Willoughby Building

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Willoughby Building
Life Span: 1887-1964
Location: NW corner Franklin and Jackson
Architect: George H. Edgebrooke

Lakeside Business Directory of the City of Chicago, 1899

Willoughby Bldg.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Willoughby Bldg.—238 to 242 Franklin nw. cor. Jackson.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1911
Willoughby Bldg.—234 S. Franklin nw. cor. Jackson.

Chicago Tribune, November 25, 1888

POINTS ABOUT NEW BUILDINGS.
Chicago bids fair to have and to deserve a National if not a worldwide reputation as a city of remarkable buildings. Viewed esthetically there are doubtless numerous defects even in some of the most costly structures. It must be admitted that it was truly as well as wittily said of the architecture of one of our new buildings that the first story was Roman, the second Graeco-Roman, and all the rest catch-as-catch-can. Yet this same building is so perfectly adapted to its purpose that it compels admiration in every visitor and thoroughly satisfies its occupants. So in the case of other buildings; no matter what their impression upon the artistic eye, the important problems involving utility, convenience, and safety have been successfully solved, and in many cases uniquely. Buildings like the Auditorium, the Rookery, the Insurance Exchange, Mr. Field’s wholesale building, the new Owings, and the Tacoma will attract the gaze of visitors and the study of builders for a long time to come. They are the kind of structures which strangers go home to talk about as among the wonders of the great metropolis of the West. The men who have put their capital into them have the given free advertisements to the city as well as aided numerous smaller development. There are numerous smaller and less striking buildings which exhibit similar improvements over the old. One of these, about which little has been published, is Mr. Willoughby’s new block at the corner of Franklin and Jackson streets.

A notable feature of this building is the fact that with the exception of the doors and floors it is made wholly of iron. Externally it is simplicity itself. There is no straining after impossible effects, no juggling with half a dozen different styles of architecture, no pretentious attempt to appear anything but what it is—a well-lighted, convenient, and substantial business block. The iron of the exterior is painted white and will receive a fresh coat every year. The interior was designed for the special purpose of accommodating out-of-town wholesale houses and manufacturers. The eight floors are alike in every respect and Mr. Willoughby places same rental value, $2,100 a year, upon each. As the building has a frontage of eighty-two feet on Franklin and thirty-two on Jackson and has large plate-glass windows every part is finely lighted. Mr. Willoughby expects to have the building filled shortly with the representatives of Eastern concerns. Four New York houses, among the largest manufacturers and dealers in clothing, buttons, etc., in the country, have their samples and representatives there, and others have applied for space. The plan of the building is practically Mr. Willoughby’s own, and he is to be congratulated on its success. A man who conceives a new idea in building and has the apply it must be considered a public benefactor. Happily Chicago has many such men, and a large number of the opposite class of self-seekers, who keep their real estate idie and useless so long as they see a chance to profit by the energy of their neighbors. Chicago does not love the real estate miser.

Inter Ocean, October 15, 1899

Tenants, Secured for the Willoughby Building on Franklin Street.
The eight-story Willoughby building, at the northwest corner of Franklin street and Jackson boulevard, has been leased through Keebler & Co. for Charles Fargo to various tenants at an annual rental of $14,700. The ground-floor store, with basement, has been leased to Gustav Riehl and the Columbia Knitting company, at $5,400 per annum. The other leases closed are: The second floor, to the Celluloid company of New York, at $1,800 per annum; the third floor, to L. Heller & Co., at $1,500 per annum; the fourth floor, to Henry Sonneborn & Co. of Baltimore, at $1,400 per annum; the fifth floor, to the Brown-Bourgeois company at $1,200 per an-num; the sixth floor, to H. L. Stanton & Co., at $1,200 per annum; the seventh floor, to Sylvan Schey and D. Feibleman, at $1,200 per annum, and the eighth floor, to Frank J. C. Borwell and Alexander White, at $1,000 per annum.

Rand, McNally & Co.’s Bird’s-Eye Views of Chicago

⑩ The Willoughby Building:
Fronts 30 feet on Jackson and 75 feet on Franklin Street, at the northwest corner. It is 100 feet high, with 8 stories and basement; 1 passenger elevator; cut-stone and iron exterior. Occupied by wholesale jobbers and importers. Erected in 1887.

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