It's the (Lack of) Thought That Counts
By Shannon in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 27, 2007 8:42PM
We at Chicagoist have heard of such extracurricular activities as urban spelunking, where participants explore abandoned, frequently doomed buildings in and around the city. Its defenders prefer a respectful adventure to an infantile trashing. Maybe a souvenir is taken from a place full of ghosts that will host no more vibrance. A description such as this does not fit the lively Monadnock Building downtown, however, which was recently vandalized — and the whole thing caught on tape.
On Jan. 12, a 35- to 40-year-old man entered the Monadnock, walked down a corridor, turned into a stairwell, and yanked the top off a newel post at the end of the staircase, placing it in his backpack. Bill Donnell, co-owner of the building, didn't notice the decorative piece was missing until a few days after the theft. When he did realize it, he got a good chuckle: Out of 200 cast iron tops, the man had stolen the only replica. The stairwell the vandal had chosen also has a multitude of cameras pointing directly at it, catching the man's every sordid movement. Authorities released video stills to the public on Friday. So far, no arrests have been made.
The Monadnock is famous in architectural circles. Not only is it a Chicago landmark, it's the last skyscraper built before more modern innovation allowed for thinner walls, rendering the Monadnock's elegant six-foot thick masonry obsolete. We're scratching our heads trying to think of why this man would want this staircase finial. Donnell remarked, "In a certain crowd I'm sure he may be considered a hero." First of all, you can't be much of a hero when you're stealing a fake (snicker). Second, a hero to whom? Any architecture lover would be appalled at such an outright violation. He seems a little old to impress chicks with it. Maybe it's his way of getting off; who knows? To paraphrase cultural historian Tim Samuelson, you gotta wonder what else this d-bag has back at home.
Image via cheripop.