Guest blogger Tom Harton offers this update on a Property Lines post from last month:
The owner of a historic building at 42 E. Washington St. has city approval to continue repairing the building’s façade
almost three weeks after a stop-work order was issued. 
The Antonopoulos family, which has owned the building since the late 1970s, had hired a contractor to fill in the building’s upper floor window openings with concrete block and plaster over the blocks and the rest of the brick façade.
The city issued a stop-work order Feb. 17 because the Regional Center approval for the façade changes hadn’t been granted. Jeff York, a senior planner for the city’s Department of Metropolitan Development, said Monday that a compromise has been reached that will allow work to resume.
The concrete block will be removed, window framing will be installed and a mortar appropriate for the building’s approximately 150-year-old bricks will be used for tuckpointing. The work should be finished by the end of this week.
Though the window openings will be retained, they will be covered with painted plywood—just as they were before the ill-fated repair project started. York said the building, which houses a jewelry store on the first floor, predates the Civil War and might be the oldest downtown.
The owner embarked on the repair project to prevent moisture from coming through the upper floor window openings and to prevent brick from falling onto the sidewalk below.
Thoughts?
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Case in point, the old WTTV building on Bluff Road, now laden with gang graffiti and getting worse by the year.
Or, how about the piece of crap in the picture just west of this building with the preservation construction?
And, please, someone please explain what is going on with the old Payton Wells Auto Dealership also grossly laden with gang graffiti??? Can we at least hire some painters and employ some dobermans?
Why is there no enforcement against current owners of the properties?
Mayor Ballard - are you reading??? We don't want to look like Chicago or Newark!
I'm not referring to the heart of Chicago, rather the areas nearby, particularly south that are deplorable.