A few years ago, the church located at 3824 W. Irving Park was in disarray. Like many other properties in the City of Chicago, it could have very easily been subjected to careless demolition. Rather, as Jeremy Junkin Art Director at Tapestry Center says, "We felt like the building had a lot of value... and we didn’t want to see it just torn down and turned into another condo."

He goes on to explain, "We look forward to the many ways we’ll be able to serve our community through arts, music, public forums and whatever else may come our way. We hope that others will be inspired by what we’ve done."

Tapestry Center is a very nice example of what happens when adaptive reuse plans are implemented. Its important to emphasize the parallels behind the building and the photos.

Demolition prematurely ends the cycle of life for a building and destroys the direct connections we have to out past and the relations we can make with our communities in the future.

The photos in this exhibit are an attempt to show the beauty of these forgotten spaces and to encourage their continual existence in our environments.