Acrophobes and the faint of heart need not apply. All others will be delighted to discover that the alpha male of skyscrapers, the Empire State Building, has reinvented itself as a supergreen structure. A top-to-bottom, four-year renovation of the historic landmark began in 2009, with the chief goal of maximizing energy savings. Like King Kong, construction workers clambered around the storied 102-story building, barely noticed by the stream of office workers and visitors tha

Cream City. Brew City. Beertown. Miltown. Call it by any name, but Milwaukee is outfitting its grand old buildings with a new set of clothes at a prodigious rate. Nowhere is this trend more evident than on the city’s west side, at the 20-acre site of the former Pabst Brewery that operated there for about 150 years. An empty ghost town after the last batch of beer was churned out in 1996, the brewery complex is now being resurrected. And in a sustainable way, with specific go

Construction is underway at the 1928 two-story firehouse at 5720 N. Ridge in Chicago, called “the most ornate of the grand firehouses” by the Chicago Landmarks Commission. The brick-and-terra-cotta building will soon be reborn as the new home of Chicago Filmmakers . The independent film group plans to show offbeat movies on the main floor where fire trucks were once parked, and hold film-making classes upstairs where firefighters used to sleep. Preservation is the name of the

Old firehouses in Chicago and surrounding suburbs are doubling as art centers, museums, restaurants, and wedding venues. In Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood, for example, the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance transformed a 1901 fire station, abandoned since 1982, into a community gathering place with a host of green features. During the renovation of the two-story cultural center (completed in 2012), the building was insulated and a highly efficient HVAC system was installed. On th

The colorful history of the 42,700-square-foot building at 1071 W. Division Street in Chicago begins in 1905, when the Horween Leather Company tannery moved in and started making razor strops (sharpeners) out of horse hide. In 1927, the Burhop Paper Compan y took over the building, churning out tons of boxes and paper, and endless rolls of twine. In its heyday, it anchored a bustling complex in the heart of the industrial area known as Goose Island. There Burhop workers wou