Chicago: A city changed and unchanged
OUR TOWN | A Sun-Times photographer looks at how we've evolved -- or not
Even before joining the photography staff at the Chicago Sun-Times about a year ago, I always thought it would be fun to peruse the library of historical photographs the paper has compiled over the years. From images of the 1968 Democratic National Convention unrest to pictures of plane crashes at Midway and O'Hare airports to iconic photos of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, it's easy to get lost in the stacks.
The collection is filed alphabetically in manila folders so tightly packed on shelves in our library that it takes a bit of muscle to pry them apart. Add in the digital archive from our most recent period and we have a really impressive collection of images chronicling the life of Chicago.
(Sun-Times archive/Chris Sweda)
PHOTO GALLERY
Chicago: Then and now
A very low percentage of the photographs we file makes the final cut in the paper, which means that just a few of the thousands of photographs we take as staffers are ever seen by the public. I'm interested in using this rich and unseen resource as inspiration for new work.
To that end, I've tried to re-photograph scenes from the exact vantage points that earlier Sun-Times photojournalists used to capture Chicago. My goal has been to tell the story of a city both changed and unchanged, for better or worse.
Daily photographic coverage in the Sun-Times focuses heavily on people. My interest in this project, however, is the urban landscape. What I enjoy most is seeking out the locations of the file photographs I've selected from the archives. I feel less like a journalist and more like a detective. Exact locations aren't always indicated on the back of prints; sometimes I find myself wandering down a street, looking to match a photograph with a live setting.
Probably half of the photographs that I think would make for interesting re-shoots can't even be re-created. For example, buildings that were once used as vantage points to show sweeping neighborhood scenes have sometimes been torn down. Other times, new structures have been built where the original photo was taken, making it impossible to reference a scene in any interesting way.
Once I find the general location of the scene, discovering the precise location and using the proper lens to frame the photograph identically often is much more difficult than I had imagined. Many times I'm taking five steps to the right, zooming in a bit, then backing up 10 yards, maybe crouching down halfway to the ground. I've received many strange looks and good questions from people as I attempt to line things up, glancing back and forth at the old photograph in my hand and the scene in front of my eyes.
In one case, recreating the Lincoln Square scene (shown right below), originally shot in 1953 by Bill Sturm, required climbing the stairs in a dark, abandoned, burned-out graystone, littered heavily with pigeon droppings. After all of that effort, I still was unable to shoot from the exact location as the original. Due to boarded-up windows, I wasn't able to shoot the scene from the second floor as the original had been, so I settled for a shot from the rooftop, yielding a slightly higher view of the intersection of Lawrence, Western and Lincoln.
Chicago is precious and delicate. The city is much like a living organism -- it evolves slowly over time. The city's character is determined by so many: urban planners, architects, developers, policymakers, and preservationists, who design, build, protect and sometimes destroy. Muralists, city garden organizers and homeowners add finishing touches.
I hope that this project helps people appreciate Chicago's history and understand that everybody has a role to play in determining its future as well.