June 2025.
Since Aurora is much larger geographically, I have to both make more “dump posts” and organize them differently than in the past. This (very brief) post covers River Street, the westernmost street I covered. I’ll start on the south side and move north from there.
Aurora Public Library
Aurora’s large, contemporary library building appeared on Google Maps in 2016, but it didn’t open until 2019. It replaced an earlier library at the intersection of Stolp Avenue and Benton Street. The site previously held some mid-century box demolished between 2008 and 2012, but Google Maps is too grainy to make out what it was.
Ortega Building
This unusually literal Postmodern recreation of two historic buildings seems to have been built in 2001. The ornamentation is pretty sparse per usual, and the features like the hood molds are both bare and sit inside the facade, making it appear flat despite being inspired by buildings that have more depth. I think this is a well-meaning attempt to restore density in an area that was bulldozed into parking lots, but it needs some more neighbors.
If you want a look at how dense these few blocks used to be, check out this old postcard from my coverage of the Hobbs Building:
These were all heavily altered by the 1980s and gone today. Nothing remains from this era except the Hobbs Building and the two buildings north of it.
Frazier Building I
By some stroke of luck, I had fully written this article and I was researching the Aurora Opera House for part 3, and in this Instagram post the words “Aurora mayor Walter Frazier” jumped off the page. It turns out that Frazier was a local businessman who operated a carriage company, and this was likely his firm’s first office building. He moved to Aurora around the time this building was built, so everything checks out.
I always love a good Romanesque Revival building. This design has three prominent bays separated by brick pilasters, and its massive arches span the entire second floor. The building is reasonably intact on the exterior, as the masonry seems original yet worn and unrestored, but the storefronts are altered.
I really like this moment where the vaulting meets the piers:
The cornice is almost unreadable due to age:
I like the textural effect that the brick projections create, but they are heavily worn to the point that the edges are rounded. What makes me call this “Frazier Building I” is both what its cornice says when the contrast is increased (featuring my crappy MS Paint edits) and based on its adjacency to and identical floor heights of its newer neighbor.
The third digit doesn’t look like an 8, and 1870 seems too early to build a Romanesque Revival building, so my guess is 1890.
Fox River House/Galena Hotel
This rather unassuming Italianate building is in fact one of Aurora’s oldest, as the original hotel was built in 1857. That structure burnt down in 1860, and the existing hotel was rebuilt afterwards by Edward Huntoon. Originally known as the Fox River House, it became a fashionable venue to host parties and balls. It’s important to note that the area where it is located was the original city center of Aurora.
The building changed hands many times after Huntoon sold it in 1871, and time did not do it any favors. The exterior is mostly intact beyond the removal of some ornamentation, but the brick apparently sported a coat of chipping paint before it was later stripped, and its interior has been completely gutted. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Though the hotel currently sits empty, it is planned to be converted into micro-apartments. I expected it to be torn down because of its age and altered nature, but I’m glad it will be preserved.
6-12 North River Street
These two c. 1920s Commercial style buildings stand immediately north of the Hobbs Building. They were built as showrooms for International Harvester, and today they have been renovated into restaurants. (I actually ate at the one on the left on a separate occasion--it was pretty good!) I like the various brick textures across the facades. It’s subtle, but they were probably built at different times, as the one on the right has a different colored brick and a slightly wider corner pilaster.
I know this was a quick one, but the next post includes more significant buildings. It follows Stolp Avenue through part of the Stolp Island Historic District.
Sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131203044558/http://gis.hpa.state.il.us/pdfs/200720.pdf
https://aurora.buzz/aurora-s-historic-galena-hotel-set-for-transformation-into-micro-apartments
https://books.google.com/books?id=Jyg-DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
No comments:
Post a Comment