In one of the Facebook groups I am in, that discusses Chicago history, someone posted the following article from Popular Mechanics, called "Apartment Building Split, Whirled, and Relocated." The short article, reproduced below, was both intriguing (because of the process used to move the building) and frustrating (because it never specified WHERE the building was). I decided to try to find out its location.
The original post indicated the article was from a 1917 issue. I wanted to see if I could find this article, in case there was any additional information about the location of this building. According to the Industrial Arts Index, this article was actually in the April 1920 Popular Mechanics.
The Industrial Arts Index is ultimately what helped me figure this out. After failed attempts to figure out the location of the buildings based on the "Board of Education" and "boulevard" clues in the original article, using various school-related sources I use a lot in my genealogy work (including a 1917 School Map of Chicago), it occurred to me that there might be another reference to this project in another article. Sure enough, the Industrial Arts Index had another article listed on the very next page, "Novel Feat Accomplished in Moving a Chicago Building." The May 26, 1920 issue date told me it was probably an article about the same building.
The periodicals abbreviations guide at the beginning of the Industrial Arts Index told me that "Am Arch" was American Architect and Architecture. The article was in volume 117, pages 662-666, from May 26, 1920.
I now know where this building was. On the first page of the article, 662, it states, "This building is three stories and basement in height and was located on the southwest corner of Jackson Boulevard and Irving Avenue."
Here's a photograph of the building from the top of page 665 in the article:
The building was moved for the expansion of Crane Technical High School (now Richard T. Crane Medical Prep High School). Here's what the area looked like on the 1917 Sanborn map. The addresses of the buildings that were moved were 2237 and 2239 W. Jackson Boulevard, and 308 and 310 S. Irving Avenue (which is S. Bell Avenue today):
The building's owner bought the lot just across Irving street, on the southeast corner of the intersection. Problem was, the lot was too narrow to just slide the buildings over as is. Plus, the back sides of the parts of the buildings would have ended up facing the street with such a simple move.
So the solution was to cut the building roughly in half. The 308 and 310 S. Irving Avenue part of the building is called Section 1 in the diagram below, and it was rotated 180 degrees before being moved directly across Irving Avenue. The 2237 and 2239 W. Jackson Boulevard part of the building is called Section 2 in the diagram below, and was rotated 90 degrees before being moved directly across Irving Avenue (so that its front now faced that street rather than Jackson Boulevard). Here is a diagram from page 663 in the article illustrating this:
A small section of the three stories that connected the buildings was removed, and a new one-story section (to preserve light) was built between the relocated buildings. The porch originally in front of the Section 2 building had to be removed for the relocation, so it's not in the picture below (from the bottom of page 665 in the article:
Although the moved buildings are now gone (that block is now an athletic field and parking lot for Crane High School), they were still there on the 1950 Sanborn map. The addresses were 301-303-307-309 S. Irving/Bell Avenue:
I encourage you to read the whole article in American Architect and Architecture. The process to move the building is fascinating, the cost not as bad as one might think, and one tenant even remained IN the building during the 60+ days it took to move it!
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