IN THE SPRING OF 2011, doing my best to weather—or perhaps avoid—Chicago’s difficult Great Recession job market, I spent a lot of time riding my bike around the city looking for streetscapes that would make for an interesting photo. One evening, cruising down Cortland Street, near the posh homes in Lincoln Park and renovated two-flats and corner bars in Wicker Park and Bucktown, I found myself by the A. Finkl & Sons Steel plant. An arch over the plant’s entrance at Cortland and Southport proclaimed that the company had been in business “Since 1879,” and across the road, illuminated by a golden hour glow, an opened rolling door conveniently framed a view into the foundry, where the company’s workers were handling large ladles of molten steel. A perfect shot for my old Yashica.
Today, that sprawling, roughly fifty-acre industrial corridor, nearly half of which was occupied by the Finkl plant, sits mostly vacant. The corridor’s steel sheds and brick manufactories—some with Prairie School pedigree—are all no more.
