Avenue House
Life Span: 1870-1871
Location: NW Corner of Wabash avenue and Twenty-second street
Architect: Edward Burling
Moving Southward.
It is very evident to any observer that the center of business, wealth and population of our city is surely and steadily going south every year. Our great avenues, which five years ago were quiet and retired at Twelfth street, are now thronged and busy thoroughfares far beyond Twenty-second street. The wholesale trade is crowding steadily in the same direction, while the retail business of the city, which a few years since was almost entirely done on Lake and few other streets in its immediate vicinity, is being gradually transferred, and Twenty-second street has already become the center of a heavy retail traffic. On this street, which six years ago contained but a single grocery store, fine stocks of goods of every kind can now be found, and on a pleasant evening it looks busy and lively as any street in the business center of the city. We understand that there are many fine improvements projected in this vicinity, and some already under way, among which is a fine private hotel, to be called the Avenue House, on the northwest corner of Wabash avenue and Twenty-second street. This building will be four stories besides the basement, fronting 120 feet on Twenty-second street, and both the Twenty-second street and Wabash avenue fronts will be of the best Athens stone. The building will be finished in elegant suit(e)s of rooms, windows of plate glass, and all the details in first class order. Under the hotel will be six stores, most of which have already been applied for by large mercantile houses who wish to start branch stores in this fashionable quarter. The proprietors of this building are S. S. Bliss, of Bliss & Sharp, and Henry Wood, formerly of Keith, Wood & Co. Edward Burling is the architect. Messrs. Bliss & Sharp will fit up the corner store in an elegant manner for their own use. It is expected that the building will be completed by January, 1871.
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