The Fire by William Dolan
Twenty years ago today, a devastating fire ripped through the Huron–Orleans Building in Chicago. Once a billiard table factory, the structure was home to a large amount of galleries at the time and arguably the center of the River North gallery district. It was actually three buildings. One small structure, that I assume contained the original Brunswick offices and two imposing brick structures that took up the rest of the city block bounded by Orleans, Huron, Sedgwick and Superior. Unfortunately, the huge brick complex had a timber core that burned for hours. Today, one would hardly know that it ever existed. The million-dollar townhouses that replaced it seem to have been there forever.
For many, The Fire marked the end of the glory days of the 80s art scene. Galleries were destroyed. Whole bodies of work, literally went up in smoke. In the following months, The Chicago Artists’ Coalition’s Art News chronicled the battles between artists and galleries and insurers. It was ugly.
For some, the end had already begun a year and a half earlier on Black Friday, as the stock market crash of ’87 sent the art world in a skid. The non-profits that were largely in the basement of the Huron-Orleans Building had already moved and was establishing a new, edgier scene in the West Town area.
At the time of the fire, I was working on my first public art project for the city at Navy Pier and remember the huge plume of smoke to the West. Being new to the art world, I wasn’t sure what long term effect, if any, The Fire would have. Looking back there have been some exciting things since; the aforementioned West Town district, The Cold House Group, World Tatoo, Wicker Park and others have always given me hope that there is something good happening here. To me the art scene never fully recovered. Although, perhaps, to a young artist just out of school, what was happening around the Huron–Orleans Building just seemed bigger than it was.
Do you have any memories of The Fire? Were you affected by it? Do you feel too much weight is given to its importance?
Photo credit: Erik Richmond
Category: Articles | Tags: art world, chicago art history, fire, Galleries 4 comments »
April 15th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Memories flow like piss.
I had a gallery in that building. I had all my personal belongings in storage there. I was only just figuring out we were at risk in that building. The fire doors had been removed. The sprinklers shut off – and we had not been told.
Two days before the big fire was a very small fire and on Friday the 14th I called my insurance agent, John Harney, and told him to double my insurance. Saturday morning the 15th is the fire.
I was awakened by a call from the alarm company at 6:15 AM. The said the alarm had gone off at the gallery. I said it happens all the time and went back to sleep. 5 minutes later they called back and said it’s fire.
I was there in 15 minutes. Spoke immediately the with the Fire Chief. There was fire in 3 distinct upper corners of the building. He said it was arson. Fires don’t start by themselves in 3 separate places. (Arson was never established as a cause of the fire.)
A horrible, hair-color-changing, kind of day.
After the smoldering stopped a few days later I got permission to rummage through the burnt site. I found artifacts of each artist and shared it with each – slides, postcards, pieces of art. Fascinating what did and didn’t burn.
The police called me up a few weeks later. Said they’d heard I’d doubled my insurance and I was a suspect. I said, oh, because I went from 40% covered to 80% covered? They said they’d get back to me. It’s been 20 years and I didn’t think of it until I saw Norbert’s reminder.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Being a young kid out of art school, this building for me was the mecca of the art world. I felt like an explorer roaming its halls. I think there were close to thirty galleries in the building at its peak.
The day the building burned was sad to say the least. I remember watching the fire while standing next to Garry Meier. There was an overall feeling of helplessness permeating the crowd.
If the building stood today I don’t know if it would still be an active part of the River North gallery district because of economic changes and such but I guess we’ll never know.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I worked a few blocks away from the Huron-Orleans Building (never knew that was the name of it), and remember seeing the fire from the L while on my way to work. The whole block was engulfed in huge, billowing clouds of smoke.
At the time I was a photo-film major at University of Illinois-Chicago, and I remember that about half the people in the UIC photo department (and probably half the photo students at Columbia and SAIC, too) went and took pictures of the ruins during the weeks after the fire. Probably the most interesting use that I saw of the resulting images was by one girl who printed them onto fabric coated with liquid emulsion, and then made the fabric into a dress.
I myself shot almost two rolls of film (among them the shots included with this post), but never printed any of them because it seemed pointless when everyone else I knew had taken the exact same pictures. In fact, the second roll sat undeveloped on a shelf in my apartment for almost twelve years before I finally had it processed…
April 15th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
I was represented by Zolla/Lieberman Gallery and I lost two beautiful pieces of sculpture in that fire. One was a proposal for a fountain at 12th St. beach. It was a mid size meticulously carved and painted wood piece about 4′ tall. The other was a small but elaborately painted bas relief. I asked so little for them and completely forgot to mention my full portfolio, slides, color prints and reviews. Everyone was in shock and so sad. What I lost was nothing compared to others who had years of work stored in the galleries. Roberta Lieberman moved on and stayed positive, but I don’t think she ever really recovered. I miss those wide open loft spaces and the variety of work that was shown by all of the galleries in that building.