Standard Club II
Life Span: 1889-1926
Location: Michigan avenue and Twenty-fourth street
Architect: Sullivan and Adler
- Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1892
Standard Club—Michigan av. sw. cor, 24th
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Standard Club—Michigan av. sw. cor, 24th
Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1887
The Standard Club has recently purchased a large lot at the northwest corner of Michigan avenue and Twenty-fourth street, and is at present removing the frame houses there from preparatory to erecting a most pretentious club building one that will cost from $120,000 to $150,000. This club, as is well known, is the leading Hebrew organization of the city. It is the oldest Hebrew club and by far the wealthiest. It numbers among us members about a dozen millionaiies. The club has outgrown its present home at Michigan avenue and Thirteenth street, and a new club building became a necessity.
Ground was broken about two weeks ago on a large vacant lot on the west side of Indiana avenue, between Thirty-first and Thirty-second street; early last week the foundations were put in and at present the first story is rising, of what will be an exceedingly handsome club building. This will be the fourth club building erected by the Hebrew clubs of the city. It is being erected by the Lakeside Club, a Hebrew organization less than three years old, at a cost of $35,000.
There are now four flourishing Hebrew clubs in the city the Standard, the Lakeside, the Ideal, and the West Chicago—and each owns its own club building. The West Chicago Club is the central organization of the wealthy Hebrews on the West Side; its club building is a handsome brick structure on Throop street. The Ideal is the North Side organization; its building on North Wells street, near Division, was erected by one of its members, who rents it to the club at $3,000 a year. The active membership of the clubs in round figures is as follows: Standard, 300: West Chicago, 100; Ideal, 100.
The Lakeside—the fourth and youngest of the Hebrew clubs is a South Side organization, intended especially for the accommodation of those living south of Twenty-second street, its membership is about 140. Its members are mostly merchants—a large number or whom are in the wholesale clothing business with a sprinkling of lawyers and bankers. Its original organizers were Messrs. Jacob L. Cahn, Charles Lebenstein, Samuel W. Rosenfels, Emanuel Kramer, and A. L. Mandei, all of whom are still active members. Almost all of its members are young men, not half a dozen of them being over 45. The present officers are: L. M. Friedlander, President; Ben Rosenberg, Vice President; Jacob L. Cahn, Treasurer: S. W. Rosenfels, Secretary; and Jacob L. Cahn, Peter F. Wolff, Conrad Witkowsky, W. A. Nye. David Witkowsky, H. Helter, Martin Mayer, and Martin Barbe, Directors. Adolph Moses, who was recently mentioned in a prominent way as a candidate for the Circuit Court bench, is one of the most active members, and among the other legal lights in the club are Eli B, Felsenthal, Lucius Weinschenk, and B. Rosenberg. Tho club has hitherto occupied the building covering Nos. 3001 and 3003 Wabash avenue. The new building win be a two-story and basement with mansard roof. It, will be built of pressed brick with brown stone and terra cotta trimmings and rock-faced stone basement, and will cover the entire lot—50 feet front by 160 feet deep. The club expects to have its house-warming Thanksgiving evening.
There is one feature of Hebrew clubs that is worth passing mention, and that is that 99 per cent of the club members do not belong to the orthodox Jewish synagogues. A few of them belong to no religious organization whatever, but the great bulk of them belong to independent Hebrew congregations—congregations that worship Sunday and observe Sunday as the Sabbath, and that have thrown aside all the old trammels of Jewish ceremonialism and identified themselves with methods and forms in keeping with modern times and customs.
The Chicago Clubs Illustrated, Published by Lanward Publishing Company, 1888
Standard Club was organized in 1869, and chartered February 14th, 1887. The object for which it was formed is the social and mental improvement of its members by social intercourse and by various educational means, to-wit: The establishment and maintenance of a library, a gymnasium, a theatre, a lecture and music hall, a reading room, the collection of paintings and other objects of art, all of which will be embodied in the new and magnificent structure which is now being finished, and which will be completed and opened about March 1st, 1889.
The new Club House is situated on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Thirteenth Street, and its estimated cost when finished is two hundred thousand dollars. It one of the finest club houses in the West. In the basement are the bowling alleys and gymnasium. On the first floor are the parlors, library, cafe, billiard rooms, etc. The second floor is occupied by the ladies’ parlors and retiring rooms, and three dining rooms. On the third floor is a superb dancing hall, and also a beautiful and completely appointed theatre, and the whole is furnished with much taste and elegance. The membership is limited to three hundred and fifty; the admission fee is one hundred dollars, and the annual dues eighty dollars.
The following is the present board of managers: President, Edward Kose; Vice-President, Moses Bensinger; Treasurer. Abraham G. Becker; Financial Secretary, Adolph Loeb ; Recording Secretary, Joseph Gerstley; Directors, Leopold Bloom, Bernhard Mergentheim, Morris Selz, Louis I. Levy, J. S. Kirnmelstiel and Fred. Siegel.
Today, The Standard Club is attracting a new generation of business and community leaders who value the relationships, inspiration and personal satisfaction that this institution makes possible. Entrepreneurs, agents of change, corporate decision-makers, cultural advocates and business visionaries gather at the Club to build a lifetime of relationships and to experience a sense of belonging that exists nowhere else.
The Club is now located at 320 South Plymouth Court in a building designed by Albert Kahn in 1926.
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