Chicago Examiner, May 8, 1911
Chicago has long been famous as the pioneer office building center on this continent, but its fame has not been confined to that fact. Italso has been noted because its buildings have been of the most perfect type. Although they have by no means been the highest nor have the exteriors been so elaborate and showy as some of the skyscrapers of New York City, the interiors have been finished better and more completely appointed, in so far as modern equipment and conveniences are concerned, than those of any city in this country.
However perfect the older structures and buildings of recent construction may have been, those now in prospect aud on which work is being commenced will surpass in many ways buildings which a few years ago were pronounced perfect.
New York no longer leads Chicago even in the matters of exteriors, evidence of which is to be found in such structures in this city as the (Blackstone, La Salle and New Sherman hotels, tbe Harris Trust, the University Club, Railway Exchange, Peoples Gas, the Steger, McCormick and others of the handsome big office structures which have gone up in the last few years.
MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF BIG BUILDINGS BEING ERECTED IN THE “LOOP” SECTION OF THE CITY
Building construction goes in waves. Chicago was the pioneer with the first large number of big office buildings. Then New York followed with a greater number not only higher, but with more showy exteriors, Chicago having dropped behind. Now a great wave of enterprise, industry and prosperity is sweeping over this city and Chicago is surpassing New York City in the number, beauty and magnitude of office buildings in process of construction. On the other hand, office space in New York City is going begging and few new buildings of great magnitude are being constructed there. This, however, will not last long, as a big demand will again spring up for office space in the metropolis, which will naturally be followed by a big boom.
Many Land Marks Demolished
Never before have so many landmarks been demolished in this city to make place for handsome office and mercantile structures.
At the southwest corner of Jackson boulevard and Sherman street the Brother Jonathan Building, erected by the late Jonathan Clark, and four other structures have been razed to make place for the Insurance Exchange Building, a twenty-two story office structure, representing a total investment of $7,000,000, of which $3,000,000 is in the land and $4,000,000 in the building.
This building is of unusual significance because of the fact that it is to be the great fire insurance underwriting center of the city. Over six months ago rentals were closed with 140 tenants for eleven floors under leases running for thirty years, and this before some of the ground was purchased; a thing which «as never before been done in this city. The building will front 200 feet on Jackson boulevard and a like number of feet each on Fifth avenue aud Sherman street. Max Pam and Ernest R. Graham of D. H. Burnham & Co. are the promoters and owners.
C. C Heisen. a pioneer in Dearborn street office building construction, Is erecting a twenty-two story office building (Transportation Building) at the southwest corner of Dearborn and Harrison streets, the cost, including the land, being $3,000,000.
At the southwest corner of Michigan boulevard and Hubbard place Karpen Brothers are constructing a twelve-story mercantile building, the highest mercantile building south of Harrison street, at a cost of practically $1,500,000.
New McCormick Skyscraper.
When R. Hall McCormick, trustee of the Leander J. McCormick estate, completed the twenty-two-story McCormick building at the northwest corner of Michigan boulevard and Van Buren street he was afraid that he would not have a sufficient number of tenants to fill it, but in this he was agreeably disappointed and is now tearing down the buildings on the land north and adjacent, on which he will erect a twenty-two story building, occupying practically the same area, 100x171feet, as the original McCormick Building erected a year ago.
The building which is expected to be the most ln keeping with the Chicago beautiful idea is the Monroe, which will be erected by the Brooks estate at the southwest corner of Michigan boulevard and Monroe street, as the owners have tried to obtain ln the design and in keeping with the neighborhood a building of the highest order, the architecture closely approaching that of the University Club, at the northwest corner of the same thoroughfares. The Monroe will represent an investment of about $2,500,000, of which $1,000,000 Is in the land.
The North American will be the highest building on State street. It will be erected at the northwest corner of State and Monroe streets and will represent a total investment of approximately $3,500,000, the land being valued roundly at $2,000,000 aud the building will cost about $1,500,000. Louis M. Stumer, Benjamin J. Rosenthal and Louis Eckstein are the owners.
John B. Mailers, one of Chicago’s pioneer builders, will tear down the old Continental Hotel, at the southeast corner of Wabash avenue and Madison street, famous in the early days of tne city as the home of theatrical people, on which he will construct a twenty-story office building to cost $1,000,000. The building will probably rented by the time it is finished.
Mandel Building to Cost $1,500,000.
Mandel Brothers are constructing a fifteen-story mercantile building at the northeast corner of State and Madison streets to cost $1,500,000. The building at 81-83 Clark street, in which the late L. Z. Leiter had his offices for so many years, and the building on the north, 75-79 Clark street, where A. S. Trude had his offices for over a quarter of a century, are being torn down to make room for the twenty-story City Hall Square Theater and office building, which will cost about $2,000,000. The land value is approximately $1,000,000. James F. Heyworth is at the head of the syndicate and the confidence of his friends in the enterprise was such that the stock of the company was subscribed four times over when he announced his plans.
Three old buildings, landmarks, at the southwest corner of La Salle and Madison streets are being removed to make way for the Otis Building, a twenty-story structure to be erected at that place, involving a total investment of $5,000,000 equally divided between the land.and the building.
There are as many more big projects in sight, but operations have been commenced on all of the forgoing, while it will in all likelihood be some time before work is commenced on half a dozen others to which attention has frequently been called in these columns.
|
Built
|
Last
|
Original Building Name
|
Architect
|
|
1928
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1924
|
TBD
|
Raeder, Nimmons & Dunning
|
|
|
1909
|
Present
|
Benjamin Marshall
|
|
|
1930
|
Present
|
Holabird & Root
|
|
|
1905
|
1975
|
Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge
|
|
|
1905
|
Current
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1922
|
Present
|
TBD
|
|
|
1937
|
Present
|
J. L. McConnell
|
|
|
1927
|
Present
|
TBD
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Burnham Brothers
|
|
|
1928
|
1993
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White and Argyle Robinson
|
|
|
1912
|
TBD
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Holabird & Root
|
|
|
1931
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson. Probst. & White
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Holabird & Root
|
|
|
1924
|
Present
|
Rebori, Wentworth & Dewey
|
|
|
1904
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1924
|
Present
|
Holibird and Roche
|
|
|
1902
|
2000
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1925
|
Present
|
John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood
|
|
|
1928
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1912
|
1950/1965
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1912
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
|
|
|
1912
|
Present
|
D.H.Burnham & Co.
|
|
|
1909
|
1934
|
Edwin Walker Houghton
|
|
|
1928
|
Present
|
Holabird & Root
|
|
|
1927
|
Present
|
Philip Maher
|
|
|
1904
|
1964
|
Henry Ives Cobb
|
|
|
1922
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson. Probst & White,
|
|
|
1932
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
|
|
|
1921
|
Present
|
Graham, Burnham & Co.
|
|
|
1903
|
1970
|
D. H. Burnham & Co.
|
|
|
1931
|
1975
|
E. V. Bucksbaum
|
|
|
1910
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1912
|
1975/1990
|
James C. Green
|
|
|
1926
|
1989
|
Thielbar & Fugard
|
|
|
1903
|
1929
|
Charles S. Frost
|
|
|
1903
|
1925
|
Benjamin H. Marshall
|
|
|
1926
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
|
|
|
1910
|
Present
|
Jenney, Mundie & Jensen
|
|
|
1923
|
Present
|
Alfred S. Alschuler.
|
|
|
1915
|
Present
|
Marshall & Fox
|
|
|
1934
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
|
|
|
1906
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
|
|
|
1905
|
Present
|
Edmund R. Krause
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Andrew J. Thomas
|
|
|
1928
|
Present
|
Herbert H. Riddle
|
|
|
1924
|
Present
|
Marshall & Fox
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
|
|
|
1912
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1907
|
Present
|
Richard E. Schmidt, Garden & Martin
|
|
|
1914
|
1966
|
Marshall & Fox
|
|
|
1908
|
Present
|
Andrew J. Thomas
|
|
|
1902
|
Present
|
Daniel Burnham
|
|
|
1912
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1925
|
Present
|
NA
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Holabird & Root
|
|
|
1911
|
Present
|
Burnham & Root
|
|
|
1909
|
1941
|
Edwin Walker Houghton
|
|
|
1910
|
2012
|
Ottenheimer, Stern & Reichert
|
|
|
1904
|
1967
|
NA
|
|
|
1899
|
1913
|
NA
|
|
|
1905
|
Present
|
Nimmons & Fellows
|
|
|
1934
|
1976
|
Nimmons, Carr & Wright
|
|
|
1924
|
Present
|
Holibird and Roche
|
|
|
1909
|
TBD
|
Christian A. Eckstorm
|
|
|
1927
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1924
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson, Probst, White
|
|
|
1911
|
Present
|
Fred V. Prather
|
|
|
1924
|
Present
|
Holabird & Roche
|
|
|
1929
|
Present
|
Samuel N. Cowen
|
|
|
1905
|
~1930
|
NA
|
|
|
1928
|
Present
|
Philip B. Maher
|
|
|
1921
|
Present
|
Graham, Anderson. Probst and White
|
The Inter Ocean, May 31, 1908
When the big La Salle hotel is completed, the ground for which is already broken at La Salle and Madison streets, Chicago will have the biggest hostelry ever constructed under one contract in the world.
Second only to the La Salle hotel will be The Blackstone, which is to be erected at the corner of Michigan avenue and Hubbard place. The completion of these two mammoth structures, which will be within the next two years, will give Chicago a prestige, as far as hotels are concerned, which will place it in the front rank of the big cities of this country or Europe.
The two structures will represent an investment of appropriately $10,000,000, and will men that the city has taken the most important stride in the way of hotel construction since the days when the building of the Auditorium and subsequently the Annex set the pace for the cities of the United State some twenty years ago.
Few people have any idea of the immensity of the enterprise which is required for the conduct of a big hotel. For instance, the lighting plant alone which supplies the Auditorium, the Annex and one or two of the neighboring buildings possesses a sufficient capacity to supply all the lighting for the city of Cleveland. The people who whirl by the mammoth structure on Michigan avenue little realize that almost beneath the wheels of their automobiles lies a municipality which manufactures its own light, conducts a furniture factory, a laundry, a printing establishment, a silver plating works, in fact, everything necessary to the comfort of its 1,400 guests. The guests of the establishment have but a slight idea of the work required and the magnitude of the organization necessary to minister to their comforts. Day and night the work goes on; as fast as one force of employes gets through another shift is requisitioned to take their places. A trip through such an establishment is a revelation in itself. One could easily get lost in the mazes beneath the big establishment, but there are many ways out which one would eventually run across.
Erecting Steelwork of La Salle Hotel
September 4, 1908.
The starting point of interest is the big establishment when one starts out seriously to take in the sights of this municipality is the soap manufacturing plant. Every scrap from the tables which cannot be used is collected, sent down to the plant and every day 1,500 pounds of absolutely pure soap is turned out. In addition a ton a week is purchased from a big local plant. It is the policy of the management to make use of all the products to be found in the building, consequently some 6,000 pounds of waste paper a week is collected and sold. Anything that is absolutely unusable goes into the garbage plant and is burned, the heat generated therefrom being made use of in the establishment. Crossing from the garbage and soap-making plant one is conducted into the carbonating plant, where 3,000 bottles of charged water and pop are turned out every day. All the waste bread from the tables is gathered into large sacks and is turned over to a farmer, who contracts for it to be used as feed for chickens.
“We are not obliged to go outside of the building for anything,” remarked one of the officials of the company, “as it is the aim to concentrate everything right here. Of course all meats, groceries, etc., are brought in day by day, and are kept in their respective storerooms. There are something like 1,400 employes here, an average of one to every guest. This includes kitchen help, cooks, bell boys, clerks, laundressesm etc.”
Through a maze of storehouses the scenes beneath the big structure resembled a vast hive of industry. A thoroughly equipped laundry in full operation, a furniture repair shop, where fifteen men were busy renewing and repairing beds, and other paraphernalia of the different suites which had succumbed to the general wear and tear of the business, and a locksmith’s shop, where keys are made and fitted for the rooms when guests occasionally forget to turn them in on their departure, were some of the places of interest. In addition were a fully equipped tailoring shop, an ice plant, and an electric lighting plant of sufficient capacity to supply all the electric lights of the city of Cleveland. The electric lighting plant furnished the lights for the Studebaker building, the Fine Arts building, the Auditorium theater, and the Auditorium association.
The new hotel which is to be built for the Drake Hotel company on the site of the old Blackstone residence, and to be managed by John B. and Tracy C. Drake, it is said, will eclipse anything which has so far been produced in hotel building line. It will cost in the vicinity of $2,300,000.
To the height of three stories the treatment will be in polished pink Milford granite, and for the balancer of the facade in warm shades of pressed brick and terra cotta, matching the granite in texture and tint. The frieze, cornice, dormers, and balustrades will be of terra cotta, the whole crowned by a mansard surfaced with green tile. The plans provide for 469 guest chambers, including fifty-one apartment suites, each room excepting the parlors and private dining-rooms to have an outside bath. The main restaurant will be on the Michigan boulevard front, overlooking the lake; a second cafe on the west, with the office rotunda in the center. The third floor will be entirely devoted to banquet and private dining rooms and a magnificent library and assembly room. Under the office will be the club floor, devoted entirely to men, and on the order of a high class city club. The hotel will be opened for business Oct. q, 1909, and its managers promise a revival of the Drake game dinners for which the Grand Pacific was famous under the management of the late John R. Drake. Marshall & Fox are the architects.
Chicago’s new hotel at La Salle and Madison streets will be the largest ever constructed under an original contract. Not only will it be the largest, but it will outrank in equipment and furnishings any hotel in Europe or America. It will be twenty-four stories in height, twenty-two above and two below the street level, and will contain in all 1,172 rooms. The plans were prepared by Holabird & Roche.
The contract for the erection of the building has been let to the George A. Fuller company at an estimated cost of $3,500,000.
The building will cover a full quarter of a block. The La Salle street side will extend from the northwest corner of Madison street north to Calhoun place, a distance of 178 feet. The Madison street frontage will measure 162½ feet. The height of the building above the street level will be 260 feet, the extreme limit allowed by the building ordinance. The steel columns will rest on 105 concrete caissons, which are to be carried 110 feet below the surface line to solid rock, making the building one rigid structure, measuring 370 feet in height from the foundations to the roof. It will contain over 7,500,000 cubic feet of space.
There will be no stores in Hotel La Salle. The first floor will be devoted exclusively to the uses of the patrons of the hotels. At the corner of the streets will be the main dining room, 80×50 feet in floor dimensions, and twenty-five feet in height of ceiling, without a single pillar or column to mar its beauty. This room will be furnished in the most sumptuous style of the Louis XIV period.
On the Madison street side of the first floor, opening from the street entrance, will be a magnificent palmroom done entirely in marble, stone, and mosaic. Located in the center of the main floor will be the lobby. It will be 100 feet long, 76 feet wide, and 30 feet in height, finished in marble, Circassian walnut, and bronze. On either side of the La Salle street entrance will be reception and writing-rooms for ladies and gentlemen.
All the floors from the second to the nineteenth will be devoted to sleeping-rooms. There are to be sixty-two guest rooms on each floor, many arranged en suite, and nearly all with private bath. Two-thirds of the sleeping apartments are outside rooms, and those on the court overlook an area wider than an ordinary city street. Every room will have running water. On the nineteenth floor will be two handsome banquet halls or ball rooms.
The hotel will be built, owned, and operated by the Hotel La Salle company, an Illinois corporation, with a capital stock of $3,000,000, the stock of which is owned by Chicago and New York capitalists and business men.
Ross & Browne Real Estate Map
1928
Aerial View of Central Downtown Chicago
1924
Aerial View of Oak Street Beach
1924
Aerial View of Central Downtown Chicago
1926
The Stevens Hotel
Michigan Avenue
1928
Michigan Avenue in 1929
Chicago Daily News
Michigan Avenue, north from Straus Tower in 1929:
(1) Pittsfield Building (2) Pure Oil Building (3) Matture Tower (4) Willoughby Bldg. (5) Wrigley Bldg. (6) “333” Bldg. (7) Bell Bldg. (8) Tribune Tower (9) Northwestern University (10) Railway Exchange Bldg.
A view looking East from Clark St. showing left to right the Carbon and Carbide Building, the Pure Oil Building, the Mather Tower, the Tribune Tower, the famous Wrigley Building, and the newly-completed Wabash Avenue Bridge and Drive. The Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett warehouse is also visible.
January 24, 1931
Chicago
1929
Chicago
1931
Chicago Towers
Leon R Pescheret
1929
This iconic view of the North Side towers including the gothic drama of the Tribune Tower in the foreground with the pencil-thin Mather Tower and Bell Tower behind, and the Wrigley Building just visible to the right, is one of Leon R Pescheret’s (1892-1971) best-known images.
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