Questions and Answers (Q&A) Forgotten Chicago Forum
Have a question about a specific element in Chicago's history? Ask Away!
Grey back porches
Posted by:
Mornac
()
Date: August 04, 2012 03:16AM
I submitted this question to Cecil Adams about a year ago and I was told it was being closely considered by the Master for a public response but to date I’ve heard nothing. Then today I saw a photo in the news that brought it back to memory so I thought I’d ask it here: Does anyone know why the back porches on Chicago apartment buildings have been historically the same shade of grey and nothing else? For that matter, they all seem to have been designed in the same style. Was there something in the building code that regulated this? What ever happened to them?
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
PKDickman
()
Date: August 04, 2012 03:35PM
Let me address this in two parts.
First the gray.
My porch (3 story, first built in 1909) Still has a few original boards. In spite of the fact that the Dept of Buildings makes a beeline to my door every time a porch collapses in the city. Stratographic analysis of paint chips shows Ochre, dark brown, white (might be white lead primer), several layers of grays, dark brown, gray and finally the green I painted on.
Two things about painting a porch.
First, it takes about 5 gal per coat for a three flat. Good paint is not cheap and I suspect the gray period was started when surplus battleship paint hit the market.
Second, 75% of a porch consists of nooks and crannies. It is cost effective to keep painting it the same color and not sweat the spots you miss.
As to their design, the code had something to do with this but not directly.
The fire code requires that each dwelling unit has 2 direct forms of egress. This is why the porches are there.
It also requires that the stairways be a minimum 3 ft wide. This is why most porches are about 6 ft wide (two flights of stairs between levels)
The rest of the classic porch design evolved as the most cost effective way to do this. Post and beam frame work, simple decks etc. These porches are not just a Chicago thing. You will see nearly identical ones in any big city.
First the gray.
My porch (3 story, first built in 1909) Still has a few original boards. In spite of the fact that the Dept of Buildings makes a beeline to my door every time a porch collapses in the city. Stratographic analysis of paint chips shows Ochre, dark brown, white (might be white lead primer), several layers of grays, dark brown, gray and finally the green I painted on.
Two things about painting a porch.
First, it takes about 5 gal per coat for a three flat. Good paint is not cheap and I suspect the gray period was started when surplus battleship paint hit the market.
Second, 75% of a porch consists of nooks and crannies. It is cost effective to keep painting it the same color and not sweat the spots you miss.
As to their design, the code had something to do with this but not directly.
The fire code requires that each dwelling unit has 2 direct forms of egress. This is why the porches are there.
It also requires that the stairways be a minimum 3 ft wide. This is why most porches are about 6 ft wide (two flights of stairs between levels)
The rest of the classic porch design evolved as the most cost effective way to do this. Post and beam frame work, simple decks etc. These porches are not just a Chicago thing. You will see nearly identical ones in any big city.
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
Berwyn Frank
()
Date: August 04, 2012 08:03PM
Wow, the porch in the photo is really bad. If the address is in the article expect the building department to come a knockin'.
Ever since the Lincoln Park Porch Collapse several years back, basically every wodden back porch is in violation if it was built before this event. I was recently told this by a friend that got smacked with a violation for his Hermosa neighborhood three flat (three full stories over a basement). He now has a bill for $20,000 to demo and have a new wrought iron porch built.
By the way, many basement floors were alao commonly painted "Chicago Gray" as I call it.
Ever since the Lincoln Park Porch Collapse several years back, basically every wodden back porch is in violation if it was built before this event. I was recently told this by a friend that got smacked with a violation for his Hermosa neighborhood three flat (three full stories over a basement). He now has a bill for $20,000 to demo and have a new wrought iron porch built.
By the way, many basement floors were alao commonly painted "Chicago Gray" as I call it.
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
222psm
()
Date: August 06, 2012 01:57PM
Our porch was also "Chicago gray", it was at one time painted dark blue, you could tell where the paint had peeled off. We lived in a 3 flat built in 1922, our landlord did a terrible job of up keeping it, some times it had missing, or broken step or loose railings! Good thing we lived in the basement Apt and did not use it regularly.
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
Mornac
()
Date: August 07, 2012 12:46AM
Thanks for the info everyone. I was thinking about this because I took the Red Line downtown recently - something I used to do daily but now do infrequently. As I was gazing out the window I noticed that not one grey porch remained between Edgewater and the subway whereas 30 years ago there used to be nothing but. When you see one these days, it almost has an antiques feel to it. Wonder if they'll ever come back into fashion as a "retro" thing?
Berwyn: The state of the porch/building in the photo was integral to the news story where I found it: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/03/The-New-Broke-Party-Emerges-in-Chicago-We-re-Neither-Democrat-or-Republican-We-re-Broke
Berwyn: The state of the porch/building in the photo was integral to the news story where I found it: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/03/The-New-Broke-Party-Emerges-in-Chicago-We-re-Neither-Democrat-or-Republican-We-re-Broke
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
daveg
()
Date: August 07, 2012 02:03PM
A tid-bit.
Have a friend who volunteered to work on a Saturday helping to collect old paint for proper disposal. All day long people stopped by and poured their unused paint into large collection barrels.
At the end of the day the crew wondered what color would appear after stirring one of the barrels filled with many many different colors of paint.
The result: grey
Have a friend who volunteered to work on a Saturday helping to collect old paint for proper disposal. All day long people stopped by and poured their unused paint into large collection barrels.
At the end of the day the crew wondered what color would appear after stirring one of the barrels filled with many many different colors of paint.
The result: grey
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
Elaine W
()
Date: September 04, 2012 11:08PM
daveg--any artist (or, in my case, daughter of artist) could have told you that. Any mish-mash of colors mixed together will be gray (but realize, there are different kinds of gray--dark, light, bluish gray, etc.--which will vary depending on the mix of colors).
Re: Grey back porches
Posted by:
davey7
()
Date: September 06, 2012 08:45PM
Most of the porches have been replaced with pressure treated lumber, which doesn't take paint well (and is somewhat out of fashion too - painting that is).
We had a color that we thought was unusual in the 70's, a kelly green porch, which got painted national parks brown later on, before being replaced with pt lumber when the city really started cracking down on porch construction (even a bit before the collapse).
We had a color that we thought was unusual in the 70's, a kelly green porch, which got painted national parks brown later on, before being replaced with pt lumber when the city really started cracking down on porch construction (even a bit before the collapse).
