Good Bye Old House

[L Verge]

Thanks for sharing the photos, Rich. It is amazing to me that our parlor was left in some semblance of order compared to what vandals did to the rest of the house (chopping out copper piping, wires, tearing out radiators and gutters and anything metal, then starting in on the antiques). You will notice how tidy that room is in the two interior photos Rich posted.

One of the items stolen from that room (I suspect chopped up) was a huge upright piano that was given to my grandmother on her 16th birthday in 1890. Real ivory and ebony, a sounding board that could pick up tones of clocks chiming, fruit wood with typical inlays of that era, etc. It left the house one time in my childhood and took three, trained piano movers to move it out the front door onto the front porch (which almost gave way) and down 3-4 steps. Moving it back in was even more entertaining to watch... Maybe the modern-day thieves sold the piano wire to the gangs in Chicago since I understand the old mobs used it extensively to garrot (?sp.?) victims.

Vandals also stole three Victorian beds with headboards that reached the 10-foot ceilings upstairs and came with marble-top bureaus, washstands, etc. The point of my posting this is that I sure would love to meet the muscle-bound apes who pulled all this off!