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Lady Topham Catt

@ladytophamcatt.bsky.social

1.6K followers 440 following 3.7K posts

Short. Black. Mom. Wife. Fighter against the tyranny of pants with waistbands. Classic film, plus Chicago history & architecture. Lotsa cussin’. Mainly pictures of things I like peppered with the odd rant or two. she/her

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 16d

I wrote about the incredible collection of modernist architecture in Chatham commissioned by Black professionals looking to make their mark on Chicago in the midcentury

Best Former House of Royalty: Mid-century modern home of ‘Soul Queen’ Helen C. Maybell Anglin — Chatham

hicago history is often hidden in plain sight in the structures that surround us. From the extraordinary terra cotta-clad buildings standing sentinel over Cottage Grove to the bungalows marching along...

southsideweekly.com

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Robert Loerzel @robertloerzel.bsky.social · 4h

It was an honor to talk Saturday at the Sanfilippo Foundation about the Uptown Theatre — and to see the amazing collection at Sanfilippo, starting with the Uptown's chandeliers. There' s so much cool stuff — these pictures are just a tiny sample. Well worth a visit. www.sanfilippofoundation.org

A music machine with several statues of musicians and the words "Paris" and "Limonaire Fres."

A gramophone with an extra-long, shiny, gold-colored horn

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

Hopefully they weren’t using it for both milk AND garbage, but you never know

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

3A might have been for garbage

Page from a 1925 Majestic catalog showing various garbage receivers, including model 3A.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

I knew this statue had rode off into the sunset, but never before realized that it once sat upon a highly detailed Gothic base that is also gone

Color photo of an enormous Gothic church, its steeple reaching into the clouds.

Color close-up of a portion of a Gothic church, once glorious, now rapidly deteriorating. The lofty perch where a golden St Martin de Tours used to survey Englewood from atop his horse is now empty.

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Chicago History Podcast @chicagohistorypod.bsky.social · 1d

A portion of the 1849 Rees & Rucker map of Chicago and vicinity showing the City Cemetery (where Lincoln Park is today) and the Catholic Cemetery (now part of the Gold Coast). Look how far west the shoreline was!

Episode 815 - Chicago's Ghoulish Past - Expanded and Re-Recorded
bit.ly/47gswWZ

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

I've said this before, but if you need a 44 year old intern who does no actual work & only shows up to look at cool buildings, I am still available

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

WOAH! Did not know any of this. Instant must see!

Screenshot from article in OP reads:

“Morning Star Baptist Church of Chicago, Grand Boulevard

This Bronzeville church at 3993 S. King
Drive has the distinction of being designed by two prominent Black architects — 30 years apart. In 1939, Walter Thomas Bailey — the state's first licensed Black architect, responsible for the remarkable First Church of Deliverance, 4315 S. Wabash Ave. — designed the conversion of Morning Star from a 1912 auto garage into a church.”

Screenshot of paragraph continues:

“Then in 1968, the building was given a stylish top-to-bottom midcentury makeover that's visible from the outside — but with an interior that has to be seen to be believed, with its floating staircase, dalle de verre stained glass and crisp, sophisticated worship space. The Black architecture firm Hunter, Konn, & Duster and Associates handled the renovation. Partner Charles Duster, grandson of Ida B. Wells and her husband, Ferdinand E. Barnett, later became an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.”

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

This is so cool!!! My son loved Fever 1793 when he read it.

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Bill Savage @rogersparkman.bsky.social · 2d

Today is the 154th anniversary of the end of the Great Chicago Fire, and the beginning of Chicago’s “Regeneration,” the title of this sculpture by Henry Hering on SE Du Sable Bridge bridgehouse at Michigan & Wacker. The I Will Maiden personified Chicago’s energy. We will need that energy again soon.

Bas relief sculpture showing the I Will Maiden, a Greek Goddess of sorts, in armor, a cape, and flowing skirt; in one hand she holds rolled up blueprints for, presumably, new buildings; other hand wields a carpenter’s square. She has a tiara on as well; she treads on an unhappy dragon (the Fire?) beneath her sandals. She is flanked on each side by muscular tradesmen rebuilding the city.

See first picture alt text. Closeup of the I Will Maiden.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

Wholly unexpected, but so, so good!

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

I did this shirt for @tudoraf.bsky.social based on some guy’s ads from the 1930s, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me adapting it for the Collective. Can we also get brass knuckles in the shape of the Chicago skyline c1930?

Photo of a white t-shirt on my messy desk. It features a guy with an enormous head extending his disconcertingly long arm to present a Tudor style residence.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

I'm at Graceland all the time, but don't always visit Eternal Silence. I'll try to remember to grab a pic when he's back from the spa or the plastic surgeon or whatever.

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

making art @marigoldmimsy.bsky.social · 2d

a chicago public schools with incredible metalwork and stained glass artwork, inside and out

this school building is an amazing mixture of the chicago school style and prairie style architecture, designed by Dwight Perkins and opened in 1910

a copper vent plate inside carl schurz high school

a two toned brick building with high tables, long rectangular windows and columns on its front

there is metal exterior gratework on the high exterior windows

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

It's such a lovely book! I told them the Chicago Building Nerd Collective had been waiting on it. I know I'll turn to it again & again as a reference, but it's also just a really great read! Informative & thought-provoking, but also really funny.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

I wait on your radiator blessing every year 🙏

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

It me! With movies & otherwise. Oh, did someone build this gorgeous, cherished thing 100+ years ago & now it sits neglected & forgotten? I am going to research every damn thing about it. Who built this? Why? Who lived here next? Who wasn’t allowed to live here? TELL ME EVERYTHING.

Movies Silently @moviessilently.bsky.social · 2d

If silents were as popular as talkies and talkies were as unpopular as silents, I would probably be writing about talkies.

I an fascinated by the obscure and forgotten, especially if it used to be ubiquitous and beloved. Trying to unravel why it was beloved is fun.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

Either way they want to keep Eternal Silence from slaying

Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Jim Daley @jimdaleywrites.bsky.social · 2d

Pass it on: If you FILE A COMPLAINT about police activity, it flags the body-worn camera video so reporters can obtain it later via FOIA requests.

City: www.chicagocopa.org/complaints/i...
County: apps.cookcountyil.gov/oiig/
State: oeig.illinois.gov/complaints/o...

The People's Fabric @peoplesfabric.com · 2d

State troopers just dragged three people out of the crowd.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

Exhibit A:

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · Oct 12

I can only assume folks are being vaporized on the spot when they step up to see Eternal Silence & will accept no other explanation for the bald patch in the grass front of it.

A color picture of a remarkably creepy cemetery monument that features a bronze statue that has developed a green patina with age and is dramatically offset by a slab of black granite. The hooded and robed figure stands upright, peering over a draped arm that covers the lower part of their face. There is a noticeable bald patch in the grass directly in front of the monument.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

Sick of everyone going along with this cover story when we *know* Eternal Silence tells everyone the hour of their death. How, exactly, would he have that info if he wasn't involved?! I'll tell you what Big Cemetery doesn't want you to know: ETERNAL SILENCE FORCIBLY RESTRAINED BEFORE HE KILLS AGAIN

Adam Selzer @adamchicago.bsky.social · 2d

Lorado Taft’s “Eternal Silence” statue, marking the plot of Henry Graves at Graceland Cemetery, currently mummified for restoration work.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

It’s incredible, & absolutely commands the intersection at street level. As a kid, I always had my little face plastered to the car window like WHAT IS THAT?!

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

Using Lee Bey's great column (buff.ly/OKF5bVy) as an excuse to re-up my thread on this incredible building. Though often overshadowed by the nearby Avalon Regal, it deserves to have a line of folks prostrating themselves before it every day & throwing huge sacks of money towards its preservation.

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · Apr 28

1/2 This 1928 building originally housed Raphael's, a 2 story 450 seat restaurant of such excess that it could only have been built in the 1920s. You entered through a space meant to mimic an outdoor garden, complete with trees & fountains. At night, colored spotlights bounced off the 60 ft minaret.

Extreme wide angle photo of a Persian-influenced building of tan brick and absolutely incredible polychrome terra cotta ornament. A minaret-like tower extends up above the roofline.

Color close up of the ornament above the entry. Inside of a large horseshoe arch formed by rows of intricately designed polychrome terra cotta fashioned into geometric designs in dark yellow, blue and green, is another incredibly complex circle/star element in a lighter yellow, green and blue terra cotta. Below this, twin designs in pale green and dark pink that seem to mimic in miniature the curving arches common in Islamic architectural designs. Even this element is made extraordinary as it is filled in with tiny, dark pink terra cotta tessellations.

Color close up of ornament atop the building. From this angle can be seen part of the minaret-like tower, which is made up of tan brick and layers of intricately designed pale green terra cotta. Beneath this is some gorgeous terra cotta cresting; a dark green on light yellow calligraphic design. The facade also features a row of five dark yellow terra cotta polylobed arches highlighted by dark blue tessellations and bands of pale green horizontal tiles alternating with tan brick.

Crooked color close-up of terra cotta ornamentation on the building's first level. Straight dark green bands alternate with lovely bands of stylized foliate and geometric designs in blue.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

I have loved this building my entire life. I really hope the congregation is able to get what they need to preserve & restore it.

Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 2d

Today's architecture column. That fantastic Moorish Revival building at 79th and Stony? Its longtime owner, Haven of Rest Missionary Baptist Church, is making moves to get the structure landmarked and restored.

South Side church seeks to reawaken Stony Island's architectural slice of ancient Persia

The Haven of Rest Missionary Baptist Church congregation is making plans to restore and landmark its Mideast Revival fellowship hall, a structure that was built in 1928 as a swanky restaurant.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

My son was doing a "I like people who don't lose the Nobel peace prize" routine on the way to school today