In 'Nickel's Chicago,' a Lost City's Lost Champion


Architect Louis Sullivan's buildings defined the city of Chicago at the turn of the last century, but by the 1950s, many of those buildings were being torn down. Photographer Richard Nickel raced against time to preserve them on film, but it was a race he lost — Nickel was killed when one of the buildings he was shooting collapsed on top of him.


Historic preservationists are often passionate in their zeal to keep the wrecking ball from beloved buildings. One man even died in the process. Richard Nickel spent years with his camera, documenting and arguing against the demolition of buildings in Chicago. 35 years ago Nickel died trying to preserve in pictures a building by architect Louis Sullivan. A new book of his black and white photographs has just been published. From Chicago, Edward Lifson tells us about Nickel's life.

In the 1960's and early 70's, architecture photographer Richard Nickel watched the demolition of so many buildings by Louis Sullivan and other masters turn of the century architects that he wrote, I look forward to the day, when I never have to enter a wet, charred, smoky building again.

A few of Louis Sullivan's buildings still stand here, such as the State Street Department Store, with its windows framed by swirling metal ornaments, celebrating the growth of seeds and leaves and trees. And the celestial Auditorium Theater still presents music and dance. But after World WarⅡ, such buildings fell like leaves in autumn, to make space for a new way of life. That's when the young photographer Richard Nickel started trying to preserve on film what he felt society was losing.

The new book of black and whites was co-edited by Michael Williams and Richard Cahan, who says the chronology of the book tells a story.

It's like watching a train, as a long train goes by you, // you see the cars as you get the rhythm of the train. You stop looking, and then when the caboose comes by, all of a sudden, you take a close look, because that's the last moment you // see the train, and part of the beauty of his pictures is that these buildings are about to go under, you will never see them again.

While in Chicago photographer Joel Meyerowitz has picked up a copy.

I am astonished , I am pleased these guys are really good photographers.

Meyerowitz also has photographed lost buildings and people and culture, at Ground Zero in New York.

His pictures are eloquent, beyond in words . They show us the greed, the corporate greed that infects our cities and has made them less livable, terms of how they blot out the light and reshape our urban experience. And he didn't use any tricks as guide, he let his heart guide him.

And his fury, says the Nickel book's co-author, Richard Cahan. I think he saw that something was wrong, and he wanted to change it, but he knew that the forces were way too great to change it.

By day, Richard Nickel would picket in front of buildings slated for demolition. He would write angry letters at night, and he would sneak into the buildings when the wreckers had gone home. Architect and preservationist John Vinci would often join him to photograph and salvage Louis Sullivan's unique organic ornamentation.

We never thought about it as dangerous, we had other close calls, but nothing like what happened.

On a gray April morning in 1972, Richard Nickel, 43 years old, went by himself into Louis Sullivan Stock Exchange. He did not return home that night. John Vinci and other friends spent a couple of days looking for Nickel in the Stock Exchange rubble.

And it was raining and damp, and we were, you know, walking around, saying Richard, Richard, no Richard. Then we found his camera and his hat, I think, and his suitcase.

Part of the building had collapsed on him. It took four weeks to find his body. Richard Nickel never completed the photograph catalogue he wanted to compile of all of Louis Sullivan's buildings. And they continue to be torn down.

But Sullivan himself said, form ever follows function. That's true of cities, too. If their goal is to look forward and foster commerce, then you could argue, who needs an old Louis Sullivan building.

So John Vinci was asked, what is the lesson of Richard Nickel's life.

Oh, gosh, the lesson of Richard Nickel's life, um, you need to be careful when you go into a building that's being torn down.

Vinci saved his friend's negatives, more than 11 thousand of them, and he started the Richard Nickel Committee and Archive. It displays fragments of Louis Sullivan buildings and original photographic prints. The Archive is in the basement of an old Victorian greystone, on a nice North Side street, while on which they are tearing down old buildings to build condos. From NPR news, I am Edward Lifson , in Chicago.

You can see examples of Richard Nickel's architectural photos, plus a self portrait, at NPR.org,

You are listening to All Things Considered from NPR News.