Holy Order of MANZ
I am fascinated by the former factory clock towers of North Center. From the Brown Line you can see them well before the stretch between Damen and Paulina, and I have spent many a train trip admiring how they rise over the brick two-flats and big old houses on either side.
The towers are only the most elegant and visible parts of the now post-industrial landscape of Chicago. Aside from offering a classy way to disguise elevator machinery, these towers also featured clocks for the reference of the many employees who weren't going to cough up a bunch of paychecks for a pocketwatch. (Ah, yes: the days when only gentlemen had timepieces...and women couldn't vote.)
Such towers surmount several of the massive brick buildings that constitute the Ravenswood Industrial Corridor, lining the divided street of the same name on either side of the Metra Union Pacific-North tracks. The vast majority have been converted to office or loft space for some very interesting concerns: e.g., Architectural Artifacts, who salvage and sell a head-spinning array of previously owned decorative stuff, and the relocated Lill Street Art Center, which provides studio and display space (and a cafe selling exotica like glögg cake).
Three towers stand out in this corridor:
The former Speed-O-Print building (manufacturers of hand-cranked mimeographs, for those of us who recall getting a buzz off of fresh mimeos back in our youth...) at Ravenswood and Larchmont is now the Larchmont Lofts Condos, part of the "adaptive reuse conversion" boom of the 1980s and 90s. its clockfaces are all set to different times and appear to be out of commission.
Further north, the Deagan building rises over Ravenswood and Berteau. My wife and I puzzled over the provenance of this name until a recent episode of "Chicago Stories" on WTTW. Turns out to have been the home of the famed J.C. Deagan instrument works, creator of some of the finest marimbas and vibraphones of the mid-20th century. (Think Milt Jackson or Lionel Hampton.) Deagan's former master tuner still does repairs at an office there. However, the building now belongs to Unicut, manufacturer of saw blades.
Midway between these two at Ravenswood and Irving Park is a non-clock tower labeled enigmatically "MANZ." I say enigmatically because a satisfactory referent still eludes me. (The post title makes a punning reference to a '60s Christian-Rosicrucian order in the Bay Area.) Google turned up "J. Manz & Co." printing, founded by Jacob Manz from Switzerland in the late 1800s. Some of their postcards have been selling well on Ebay, if you're interested.
More will be forthcoming...
The towers are only the most elegant and visible parts of the now post-industrial landscape of Chicago. Aside from offering a classy way to disguise elevator machinery, these towers also featured clocks for the reference of the many employees who weren't going to cough up a bunch of paychecks for a pocketwatch. (Ah, yes: the days when only gentlemen had timepieces...and women couldn't vote.)
Such towers surmount several of the massive brick buildings that constitute the Ravenswood Industrial Corridor, lining the divided street of the same name on either side of the Metra Union Pacific-North tracks. The vast majority have been converted to office or loft space for some very interesting concerns: e.g., Architectural Artifacts, who salvage and sell a head-spinning array of previously owned decorative stuff, and the relocated Lill Street Art Center, which provides studio and display space (and a cafe selling exotica like glögg cake).
Three towers stand out in this corridor:
The former Speed-O-Print building (manufacturers of hand-cranked mimeographs, for those of us who recall getting a buzz off of fresh mimeos back in our youth...) at Ravenswood and Larchmont is now the Larchmont Lofts Condos, part of the "adaptive reuse conversion" boom of the 1980s and 90s. its clockfaces are all set to different times and appear to be out of commission.
Further north, the Deagan building rises over Ravenswood and Berteau. My wife and I puzzled over the provenance of this name until a recent episode of "Chicago Stories" on WTTW. Turns out to have been the home of the famed J.C. Deagan instrument works, creator of some of the finest marimbas and vibraphones of the mid-20th century. (Think Milt Jackson or Lionel Hampton.) Deagan's former master tuner still does repairs at an office there. However, the building now belongs to Unicut, manufacturer of saw blades.
Midway between these two at Ravenswood and Irving Park is a non-clock tower labeled enigmatically "MANZ." I say enigmatically because a satisfactory referent still eludes me. (The post title makes a punning reference to a '60s Christian-Rosicrucian order in the Bay Area.) Google turned up "J. Manz & Co." printing, founded by Jacob Manz from Switzerland in the late 1800s. Some of their postcards have been selling well on Ebay, if you're interested.
More will be forthcoming...
posted by AntropOvni at 9:18 PM
1 Comments:
Since I had an office suite which encompassed much of the executive suite of the Manz Corporation, I can give some added information.
In addition to the picture on this blog, the Manz Corporation actually built and owned several buildings north of the one pictured. The excutive offices with mahogany walls were located at 4043 north Ravenswood, a block north of Irving Park Road. This complex was the original printers of Esquire Magazine and many Army manuals in World War Two. The company fell on hard times during the late 1960's and the buildings were sold to various owners.
I was fortunate enough to rent, at very low rates, 1.500 square feet of the former executive suite. Twenty years after the printing company departed, you could still sense the odor of printers ink in the lobby. It was still a classy building.
Unfortunately, in 2005 the building, with its 1920's interior, was gutted.
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