School’s been out for the summer, but now college students are descending on two historic buildings in Milwaukee’s old Pabst Brewery complex, abandoned in 1996 but slowly coming back to life. Like the Brewhouse Inn down the street ( see previous article ) and the Best Place banquet hall around the corner, the two buildings--a student residence known as Eleven25 and the Zilber School of Public Health -- are both classic examples of how to shed new light (literally) on a shutt

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

Chicago, aka hog butcher for the world, is home to The Plant , a meat-packing factory-turned-food production center and farmer’s market. The three-story building, vintage 1925, sits squarely on the border of a gritty south side industrial and a residential neighborhood. It is a hotbed of activity where recycling is paramount. A tour of The Plant gives you a chance to see its “food loop” in action, surrounded by re-engineered building space and salvaged materials. On the firs

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

Some said it couldn’t be done, but…behold! In keeping with its mission of historic preservation, the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest [now known as the Oak Park River Forest Museum] is resuscitating the oldest municipal building in Oak Park, Illinois – a firehouse built at the turn of the last century. The firehouse, whose exterior and interior are being rehabbed to closely match their original appearance, operated there from 1898 until 1916. Subsequently, it

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

One hundred years ago, on a snowy, bone-chilling Chicago day like today, the Glessner family would have been huddled by the fireplace in their parlor, since the house’s original heating set-up did not allow winter temperatures to get much higher than 60°F. Now, in 2016, the parlor is located in the first zone of the Glessner House to be heated geothermally, along with the dining room, kitchen, and other first floor rooms west of the parlor. Around the turn of the new year th

On December 9, Phase I of the geothermal drilling began in the Glessner House courtyard. The 4,700-square-foot grass courtyard is enclosed by three sides of the building plus an ivy-covered brick wall to the south. This is the same courtyard where weddings are held during the summer, the same courtyard that the Glessners once looked out on from their parlor 100 years ago, the courtyard that was paved over in the 1940’s for use as parking when the house became a printing resea

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

The Glessner House on Prairie Avenue in Chicago may seem, in our eyes, old or old-fashioned, but compared to neighboring mansions of the same period, it was–and still is–a standout. Radically different. Avant-garde. A very decided departure from the conventional. This is how the building, which is now a museum, has been described. Throughout the years, visitors have remarked upon the contrast between the unadorned, expansive, fortresslike exterior and the elegant yet cozy,