400 Block South Clark Street, Chicago

 by: chicago designslinger

 [400 Block South Clark Street, Chicago (ca.1890-1903) /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

While not on most, if any, architectural tours, this group of buildings comprise the last surviving cluster of what was once one of Chicago's most people-packed lodging house districts. A half-block stretch of structures built from around 1890 to the early 1900s, the upper floors of these nondescript looking facades gave shelter to hundreds of thousands of men (no women allowed) struggling to make a living in the big city.

  [400 Block South Clark Street, Chicago, Otis Building, 416 S. Clark Street, Chicago (ca. 1890) /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Located near several of the city's railroad terminals, Clark Street, from Van Buren to 12th, was lined with shops and saloons on the ground floor and lodging cubicles on the floors above. Men could rent a bed from 15 to 25 cents for the night, but if you were really down on your luck, a bed of sorts could be had in the dingy basement for 10 cents a night. Some owners actually provide accommodations that were relatively clean, although most were in it for a quick profit and clean sheets and bathroom facilities were in short supply. But, for the low-paid or no-paid worker, the lodging house was perhaps a little better than spending the night sleeping on the street, or in the local police district lock-up.

  [400 Block South Clark Street, Chicago, Workingmen's Exchange, 426 S. Clark Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The ground floor space at 426-28 S. Clark was once home to the Workingmen's Exchange, the "world's greatest barrel house." Owned by one of the Chicago's more notoriously infamous city council members Alderman Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, the saloon served more than 15,000 glasses of beer a day. With a bar 84 feet in length, and a room 150 feet long and 50 feet wide, Kenna could pack 'em in, and was said to have racked in over $100,000 in profit in 1903. Kenna's building included clusters of cubicled lodging beds on the floors above the saloon which brought the crafty city official even more income, on top of the money he also collected from various constituents and city employees for various services. Prohibition put Kenna out of the legal beer business in 1919, but his acquaintance Al Capone made sure that the Alderman was well taken care of as beer flowed throughout the city, prohibited or not.
Always considered a blight on the nearby thriving business and commercial district of Chicago's Loop, eventually the derelict lodging houses fell, one by one. And although the surrounding neighborhood would be unrecognizable to Hinky Dink and his beer swilling cohorts, two of the buildings still provide lodging-style housing - for "Men Only." 

Notre Dame de Chicago

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Notre Dame de Chicago (1892) Gregory Vigeant, architect /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

You may have heard about Chicago's large Irish population, or that the city was once   home to the second largest Polish population outside of Warsaw, or home to one of the nation's largest African American populations and known as the Black Metropolis. But if you go way back, French-speaking people made up the largest percentage of the city's inhabitants, and Notre Dame de Chicago stands as a reminder of that far away time.

  [Notre Dame de Chicago, 1336 W. Flournoy Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The city's non-native founder Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable's language was French. He traded in furs and built a log cabin and settled in along a river bank near a lake in the 1780s. Other traders and enterprising businessmen followed, and while Jean-Baptiste soon moved on, many of his fellow Gallic-speaking comrades stayed on. It was this group of permanent settlers who founded the tiny hamlet's first Catholic church, with masses in Latin, and French. Soon Anglo-speaking pioneers began arriving, and as their numbers increased, they founded their own parish, sans French.  

 [Notre Dame de Chicago, National Register of Historic Places, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

By 1861 Chicago was a boom town. People were pouring in from around the country and the remaining French-as-a-first-language settlers decided to create a new parish just west of the old town center. They constructed a modest frame building, and christened their new home Notre Dame de Chicago. Twenty years later they were on the move again, not far, but closer to the city's dwindling Francophile population. First they constructed a school in 1887, then a parish house, and finally in 1892 a church. Designed by architect Gregory Vigeant, dedication blessings were given in French by Cardinal Taschereau of Quebec, Archbishop Fabre of Montreal, the church's pastor Rev. Father Achille Bergeron. Thrown in for good measure, Chicago's non-French speaking, Irish-surnamed archbishop Patrick Feehan, provided prayers in Latin.
By 1910, the majority of the neighborhood was made up of Irish and Italian immigrants   and Notre Dame stopped saying masses in French. Church membership didn't falter though and reached a peak of 15,000 in the mid-1930s. But, times changed as did the neighborhood and by the early 70s, the school was torn down to make way for a parking lot, and in 1977 the statue of Mary at the top of Vigeant's towering dome was struck by lighting causing a devastating fire. Parishioner's rallied and the church was restored, but only in name does it speak to its origins.

Rush University Medical Center

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Rush University Medical Center (2009-2011) Perkins + Will, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

To provide top-notch health care in a world of ever changing technology and an aging and waistline growing population, the need for research grants and beneficent insurance coverage to pay for it all becomes a real challenge. So to stay competitive in a volatile marketplace, hospitals have to grow, expand, and build top-notch facilities to attract patients and dollars.

  [Rush University Medical Center, 1653 W. Congress Parkway, Chicago /Images & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

The architects at Perkins + Will have provided Rush University, and Chicago, with a   dynamic new building, just one part of the medical organization's huge plan for transformation. Rush Medical College was given a charter by the Illinois legislature in 1837, and after several moves around town, settled into this Near West Side location in the mid-1870s. In 1884, working with the the city's Presbyterian churches, the college opened a teaching hospital in a brand new building the school constructed adjacent to their older, existing building. Back in those days most of the hospitals in the city were operated by orders of nuns affiliated with the Catholic church. Many non-Catholics were leery of caregivers who worked under the sign of the Roman cross, so in 1865 the Episcopalians opened their own hospital, as did the Jews. When the Episcopal-affiliated St. Luke's Hospital could no longer handle the crowds of Protestants needing medical attention, the Presbyterians saw an opening and hitched their wagon to the doctors at Rush.

  [Rush University Medical Center, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Eventually St. Luke's needed room to expand in order to stay in business, but they were hemmed-in by their south Michigan Avenue location. So in 1956 the 82-year-old institution merged with Presbyterian and the hospital became known as Presbyterian-St. Luke's, or Press-St. Luke's for short. Rush was out-of-business by that time, the school had been swallowed up by the University of Chicago, though in 1969 they re-emerged as Rush University and rejoined Presbyterian in the newly named, Rush-Presbyterian-St.Luke's.
The ever expanding medical complex started to grow big time in 1957, and added several more new structures in the late 80s and early 90s. With a another new name, in 2006 Rush University Medical Center embarked on a $1 billion plan to transform their medical campus once again. The cutting-edge, butterfly-shaped pavilion is one piece of a proposed re-shaping of the multi-block compound, which the university hopes to complete by 2015.

William J. Chalmers House

 by: chicago designslinger

 [William J. Chalmers House (1885) Treat & Foltz, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

When I was a kid, we used to spend a part of our summer vacation on our grandparent's farm in Kansas. They were weeks of fun-filled, action-packed adventures that were quite different from the typical, summer routine of our big city neighborhood. One year, when I was maybe 11-years-old, I got to drive my Grandfather's tractor in the big, gravel driveway out in front of the barn. It made a huge impression. The tractor had been there year after year, it's orange color faded and worn, with "Allis-Chalmers" painted in big, black letters along it's long, front engine cover. It's a two-word combination that for some reason has stuck with me. I'll never forget it.

  [William J. Chalmers House, 315 S. Ashland Avenue, Chicago /Images & Artwork: chicago desingnslinger]

The man who built this imposing, rough-hewned, brown stone house was William J. Chalmers, the Chalmers in Allis. His father Thomas was a pioneer Chicagoan who owned a large manufacturing plant in Chicago that made mining machinery and boilers. In the mid-1880s when William built the house, Fraser & Thomas was one of the largest machine manufacturers in the world, and one of Chicago's largest employers. In 1901, Fraser & Chalmers merged with Edward P. Allis & Co. of Milwaukee, and Allis-Chalmers was born.

  [William J. Chalmers House, West Jackson Boulevard National Historic District, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Architects Treat & Foltz's 15-room mansion, with a ballroom on the third floor, fit perfectly into what was then a very fashionable Chicago neighborhood. Mayor Carter H. Harrison, Sr. lived in a large home directly across the street, and William's wife Joan, daughter of detective agency owner Allan Pinkerton, grew up in a big house up the street. Ashland Boulevard was a many-mansion lined avenue back in those days. Apparently Thomas Chalmers was so impressed with his son's house that in 1887 he hired the architects to design a substantial home for himself, which looked a lot like William's, half-a-block away. William Chalmers sold his house in 1897, and today is the sole survivor of that many-roomed, servant filled, ballroom dancing era. 

The Newberry Library

 by: chicago designslinger

 [The Newberry Library (1893) Henry Ives Cobb, architect /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

There was a time in this country's history when going to the library meant you were either a dues paying member, or you had the wherewithal to build your own private library and invite guests to share in your scholarly largess. So back in the 1860s when Walter A. Newberry had made more money than he knew what to do with he drew up a will that included a large bequest which would provide funding for Chicago's first, free public (as in the general public) library. There was a small catch, the funds wouldn't become available until his wife died, and his adult daughters died "without issue."

  [The Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Walter died in 1868 not long after drafting his will, and by 1876 both of his unmarried and childless daughters were dead. Chicago was all a twitter after daughter Julia Rose's demise because everyone knew about Walter's library will-funding codicil. But the bereaved widow was still alive, and since by this time the city had decided that they would open their own free, circulating, public library, some of the thunder was taken out of Newberry's generous civic gesture. So the Newberry trustees, who now held sway over the estate, decided that the focus of their library would be research, particularly scholarly historical research, but nothing could, or would, happen until Mrs. Newberry's demise.

  [The Newberry Library, Washington Square Historic District, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Which she did die in 1885, $2.5 million was released to the library trust fund. The first thing the two trustees did was to pick a building in which to open, and after a few moves to temporary locations around town, the trustees picked a site where they could construct a purpose-built home. They had selected the square block where Mahlon D. Ogden's Chicago Fire-surviving-house overlooked Washington Square Park, and in 1888 chose architect Henry Ives Cobb to design the structure. The project was so important to Cobb that dissolved his business partnership with Charles Frost, to focus all of his time and attention on the library commission. It was a wise decision. With two very opinionated trustees and one headstrong head librarian to please, the architect was kept busy revising and reworking drawings for the next three years.
Finally in 1893 Cobb's substantial, Romanesque Revival building opened to researching scholars. Getting the project helped put Cobb into the city's starchitect category, and over the next 10 years he designed many of Chicago's more prominent building projects kicking-off a career. Cobb's building filled only one-half of the square block site, and as the the library grew to include over 1.5 million books, an outstanding collection of illustrated manuscripts, and a collection of maps dating back to the mid-17th century, an addition designed by architect Harry Weese was built behind Cobb's Washington Square-facing stronghold in 1981. The Newberry has become one of the top genealogical research libraries in the country, and although the fortress-like structure seems intimidatingly impenetrable, the Newberry holds all kinds of events open to the general public, and you can gain access to the collection without having to be a credentialed, many degreed, university affiliated, professorial scholar.

Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

 by: chicago designslinger

 [Whitney M. Young Magnet High School (1971) Perkins + Will Partnership, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designsinger]

Martin Luther King's assassination on April 4, 1968 was followed by a series of events in some of the country's largest cities that led to civil unrest resulting in death, and the loss and destruction of millions of dollars in property due to arson-inspired fires. The Whitney M. Young Magnet High School was one of the results of the scenes witnessed on Chicago's west side during those early April days in 1968.

  [Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, 211 S. Laflin, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Built out of the ashes of the devastation on nearby Madison Street, Young High was the city's first experiment with the magnet school concept at the high school level. Meant to draw high-performing, excellent test-scoring students from outside the local district and combine them students from the impoverished surrounding community, the school was an attempt to try and provide a good education for students willing to work hard, no matter their race or income level. Whitney opened in September 1975, and got off to a rocky start with claims of discriminatory action on the part of the School Board, but with all slots filled, the first group of students was ready to meet the mandated educational challenges.

  [Whitney Young Magnet High School, Near West Side, Chicago/Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

 Named for civil rights leader and dynamic leader of the National Urban League, the building was designed by architect C. William Brubaker, a partner at the architectural firm of Perkins & Will. The minimalistic-looking, steel-framed school's design was all the rage in its day, and reflected the city's desire to make Whitney a cutting-edge facility for a cutting-edge education. The building was the most costly school ever built in the State of Illinois in 1975, but the investment in the building and the students paid off. Whitney has one of the best performing arts, science and math programs in Chicago. The school has won the State Academic Decathlon 22 times in the past 23 years, plus 95% of Whitney's graduating seniors are admitted to a 4-year university or college. Michelle Obama graduated from Whitney in 1981, before going on to Princeton for her BA, and then her law degree from Harvard in 1988.

2430 N. Lakeview, Chicago

 by: chicago designslinger

 [2430 N. Lakeview, Chicago (1927) Rebori, Wentworth, Dewey & McCormick, architects /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Have you ever heard the expression, A rose is a rose is a rose ? They are the eight most famous and most quoted word group that author and art collector Gertrude Stein put together during her long, repetitive word, writing career. By 1934 Stein had achieved a certain amount of fame and notoriety when she and her partner Alice B. Toklas took their very first plane ride on a cross country journey from New York to Chicago to visit Toklas' good friend Bobsy Goodspeed. The couple were on a visit from their home in France touring the U.S. giving talks and lectures, and arrived at Goodspeed's swank Lincoln Park address for a prolonged stay while Stein worked in Chicago with composer Virgil Thompson on their production of Four Saints in Three Acts: An Opera to be Sung.

  [2430 N. Lakeview, Chicago, 2430 N. Lakeview Avenue, Chicago/Images & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Gertrude and Alice were wined, dined, and spent their nights sleeping in one of the   bedrooms in Elizabeth (Bobsy) Fuller Goodpseed's posh, top-floor duplex apartment at 2430 N. Lakeview Avenue that overlooked the park. Charles was a wealthy, Ohio industrialist which gave Bobsy the cash and cache to indulge in cultural philanthropy. She was the hostess with the mostess, fun-loving, witty, intelligent, and cultivated the culturally inspired. She took her interest in the arts seriously, serving as the president of the Arts Club of Chicago for several years. The Goodspeed's were one of the original shareholders and occupants of the high-rise, cooperative apartment building, built in 1927 on the site of the former Henry K. Chapin mansion. Chapin sold his property to a syndicate made up of wealthy city residents who were looking for luxury accommodations in a luxuriously designed building. As part of the deal, Chapin took over a single floor, while the rest of the building was cut in half and 16 duplexed, 17-roomed apartments were offered to the remaining owners.

  [2430 N. Lakeview, Chicago, Lake View, Chicago /Image & Artwork: chicago designslinger]

Architect Andrew Rebori of Rebori, Wentworth, Dewey & McCormick, took one of the apartments for himself, and in keeping with the tastes of his rather conservative neighbors, designed an exterior with sedate, graceful, Georgian Revival detailing. The apartments themselves were finished-out per each owners requests, and the Goodpseed's chose architect David Adler, a practitioner of perfectly proportioned  classical architecture and exquisite sweeping staircases, to design their interior.
It wasn't many years after Gertrude and Alice went back to their home in France that Charles died suddenly while he and Elizabeth were spending the winter of 1947 in Arizona. The widowed Mrs. Goodspeed married widower and wealthy New York industrialist Gilbert Chapman in 1950 and left Chicago for New York City, where she died in 1980 at the ripe old age of 87.