2440 North Lakeview Avenue, Chicago

 by: chicago designslinger

 [2440 North Lakeview Avenue (1927) Rissman & Hirschfeld, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

In the late 1920's Chicago experienced an explosion of high-end apartment tower construction as dollars were plentiful and the big, old mansions of a previous generation went out of fashion, and spacious, multi-room apartments were in.

  [2440 North Lakeview Avenue, 2440 N. Lakeview Avenue, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

When architects Maurice B. Rissman and Leo S. Hirschfeld were asked to design a large apartment complex for S.E. Mittleman in 1926, the building was joining a pedigreed, cooperative-emerging city block. Bookended by two, exclusive, recently completed co-op apartment buildings, Mittleman's plan was more egalitarian. He asked the architects to design a larger, more flexible building containing 107 units of 5 to 8-room apartments, with a few 16-room duplexes thrown into the mix. The larger units would be available for sale, while the majority of smaller units would be rentals. The rentals would help defray the cost of maintenance, and make the co-op purchase prices more reasonable. Mittleman, president and majority stockholder of the 2440 Lakeview Building Corporation, also asked for two entrances to ensure a level playing field - one for the owners, and one for the renters.

  [2440 North. Lakview Avenue, Lake View, Chicago /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Rissman & Hirschfeld filled the building's base, and crowned its top, with so many gleaming white, glazed terra-cotta, Gothic Revival details, that any resident would feel like a king or a queen, no matter which door they entered through. Today all the apartments are of a cooperative nature, and there is one main entry.