After passing through Garfield Ridge, I continued south on Narragansett into Clearing, the neighborhood with borders Midway Airport on the south and southwest sides. Turning back east on 63rd, I found the Midway fire department. In front of the fire house, there is a decorative portal and an interpretive panel explaining it. Some snippets from the panel:This portal displays two relief sculpture and a limestone lintel. Both architectural artifacts were salvaged from Chicago firehouses that have been demolished. The terra-cotta reliefs on the columns were originally installed on the facade of a fire house located at 2740 N Sheffield Avenue. The limestone lintel, inscribed "Chicago Fire Department," was saved from the main doorway of Engine Company #103, located at West Taylor and Laflin Streets.
The reliefs on the columns depict fire fighting tools hand carved in the hard, brown-red earthenware called terra cotta. In the panels, hoses and ladders, interwoven in a fluid composition suggestive of vines growing on a trellis, are placed against a background of laurel leaves, symbolic of honor. Overlaid on this are fire helmets and axes which integrate a heraldic crest into the organic composition.
The terra cotta panels originally framed the second story windows of the Lakeview Village Hall, which was constructed in 1886 by the City of Lakeview, before Lakeview voted to join the City of Chicago in June 1889.
I asked permission and was allowed to look around the firehouse and its unique equipment. They even have on piece which has a huge poker on the front of it which the firemen explained to me could be used to puncture a fuselage, if necessary.
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