Solvay site and exits into Bay View.
The site is now used for light industrial by J Marchese Fruits and Usinger Sausage. Seemingly abandoned warehouses exist on the north end and marina buildings along the river. Of the three sites, the Washington Street Interlocking has the most existing buildings and infrastructure and is closest to existing industrial developments in the 5th Ward.
