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CAT Tracks for August 21, 2009
WILL THE SHOTGUN HOUSE BE OPEN? |
In light of my previous post...
Hope to hell that the SIU architecture students didn't give the only key to the "Shotgun House" to Cairo City Officials.
If they did...
We can all forget about any OPEN House on Saturday!
From the Southern Illinois...
Building up Cairo
By Tom Barker, The Southern
CAIRO - Architecture students spent countless hours restoring a shotgun-style home in Cairo this summer and will hold an open house event Saturday to show off their work.
Students from Southern Illinois University Carbondale's architecture and history programs, as well as some students from Shawnee Community College and Southeast Missouri State University, collaborated efforts to rebuild the old home, which, when finished, will be used as the new Cairo Chamber of Commerce office.
"These buildings would normally get torn down, and with the lumber and craftsmanship that's in here, the students are really getting firsthand knowledge of how important our history is," said Robert Swenson, SIUC professor who oversees the project.
"There are hundreds of these houses in Cairo that could be perfectly fine homes," he said.
For the past three months, the students worked five days a week and are now on the verge of finishing the exterior of the home.
The house has been vacant for the past 20 years and, before the students began their work, was uninhabitable. All the windows were broken, the front porch was mostly rotten and the rear porch had completely rotted off. Now, the porches have been rebuilt, all windows have been replaced and the home's exterior has been refashioned to its original form.
Bill Harrell, a local resident and president of Vision 2020, a community effort to improve Cairo by the year 2020, has given a lot of support to the project.
"We've had very few successes other than this," Harrell said, "but you've got to start somewhere."
The students chose the property because it included much of its original trim and, for its age, was in pretty good shape. Even though the home's external structures are rotten, the foundation and walls remain solid.
"I was just shocked at how good a condition the place was in," said Jim Schmidt, a senior architecture student at SIUC.
Another factor in choosing the project house was that it sits right on Cairo's busiest avenue, Sycamore Street. As a result, many people have come up and asked students about the house.
"If we get a lot of interest, we might be able to do another one next year," said Toni Lettiere, another senior architecture student at SIUC.
In preparation for their open house event on Saturday, the students are trying to paint the entire exterior of the home and they used a rainy Thursday morning to apply a primer coat to the dry portions of the siding.
The open house will take place between 4 and 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22 at the house at 2910 Sycamore Street. The public is welcome to stop by for free barbecue and see what the students and volunteers have accomplished.
Event Details
SIUC Architecture students will be holding an open house from 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22, at their project house at 2910 Sycamore St. in Cairo. The public is welcome to stop by for free barbecue and see what the students have accomplished.
