HomeThis Week: Urban Remains
24. Aug, 2009 
6 Comments
A few words before this post begins. I apologize in advance for mentioning 80′s pop star and former Go Go Belinda Carlisle in the same post as this very cool salvage shop. Also, if you’d like to send me $450, please email me. Finally, be sure to check out the post-post-text photos where you’ll see possibly the most amazing, awesome, crazy, killer robot lamp ever.
Belinda Carlisle was right; heaven is a place on Earth, a place where Bertoia wire chairs hang from the ceiling next to anatomy charts and industrial lighting features. Heaven is a place called Urban Remains, an afterlife of sorts for pretty much everything and anything from doorknobs to Eames chairs.
Vintage science and medical junkies take note, Urban Remains specializes in hospital castoffs, including inventory from Grant and Michael Reese Hospitals, much of which I’m dying to reincarnate in my house. I could have easily spent eternity looking at knick-knacks, but the oversized medical lighting options really lit up my tarnished halo. So now I’ve been to heaven and back. It’s a start.
Urban Remains. 410 N. Paulina St. Chicago. 312-492-6254.
p.p.s.
If you read last week’s Tuesday Ramble, you may recall that I’m really nuts about Restoration Hardware’s heat lamps because they resemble killer robots. So I was pleasantly surprised to see a far scarier, deadlier looking lamp for myself when I visited Urban Remains last week. Check it out:
Issssssn't this the scariesssssst thing you've ever ssssssseen?
Sometimes things are not what they seem. And sometimes they are.
A gift from me to M . . . well, you know who you are.
Let's face it, this T, which is exactly like mine, looks fairly exhaulted, does it not? Almost like it's floating in a golden light, a beacon for design-o-philes everywhere.
While this post contains a number of salvaged letters, there are an inordinately large number of S's, don't you think?
Dapper huh?
Another S. I'm known for my informative captions, which not only describe the photo but also provide interesting ancillary information.
The Libra in me really wants this massive scale. Actually, the rest of me wants it too. Also, if it wouldn't be so revealing, I'd say that the T symbol with the scales might be the perfect tattoo for what was formerly my upper arm muscle.
No thanks. Can't do it. But it's cool.
I realize you’re just looking at the photos in order to read the captions, so I wanted to let you know this is the last caption.
Are you following me around? I was at Urban Remains on Saturday afternoon! I tried very hard to convince my husband (not nearly as decoratus absurdum as I am) that the morgue table would be the perfect dining room table but he wasn’t having any of it – no way, no how. We came away empty handed – not because we didn’t see anything we liked but because we’re running out of places to put stuff!
I want to go here.I love this kind of stuff.
genius post. your captions rock my tiny world!
Thanks Ramona. That’s a nice thing to say.
Great pics, fab store. Their website is loaded with incredible items that I haven’t seen at the store.
Check it out:
http://www.urbanremainschicago.com
Wow! I wish I lived near Chicago! Maybe the morgue table could be a massage table.