Catholic Mass/Presbyterian Church

OK, maybe 220 years ago, we would be knocking each other on the head for this, but the Presbyterians in Wilmette are showing a real knack for the Catholic Mass.

The First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette performed Mozart's Missa brevis in G this morning, and performed it beautifully and reverentially. I am not familiar enough with Presbyterianism and the teachings of Calvin and Knox to get much historical perspective on this, but logistically it worked pretty well, considering having a Catholic mass sandwiched in a Presbyterian service is a bit unconventional.

Speaking of unconventional, Joe McHale, grandson of Joe McCarthy mentioned that his grandfather most likely built 1st Presbyterian under an assumed name, and it does have all the trappings of the Great Chicago Ecclesiologist.

Viillage Government vs. the Wilmette Canopy

One of the knottiest problems in the Midwest is the destruction of the Ash Tree Canopy by the Emerald Ash Borer. Around 20 Million Ash Trees are dead and dying in Michigan, Ontario, Indiana, and now Illinois. The Village where I live, Wilmette, has come up with the arboricidal policy of removing the Ash Trees from the public boulevards, before the trees are infested with the Ash Borer. Yes, that is right, the Village is killing the trees, to....save the canopy?

In January, (This from the Tribune) Wilmette revealed its $2.5 million plan to remove and replace all 2,855 of its public ash trees by 2012. This only would apply to Ash Trees on Public Property. Yes, the Village will spend $875 to remove the Canopy from Wilmette. The trees on private property would still get infected, as the Ash Borer is not particular about public or private property, but residents would not get tree cover from the boulevard trees.

One of the reason the North Shore of Chicago is appealing to residents is the tree cover of the area. Given this area has been a suburb since about 1900, many of the trees planted over the farmland are 100 yrs + in age, giving a genuinely leafy ambiance to the leafy suburbs.

Of course the leafiness appeals to spendthrifts, who have a native home in Village government, which has never been bogged down by arithmetic calculations. Fortunately, a Glenview Tree Service made a mass mailing to North Shore Residents, slamming the arborcide, and offering to innoculate trees for around $150. So there is an offer outstanding to innoculate trees for 1/5 of the costs of removing trees, maintaining the canopy, and keeping one of the leafiest suburbs in the US-leafy.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the village destroying a huge natural resource without cause?

The photoshot from Microsoft Terra Server of the Wilmette Canopy.

Update: Here is some more info gathered via a conversation with a few altogether helpful Village employees.

1) The Village Arborists are only cutting down diseased trees

2) The budget is there to cut down all Ash trees

3) The only thing stopping the arborists from cutting down all the ash trees (healthy or diseased) is the common sense of the arborists. The directive is to eliminate all the trees in 6 years, regardless of the health of the tree.

4) There are treatments out there for preventive innoculation, and treatement of diseased trees. The Village, in general is not using these treatments.

5) The Village Government (not the foresters) would rather cut down trees than innoculate.

How about a test plot for innoculation of say...all of Gilson Park?

More Wilmette Ash Boer here

Teardowns and Replacements

My friend and neighbor Blogger Publia who publishes a blog titled "Wilmette" asked me to describe the flow of teardowns in Wilmette. Despite my general lack of knowledge of architecture and construction, I tend to make enough bold inaccurate statements that I am correct at least as often as a stopped clock (and observed about at about the same frequency).

Lot prices have become high enough in Wilmette (Kenilworth, Winnetka and the NorthShore) that any house not up to modern standards in multiple respects economically can be torn down and replaced, then sold on the real estate market for a possible profit. The trend is slowing dramatically in Wilmette, as the lot values are coming down faster than the prices, but nonetheless, the village is peppered with teardowns.

People throw around the term McMansion and Monster House to deride the newcoming houses, without giving much thought to the architectural value of what is built and what is removed.












Here is a typical torn down lot. Rather than belittling my neighbors that once lived their, suffice to say, the house was wooden, small, uninsulated and built inexpensively during the depression. Not every house that is torn down fits this description, but a good lot of them do.













Here is the kind of housing that fill those vacant lots. Traditional building materials, large lot to sq ft ratio, and a certain adherence to building norms, not likely to offend the aesthetics of the neighborhood, but neither likely to wow people. In my opinion, these houses are a huge contributor to the neighborhood, and fill a demand for traditional housing at a (relatively) reasonable price and timeframe.








Here is where it gets more complicated. This is a house designed by the Daniel Burnham firm, and probably not Daniel Burnham, on Kenilworth Avenue in Kenilworth. The house is stylish, well proportioned and by all accounts obsolete, with replacement costs being much less than restoration costs. There are many houses by Daniel Burnham, and this one is not noteworthy, nor would the average person recognize it in a lineup of great Chicago Homes. The owner has decided not to tear it down, due to historical signifcance






Here is a house 2 doors east on Kenilworth Ave that is traditional, stunning, contemparary with the neighborhood, and finished in 2007. Despite the best efforts of preservationists to keep this from being built, a very beautiful house now stands as an example of using tradtional materials, and modern building methods in the best Chicago fashion.










This is the next door neighbor to the Prairie/Tudor shown above. A ranch house, great in its own settting, but totally out of place in the neighborhood, sits on one of the best lots in Illinois at the corner of Sheridan and Kenilworth. It looks well constructed, probably insulated, and the toliets most likely work, but the lot price is disproportionate with the building costs. It may likely be torn down.







Here is my neighbors house, built in 2006. Pleasant contemparary design, high status materials (stone, brick), totally filling the lot to get the most square footage for the platt size. Maple Park is 10 yards east of here, giving the owner ample room for children. The back yard also extends 150 ft.

Here is a more modest, but quite charming traditional home one block north of the previous shot. This looks just like the neighbors, albeit a bit larger, but built in 2006.

Good time for whats the point:

1) You don't have to build an ugly house to replace a teardown

2) It is complicated to determine the historical value of maintaining dysfunctional old houses.

3) The Village of Wilmette allows buildings to occupy a certain footprint of the lot size. This is aggressively enforced. I can also say first hand that the enforcement does not meet any standards of common sense, as I had to lower ceiling heigth, but not sq. ft. occupied to meet building standards on my own house, and ensure additional bumps on my head. But by all mean, the Village does enforce a standard buildout size.

4) The terms McMansion and Monster house are just not descriptive enough to figure out what kind of teardown took place. There should be some standard (I think), but I am quite certain that the local municipalities are not capable of informed judgement on these matters, and should work on drainage, traffic, drinking water, etc.

Shopping in the Spanish Renaissance

In the 1920's there was a movement in Chicago (and Pasedena and Santa Baraba) toward a (mostly imagined) Spanish Mediterranean Style of Architecture, with lots of smooth white stucco, red tile roofs, arches, stone carvings, and many of the elements that make buildings welcoming and pleasant to humans. Mostly imagined because on the Spanish Mediterranean, buildings do not actually look like this, nor do they have steel frames, and roofs slanted to withstand snowfall. Nonetheless, in 1926 Architect Edwin H. Clark built a grand theater and entertainment district in No-Mans-Land an unicorporated area south of Kenilworth and on the North Side of Wilmette.

The Spanish Court, to be renamed the Plaza Del Lago the grand development of Arhcitects Keck and Keck and Edwin Clark, stands today as a beautiful connection to Lake Michigan and the leafy suburbs of Wilmette and Kenilworth.