Right after celebrating new city protections for a century-old church, preservationists claim some of the building’s storied stained glass was removed anyway, in apparent disregard for those protections.

The church, St. Adalbert, 1650 W. 17th St., has been at the heart of a contentious fight between preservationists and the archdiocese since it closed in 2019. Tensions over the iconic Pilsen church arose in early August over the archdiocese removing its stained glass.

That work prompted the city’s Landmark Commission to hold a special meeting on August 7 to give it a preliminary landmark recommendation, an early step in the landmarking process with the same protections as an official landmark designation.

“The preliminary recommendation is moving forward to help ensure the complex’s significant features are preserved,” a city spokesperson said then. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, several preservationists said they saw contractors continue to remove stained glass from the building despite the new protections.

Asked about the removal of the stained glass, the Archdiocese on Monday emailed a statement, “We have no new information since our last statement last week.”

That statement, on August 7, said the archdiocese had no comment in response to an inquiry about the landmarking recommendation.

A statement on August 3 in response to the archdiocese initially removing the glass read, “the parish owns the glass and the glass will be preserved.”

The archdiocese has cited vandalism as the initial reason for removing the glasswork.

Much of the building’s glasswork was done by the studio of German artist F. X. Zettler, according to the Chicago Architecture Center. Zettler was famous then for winning first place over Louis Comfort Tiffany for his stained glass designs in the 1893 World’s Fair.

The rose window and the intricate window above the altar remain in place, but the group, including a mix of former parishioners and Polish cultural historians, alleged that the archdiocese removed windows from the nave of the church. 

Doing so after the preliminary recommendation would require a permit. The Department of Buildings did not respond to repeated requests for comment on whether they had approved permits for the work. None appeared in their online database. 

The church was built by Polish immigrants and has become a particular concern for Polish cultural historians. Andy Dobak, 46, a Polish immigrant, said he was one of those that saw contractors remove the glasswork. He said he couldn’t “understand the greed.”

Polish Heritage 3D

Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.