They don't make 'em like that anymore . .

I'm not telling you anything you don't know here; big, old, beautiful churches all around downtown are sitting vacant. You have your favorites too, no doubt. "If only somebody would do something," you mumble as you drive by.

Well, last week I photographed just such a church for a pending National Register of Historic Places nomination. Now putting it on the NR won't prevent it from being demolished, but through Missouri's Historic Tax Credit program it becomes more feasible to restore it. And it seriously needs restoration!

Is it worth it? What do you think?

KCMOSD Part One

For the last month and a half or so I've been out photographing Kansas City MO School District schools with Rosin Preservation for an adaptive reuse study.

Everybody knows the schools in their neighborhood, but when you set out to see them all it can be very enlightening, and surprising. First of all, there are a LOT of schools! We're focusing on only about 75. Secondly, the diversity of architecture is impressive. Some are beautiful, and some are purely utilitarian. Some are huge and some are tiny. Some are occupied, others have been vacant for a long time. They're all interesting, though.

Here are some examples from the first couple of days out. More to come . .











(The odds are really good that I can't remember where or what some of these schools are, so my apologies in advance if you're curious.)

More "Art of Decay"

I was out of town this week doing pre-restoration photos for a client. The building in question had been vacant and boarded up since the 80's. 250 boards covering all windows and doors had just been removed on the day we arrived, and all were being put back the next day when we left. It was like opening a time capsule for for a quick look, and then burying it again.

Every time I get to do a project like this I'm awed by the patience and persistence of nature and the elements. Years of hot then cold, wet then dry, animals and insects coming and going, all wear on a building. In time, anything built by man will be reclaimed by nature, and sometimes the process is stunningly beautiful. And I get to photograph it!

I'll be back again to photograph it when everything is repaired and restored, and few will believe that it could have ever looked like this.

I LOVE my job!

How to re-use an old school . . (IMHO)

I went out of town this week to photograph an old high school building that had been "re-purposed" into apartments. This kind of project is a LOT of work and can easily be done badly. Historic Tax Credits keep these projects going AND help to insure good results.

This one came out really nice! So here, in my humble opinion, is WHY this was done right.

From the outside, it still looks like a great old school building.


Inside, you'll find the original hallways and stairways. Why change them?



If existing doors were no longer needed, they were left in place and made inoperable. Where new doors were needed, they were made to match the existing ones. Which doors are new and which are original?


There isn't much use for a school auditorium in an apartment building, but it's such an important part of the building that the stage and some representation of the seating was saved. Image a neighborhood association meeting here!



In the apartment units, care was taken to step the walls and dropped ceilings back away from the windows (where necessary) so they wouldn't be seen from outside.



And what about the units themselves? After all, what good is all this if, in the end, nobody wants to live there?



The units are spacious and bright with lots of windows. Yeah, I'd live there.

Dangerous Buildings?

I've been doing a lot more pre-rehab than post-rehab documentation these days. Personally, the pre-rehab documentation is more thrilling. What are you going to find? Nobody knows!

Earlier in the week we were going through a small, two story warehouse when, while going down the stairs to the basement I noticed an odd smell. Not a bad or foul smell, more metallic and acrid. Not a typical damp basement smell. Flashlights and my camera's flash revealed the source . . mold.



It shouldn't have been a surprise. Wet spring, hot summer, tightly closed building, dirt-floor basement. I got a few shots from the bottoms of the stairs and we left.

That same day we were headed for the roof of another building taking note of the damaged roof supports on the floor below so as to avoid those sections. I have to say that this is the worst I've ever seen. It's shored up by a temporary beam so it was not as dangerous as it looks, but that beam wasn't there the last time I was in this building!



It's always an adventure!

In the meantime . .

Sometimes I can't share the things I photograph. Sometimes it's only a matter of time before I can. While I wait for the green light on a previous project, here's a couple from today's shoot.

While documenting a rooftop downtown I noticed the amazing patina on this door (who wouldn't?).


And this view of the new Performing Arts Center is one you will see nowhere else!

Inside Kansas City's Cosby Hotel

Over the last year or so a lot of ink has been spilled concerning the possible fate of the Cosby Hotel at 9th & Baltimore. I've been hoping to get inside to photograph it for FAR longer than that, though! Well, that day came a few weeks ago. I was hired by Rosin Preservation to document it for a possible historic tax credit application. Yesterday the project was officially announced and I can now share what we found inside this incredible structure.


Built in 1881, the building was purchased by Joseph Cosby in 1899 and converted into a hotel. The first floor is all commercial storefronts, and although the spaces are in need of restoration there's nothing special or unexpected in there. One small doorway outside, however, leads upstairs to the most intact, unmolested, un-remodeled, 110-year-old hotel space I've ever seen!



The check-in booth, the staircase, the atrium . . all still there (albeit missing some pieces). The room sizes are original, as are the doors, moldings, trim, windows, etc.



As was typical in hotels of this era, there is one bathroom (multiple stalls) and one tub (located elsewhere) per floor. Your room had a sink and a closet (maybe).



Here's a typical room.



I can't stress enough how unusual it is to find an interior from 1881 THIS intact! Notice the old, exposed, nob-&-tube wiring on the ceiling of this bathroom. All the rooms still had this! The bathroom fixtures, although likely not original, are probably 100+ years old and are complete with old wooden toilet seats.


Transoms, hardware, floors . . all there! This place looks like it hasn't been remolded in 100 years! It's a huge time-capsule in the heart of Downtown. Sure, it's in really bad shape, but it's THERE!

And there's more! Hidden above a newer ceiling on the first floor, in a small crawl-space, is the original mezzanine ceiling complete with tin and painted canvas, with moldings of cattle skulls and bullseyes!



I wonder who she is?


What a place!