226 – Flatiron Building
Willie York Slept Here.
Well, I don’t really know if Willie York ever slept here, nor do I really know anything about this building other than it had sat vacant as long as I can recall, but sadly is now gone. It seems odd that I would have such affection for a boarded up building, but I did, as it was quite unique.
This is not my photo. It was borrowed from the Ecology of Abscence Blog and this is how it was described:
When I went to Peoria over the weekend, this building was gone. (This photograph dates to June 2005.) The commercial building stood on Moss Avenue just east of Western Avenue, on the south side of the street. Several characteristics were remarkable:
- The building was built entirely of concrete block made to look like rusticated limestone.
- The building formed a flatiron shape even though it did not sit on a flatiron lot. The shape was necessitated instead by topography. Behind the building, the land dropped off so severely that the flatiron was about all that could be built on this site. as the raised sidewalk suggests, things aren’t so great on the other side.
I liked this building because it defied the odds. This site is not “buildable” by contemporary standards; it may not have been even back in the early twentieth century when the building was built. Yet someone wanted to develop this lot, probably spurred on by Peoria’s density. When a city has a strong downtown, people build anywhere they can get in and around that downtown. Even odd lots get built out. Contrast that with today’s American urban environments, where many developers won’t even build on lots 25 feet wide by 120 feet deep. Once, land was scarce and building space abundant — now the formula is inverted. It seems that along with abdundant building space went abundant civic pride. People who don’t value land and make the most of its scarcity don’t build — or steward — great cities.
No doubt the little concrete flatiron fell prey to our perverse size mentality. People probably considered it too small for commercial use, and lacking the “yard” needed for residential. The building went empty and then it was demolished. I’ll bet that the lot remains vacant forever.
According to commenter Josh Harris, the building was torn down because of safety concerns after a fire. Incidentally, if you’re not sure what a ‘flatiron’ building is, this wikipedia entry will make it perfectly clear.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
That’s the building at the corner of Western and MLK. It was torn down about a month ago. I don’t know what the name of it is.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
It was torn down?
Someday we’ll be a city with no history.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Whoa, whoa, someone tore down the creepy triangle building down the way from Jumers?
Monsters.
My friends would affectionately refer to that building as “Diet Dr. Flatiron.”
March 15th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
They tore it down because it was set on fire and became unsafe.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Yes, a few months ago a homeless person’s fire eventually led to the tearing down of this building.
No word on if it was Willie York or not.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Man! I’m so disappointed. I love your weblog(s) but every time I visit I get bad news about my hometown. @#$&*() it.
Seriously, if they do something destructive to the McClure Branch Library, please conceal it from me.
m.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
March 25th, 2008 at 7:55 am
My brother once remarked that I always seem to put up pictures of things getting torn down!
March 27th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
In about 1964, I “ran away” from a babysitter with the idea that I was going to Grama’s down on Saratoga. A policeman found me on the fire escape of that building. I got distracted because the building was so cool and got nabbed before I reached the cookie jar. I guess I’m officially “old” – so many buildings and neighborhoods are only photographs and memories.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
it was a Velvet Freeze in the late 50s early 60s.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I remember this building… I grew up around the corner on Moss. To me in the early seventies it had a¨Laverne and Shirley¨ type appeal to it. It looked like an apartment in new York or something! I wanted to live in it! I was only 5 or 6yrs at the time…. It just reminded me of a place in the big city!!!
September 14th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
…buzzoff is correct.
It was a Velvet Freeze in the ’50s when I was a student at Roosevelt Junior High School just down the hill from it.
Great website, by the way!