Workers on Monday removed a brick archway above an Uptown Park Ridge courtyard after the structure sustained damage when a car crashed into it last week.
The arch connected Hill’s Hallmark and the Prospect Avenue Starbucks store on Prospect Avenue.
Steve Schimmel of McLennon Companies, which manages the century-old apartment and retail buildings, said the archway would have to come down for safety reasons, though there is a plan to rebuild it.
“We are going to remove part of the archway just to make sure it isn’t in danger of collapsing,” he said March 13.
On Monday, March 16, the entire structure, including the pillars, had been demolished.
Park Ridge Deputy Police Chief Lou Jogmen said Carlos Arana, 81, of the 5200 block of West Argyle Avenue, Chicago, was pulling into a diagonal parking space between 15 and 19 S. Prospect on the afternoon of March 12 when his red 2005 Ford Five Hundred jumped the curb, drove over the sidewalk and hit a cement pillar.
The impact caused decorative cement and some brick along the top of the arch to fall to the ground.
Schimmel said no other damage was caused to the buildings.
No one was injured in the accident, including the driver, who was ticketed for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and driving without proof of insurance, Jogmen said. He car was also towed.
Dino Vlahakis, who owns the adjacent Pickwick Theatre building, remarked that the courtyard area between the Starbucks and Hallmark shop is often a gathering place, though no tables for Starbucks customers had yet been placed outside for the season.
“Thank God nobody got hurt,” Vlahakis said. “Do you know how many people sit out there on a nice spring day?”
@Jen_Pioneer
