As a fairly new resident of the West Town/Noble Square/Eckhart Park area, I wondered what the deal was with the huge, abandoned Catholic church at Noble and Chestnut. Because it’s been shorn of all identifying markings, I didn’t even know what the name was until I found a flyer for saintbonifaceinfo.com in my mailbox. Some anonymous person or persons was/were kind enough to put together a fine Web site about the church (I heart this sort of activism 2.0), with a history, pictures, links, and more. It’s a gorgeous old Chicago building, color-coded “orange” in the Commission on Chicago Landmarks Historic Resources Survey: “…a structure possessing historical and architectural distinction in the context of the immediate community.”
A Links page has further info on the church, including a piece by Reader architecture critic Lynn Becker and a 2005 piece from the Chicago Journal, as well as an amazing, haunting photo essay by an urban spelunker. According to the Timeline posted on the site, the archdiocese is “very close to” a deal with a developer as of May.