FEATURE Image: Steuben Club Building/Randolph Tower. 188 W. Randolph Street, Chicago. View from the west, August 2021. Author’s photograph. 12.72mb_9354 (1)
The 1929 limestone tower whose shape may be the last surviving skyscraper reflective of the 1923 zoning law with setbacks and a telescoping tower presages Vitzthum & Burns’ mighty 1 N. LaSalle Street Building in 1930. Randolph Tower was restored in 1993 by Stenbro, Ltd. and in 2013 opened as the residences of Randolph Tower City. In addition to its 15-story tower, the building is 27 stories tall and 465 feet high built on rock caissons. German-born Karl Martin Vitzthum (1880-1967) and John Joseph Burns (1886-1956) built some of Chicago’s best-known skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s. The firm also built, in 1953, St. Peter’s Church in the Loop at 110 W. Madison Street two doors down from the corner skyscraper of 1 N. LaSalle Street Building. Karl M. Vitzhum was architect on the Midland Hotel (then the Midland Club Building ). Built in 1927, it is 22 stories of roaring 1920’s Beaux-Arts architecture.
Karl Martin Vitzthum (1880-1967). One of the architects of the Steuben Club Building/Randolph Tower with partner John J. Burns. The skyscrapers they built starting in 1925 until the Great Depression became taller and more vertical as time progressed and are some of the most visible soaring stone structures of the period in downtown Chicago. Karl Martin Vitzthum (Architect), Steuben Club Building, Chicago, Illinois, Perspective Randolph Street, 188 West (Building address), 1924-1928, Watercolor and tempera on paper 86 × 35.6 cm (33 7/8 × 14 in.) The Art Institute of Chicago. see – https://www.artic.edu/artworks/158560/steuben-club-building-chicago-illinois-perspective – retrieved September 21, 2024.
With each building the move from classicism to Modernism is clear as well as pure verticality. During the 1980s and 1990’s, I worked in one of Vitzthum & Burns’ mid1920s office buildings in Chicago – The Old Republic Building at 307 North Michigan Avenue built in 1925. My airy office on the 7th floor looked right onto Michigan Avenue where I could admire the Carbide and Carbon Building across the street built in 1929.
Steuben Club Building/Randolph Tower. August 2021. Author’s photograph. 82% 7.88 mb _9354
Vitzthum arrived in Chicago from Germany in 1914 and worked with architectural firms such as Graham Anderson Probst and White, Burnham & Co., and White, Jarvis & Hunt. He often worked with Fredrick J. Teich (1874- n.a) prior to establishing his own firm with John J. Burns in 1919. Vitzthum was a young architect on Burnham’s staff when he worked on some engineering details for the old Comiskey Park (1910-1990). The partnership of Vitzthum and Burns started in 1919 and ended with Burns’ death in 1956. Though known for eclectic styled bank buildings throughout the Midwest, the pair had built the one-screen 1,000 seat The Hollywood Theatre at Fullerton Avenue and Greenview Avenue in 1926. The theatre closed in 1957 after being renamed the Holly Theatre and was demolished soon afterwards. It is a parking lot today for a local Walgreens across the street from Facets movie theatre.
SOURCES:
Frank A. Randall, History of Development of Building Construction in Chicago, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by John D. Randall, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1999, pp. 331 and 319.
Saliga, Pauline A., editor, The Sky’s The Limit A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Rizzoli New York, 1990, p. 133.
Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 84.
FEATURE Image: Signage of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, Chicago. The church is known as “the birthplace of Gospel music” since Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993) started his first modern gospel choir here in 1931. Author’s photograph, 10/2016 6.06 mb
Built as one of Chicago’s early Reform Judaism synagogue in 1898, the Classical Revival style golden brick and stone building is the last one designed by Dankmar Adler (1844-1900). The building with its form distinctive to other Adler buildings as well as its fine acoustics, was purchased by Ebenezer Church in 1921.In the heart of the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s Southside, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church was formed in 1902. During the Great Migration, African-Americans made Ebenezer their church home in the early 1920’s.Ebenezer developed a reputation as a center for gospel music. Under the direction of Theodore R. Frye, Roberta Martin and, the “Father of Gospel Music,” Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), the church’s groundbreaking gospel choir introduced a blend of Christian praise and blues at Ebenezer that established the careers of the “Mother of Gospel,” Sallie Martin (1895-1988), Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) and Dinah Washington (1924-1963) who was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
I’ll Tell It Wherever I Go – Sallie Martin. Sallie Martin helped popularize the songs of Thomas A. Dorsey. Martin also worked with Cora Martin-Moore (1927-2005), Dinah Washington and Brother Joe May (1912-1972), the “Thunderbolt of the Midwest,” when Sallie Martin formed the Sallie Martin Singers. Sallie Martin was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1991. Sanctuary. During the 30-year pastorate of Rev. Frank K. Sims, distinguished guests of the church included Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), Ralph Metcalfe (1910-1978), Adam Clayton Powell (1908-1972) and Mahalia Jackson.
“A voice like this comes only once in a millennium,” so said Dr. King about Mahalia Jackson. During the Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966, Mahalia Jackson, who lived in Chicago, joined her friend Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., when he was visited a church to preach a sermon about justice and equality. Like Dr. King, Mahalia Jackson was a devout Christian and Civil Rights activist. At the August 28, 1963 March on Washington, she sang “How I Got Over” and was on the Lincoln Memorial platform behind King while he was pronouncing his “I Have a Dream” speech.In 1966 a banquet honoring Dr. Frank Kentworth Sims on the 7th anniversary of his pastorate of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church featured Nobel Peace Prize recipient the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as the guest speaker and Mahalia Jackson as guest vocalist.
Though there were literally as many church choirs as there were churches, Dinah Washington (1924-1963), then Ruth Jones, made a name for herself as a teenage gospel singer in Chicago. In 1940 Ruth gave a recital that included “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” one of Thomas A. Dorsey’s most popular songs. The music for this version of the Christian prayer, “The Lord’s Prayer,” was written by Albert Hay Malotte (1895-1964) in 1935. It was released in 2010 on the compilation album, The Fabulous Miss D! (The Keynote, Decca & Mercury Singles 1943–1953), which traces the first decade of Dinah Washington’s recording career on 78s and 45s, starting with her stint with Lionel Hampton (1908-2002) and continuing through the early years of her solo career.
SOURCES:
Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 417.
FEATURE image: Detail of wood, stone and brick used by architect Joseph Emil Hosek for his 1951 Prairie-style house at 8958 S. Hamilton Avenue in Northern Beverly. See a fuller description and another photograph of the house in this post.
Text & photographs by John P. Walsh.
INTRODUCTION.
The Beverly/Morgan Park community owes its charm and uniqueness to the variety of architecture styles and the plan for residential areas that were laid out in the late 19th century. Historic districts were established to help preserve that ambience.
Prairie School founder Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) designed a handful of houses in Beverly/Morgan Park (4) between 1900 and 1917 as did Walter Burley Griffin who boasts an historic district on 104th Place. Today there are four historic districts – (1) the Ridge Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, and Chicago Landmark Districts (2) covering historic homes and churches on sections of Longwood Drive and Seeley Avenue, (3) Prairie-style houses designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin, and (4) the train stations along the old Rock Island line.
The architect Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) has one of the historic districts in Beverly/Morgan Park named after him for his work designing Prairie-style houses. Griffin went on to become internationally famous as the designer of the new Australian capital city of Canberra in 1913. Public Domain.
The Ridge Historic District is an extensive area and one of the largest urban historic districts in the U.S. Boundaries include a substantial amount of historic Beverly and Morgan Park with architectural styles from the 1870s to the 1930s. More homes of historic value that are not in the historic district find designation and protection in the Chicago Landmark Districts.
The Beverly-Morgan Park area is a former homeland of the Potawatomi peoples. In 1833, the Native Americans ceded their land rights to this area to the U.S. government. In 1839, John Blackstone purchased 300 acres encompassing land known as the Ridge, a heavily wooded highland. Chicago and Fort Dearborn were accessible by an indigenous trail, also called the Vincennes Trail.
The area has mature trees, long, winding streets and old houses set back and nestled into hilly green plots. Morgan Park is the older community started in 1844 and later annexed to Chicago in 1914. Its original land tract was bought from John Blackstone by Englishman Thomas Morgan, between 91st and 119th street along the west side of Longwood Drive (the Blue Island Ridge). The area was a farming community until, after the Civil War, Morgan’s children sold the land to the Blue Island Building and Land Company, and, in 1869, Thomas F. Nichols planned a picturesque subdivision with winding streets, small parks, and roundabouts that evoke images of an English country town. Although the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad laid tracks through the area in 1852, commuter service to downtown was established over 35 years later, in 1888, which was six years after Morgan Park incorporated as a suburban village.
Map of Morgan Park, IL, as laid out by Thomas F. Nichols for the Blue Island Land and Building Company, 1870. Public Domain.
Following the Chicago fire, Morgan Park developed quickly in the 1870s including Morgan Park Military Academy (1873), Baptist Union Theological Seminary (1877), and Chicago Female College (1875). The seminary was run by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed (1842-1927) and William Rainey Harper (1856-1906) who established The University of Chicago in Hyde Park in 1890. The seminary left Morgan Park at that time to become the University’s Divinity School. The political battle for Morgan Park’s annexation to Chicago resulted in its suburban women voting overwhelmingly for annexation in 1914 because it meant better city services and schools.
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad had opened a station at 91st Street in 1889 and called it Beverly Hills which became the name for the whole area north of 107th along the Ridge. Beverly’s churches and schools reflected the community’s growth from east to west. Beverly (or Beverly Hills) developed along similar lines as adjacent Morgan Park though annexed to Chicago a quarter of century earlier in 1890. Beverly was originally part of the village of Washington Heights to the east which was also annexed to Chicago in 1890.
Notable Buildings in Beverly/Morgan Park.
J.T. Blake House, 2023 W. 108th Place, 1894, H.H. Waterman.
H.H. Waterman (1869-1948), a Wisconsin native, was a Wright contemporary. Waterman was known as Morgan Park’s “Village Architect” because he designed so many buildings in the community (no less than 15) even as Waterman also built houses out-of-state. Waterman’s architecture is vibrantly creative yet stately and recognizable by their charming and irregular designs. The J.T.Blake House is from the early mid 1890’s, a fecund building period for Waterman. It has a steeply pitched and swooping gabled roof that is asymmetrical and a jutting angled stairway bay. The house materials are stone, wood, and stucco.
Another H.H. Waterman confection is the so-called “Honeymoon Cottage” (above) nestled onto a broad, hilly corner Ridge lot, built in 1892. Waterman built this house for his young wife, Ida May Vierling (1872-1896), who died at 24 years old in 1896, leaving the talented architect alone to raise their baby daughter, Louise Hale Waterman (1895-1953). The house has a pretty terraced entrance with an exaggerated gabled entry porch. There is a high hipped roof that adds to the English cottage style whimsy and disproportion that is the architect’s own home. The Harry H. Waterman House, at 10838 S. Longwood Dr., built in 1892, is part of both the Ridge Historic District and the Longwood Drive District.
Morgan Park Methodist Episcopal, 11000 S. Longwood Drive, 1913, H.H. Waterman and addition, 1926, Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton.Dwight H. Perkins (1867-1941) was Prairie School architect and contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright.Public Domain.
The original office of Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton who designed Morgan Park Methodist Episcopal church’s 1926 addition, was on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue and briefly shared with Frank Lloyd Wright. Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton became known for designing schools and civic buildings with prolific output in the Chicagoland area. Project designs included the Bowen High School, Carl Shurz High School—considered one of the most beautiful high schools in the area—as well as Evanston Township and Winnetka’s New Trier high schools. The firm also designed park facilities such as the Lincoln Park Boat House and the Lincoln Park Zoo’s famed Lion House.
Chicago Public Library, George C. Walker Branch, 11071 S Hoyne Avenue, 1890, Charles S Frost. Additions in 1933 and 1995.
George C. Walker was president of the Blue Island Land and Building Company. The original portion of the library building was designed by Charles Sumner Frost (1856-1931), cost $12,000, and opened on April 22, 1890. In 1929 its space was quadrupled and, in 1995, it received a major renovation. When Chicago Public Library, George C. Walker Branch, was built, Frost was 34 years old and at the beginning of a new stage in his early mid-career. The low-rise stone building is greatly influenced by the Richardsonian-Romanesque style which was prevalent among young architects in the 1880’s and 1890’s before the onset of the Beaux-Arts revival.
Charles Sumner Frost (1856-1931) was born in Maine and trained as an architect in Boston, Frost moved to Chicago in 1882. The partnership of Cobb and Frost designed and began construction of the Potter Palmer mansion (1882-1885) at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive (demolished in 1951). Public Domain. Entrance towers, Chicago Public Library, George C. Walker Branch, 1892.
Adapted to a residential-commercial street in a middleclass neighborhood outside downtown Chicago, the building shows the characteristics associated with the Richardsonian Romanesque style, including strong picturesque massing, round-headed arches, clusters of short squat columns, recessed entrances, richly varied rustication, blank stretches of walling contrasting with bands of windows, and cylindrical towers with conical caps embedded in the walling.
Bryson B. Hill House, 9800 S. Longwood Drive, 1909, Albert G. Ferree.
Bryson B. Hill House (above) is a classically-inspired mansion with two-story tall Doric columns helping form the front entrance. While Prairie style of architecture was new and modern, the Chicago “Great House” did not go out of style, at least until the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 which necessitated downsizing of many house plans. Albert G. Ferree (1848-1919/1924) also built two and three flats in Chicago in the same period.
Beverly Unitarian Church (Robert C. Givins House), 10244 S. Longwood Drive, 1886, architect unknown.
Part of the Longwood Drive Historic District, the Robert S. Givins House, at 103rd Street and Longwood Drive, is also known as the Givins Beverly Castle (above). Built by an early developer, the castle-like keep is built of Joliet limestone that attracts attention for its crenellated battlement and towers with arrow-slit windows. The gatehouse entrance is a traditional Richardsonian Romanesque rounded arch. This late 19th century castle on its hill is probably the community’s best-known landmark.
Robert W. Evans House, 9914 S Longwood Drive, 1908, Frank Lloyd Wright.Frank Lloyd Wright. Public Domain.
The Evans House (above) with a low hipped roof is built atop the Blue Island Ridge and not into it. There is a central fireplace around which the expansive house pinwheels. The original stucco exterior was later covered with flagstone. The earliest Wright house in the area is the Jessie Mae and William Adams House (9326 South Pleasant) completed in 1901. Robert and Alberta Evans had been married for 12 years when Wright built this home. Robert Evans was a sales manager and treasurer for the Picher Lead Company and Alberta Wetzel Evans was an award-winning botanist.
Headmaster’s House, 2203 W 111th Street, 1872, architect unknown.
The T-stem Victorian Gothic with stone foundation has a front porch on brick supports with thick square doric columns. There is a steeply pitched roof with brackets under the roof line.
The Berry House, 9750 S. Walden Parkway, 1922. Regular commuter service from Beverly/Morgan Park to Downtown Chicago has been in place since 1888. Train station: Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad – Morgan Park Station (111th St. Metra Station), 1891, John T. Long.
The first floor of the station (above) is faced entirely in wood advertising the woodsy ambience of its then-suburban setting. A waiting room fireplace survives.
Hiland A. Parker House, 10340 S Longwood Drive, 1894, Harry Hale Waterman.
The H.A. Parker House sits on a dramatic hill site met by a base of Richardsonian huge rusticated brownstone stone blocks to form a large semicircular porch and tower at the back. The tall roof with steeply pitched gabled dormers on this helps exaggerate the house’s height.
Setting and landscape are an integral aspect of residences in curvaceous and hilly Beverly and Morgan Park. Normand Smith Patton (1852– 1915) whose firm designed the Morgan Parak Congregational Church began practicing architecture in Chicago in 1874. He left for for Washington DC two years later where he remained until 1883. Patton returned to Chicagoand opened a practice with another architect, C.E. Randall. Randall died in 1885 but Patton’s firm survived under various forms as Patton & Fisher, Patton, Fisher and Miller, Patton & Miller, and Patton, Holmes & Flinn until his death in 1915.Patton & Miller designed scores of Carnegie libraries.Morgan Park Congregational Church, 11153 S. Hoyne, Chicago, 1916, Patton, Holmes & Flinn.Morgan Park Congregational Church, 11153 S. Hoyne, Chicago, 1916, Patton, Holmes & Flinn.
Blended with Mission style, Morgan Park Congregational Church is a handsome red brick Craftsman building that has been identified as the best preserved in Chicago. The church was designed by Patton, Holmes & Flinn. Normand Smith Patton (1852– 1915) was an American architect based in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Patton’s firm specialized in public buildings, particularly Chicago public schools as well as libraries and chapels.
Clarke House, 11156 S. Longwood Drive, 1892, John Gavin.
The Sarah D. Clarke House (or W.S. Kiskaddon House) is a miniature Queen Anne-style house with an Italianate corner tower.
James R. McKee House, 10415 S Seeley, 1908, John M. Schroeder.
The simple front entrance of the J.R. McKee House is on the side hidden by an oblong triangular brick wall. A projecting sunroom that faces the street is encased by a broken arch.
Frederick C. Sawyer House, 9822 S Longwood Drive, 1908, Horatio R. Wilson.
The Sawyer House is a mansion with many windows, three floors of solid red brick from 1908. The fashionable traditional Beaux-Arts style was built in a time of new Prairie style architecture in ascendance.
Horatio R. Wilson started as a draftsman in 1877. In 1889 he was in partnership with another Chicago architect and, in the 1900’s established an independent office. In this early 20th century period Wilson planned and built many important buildings, including the Illinois Theatre in Chicago, the L. C. Case Office Building in Racine, Wisconsin (1905), the Sharp Office Building in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Railroad Station at Wheaton, Illinois, for the Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Railroad. After 1910 he was associated with John A. Armstrong in organizing the firm of H. R. Wilson & Company of which he remained the head until his death. During this later period important examples of his firm’s works were the Macmillan Publishing Company’s Office Building and Warehouse (1911) in Chicago, erected at Prairie Avenue and 20th Street, including its addition in 1916. Wilson also designed the Raymond Apartment House on North Michigan Avenue, and the Surf and Sisson Hotels in Chicago. Architect Horatio R. Wilson also designed the South Michigan Avenue building that would later house Chess Records and the Milwaukee mansion that holds today’s Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.
Howard Hyde House, 10410 S Hoyne Avenue, 1917, Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Howard Hyde House is an American System Built home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1917. The client was a cashier at International Harvester. Like the era’s popular Sears Catalog homes. Wright designs were prepackaged and ready to build. Wright had a long-term concern for affordable housing and he worked in short term partnerships with builders such as Milwaukee-based Richard Bros. and Burhans-Ellinwood & Co. The Hyde House was built as a model for a proposed subdivision that the U.S. entry into World War One halted. The only other house Wright built under this plan was 10521 S. Hoyne across the street.
Frank Lloyd Wright in 1926. Public Domain. 10541 S Hoyne, 1917, Frank Lloyd Wright.Horace Horton House, 10200 S Longwood, 1890, J.T. Long.
The H. Horton House (above) is Colonial Revival style.
Chicago State University, President’s House/Frank Anderson House, 10400 S. Longwood Drive, 1924, Oscar L. McMurry.
The CSU President’s House is Italian Renaissance Revival with Classical pediments.
Russell L Blount House (2), 1950 W 102nd Street, Chicago, 1912, William Burley Griffin.
The Russell L. Blount House (2) was designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) in 1912. The house has the same floor plan as the Blount House (1) also built by Griffin in 1911 at 1724 W. Griffin Place. The 1912 house has a cathedral ceiling which is intimated in the façade trim. Russell L. Blount, a real estate manager for a bank, and lived with his family in and out of Griffin houses as Blount built and sold them for considerable profit.
Walter Burley Griffin, 1912. Public domain. Born in Maywood, Illinois, Griffin grew up in Oak Park and Elmhurst, Illinois. Graduating as an architect from University of Illinois, Griffin was influenced by the Chicago-based Prairie School in ascendency at the turn of the 20th century. Griffin began working in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studios and oversaw the construction of several noted houses by Wright and supplied landscape plans for Wright’s buildings. Griffin’s own architectural designs began in these years. Griffin developed his own modern style and, working in partnership with Marion Griffith (née Mahony) after 1911, they designed over 350 buildings, landscape and urban-design projects as well as designing construction materials, interiors, furniture and other household items. Marion Mahony was the first woman to be licensed to practice architecture in Illinois as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s first employee in the mid 1890’s in Chicago. In 1913, upon winning the competition to design Canberra, Australia, Walter Burley Griffin, relocated there with his wife for the next 20 years. Griffin is credited with being the first architect to use reinforced concrete, originating the carport, and developing the L-shaped floor plan.9332 South Damen Avenue, Chicago, 1894, is the childhood home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (1920-2019).
The childhood home of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (1920-2019) who used to sleep and spend time on this front porch is at 9332 S. Damen Avenue (above). The Waid-Coleman home was built in 1894 and retains its original stained glass, hardwood floors, pocket doors, and beamed ceilings. The exterior was stripped and painted in 2003 which Justice Stevens later commented made the house look now than he remembered.
On September 12, 1992, MAE JEMISON, engineer, physician and astronaut, made history as the first African American woman to travel in space when she took off as part of a NASA crew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor for 8 days in space.
“You’re the Inspiration” was written by PETER CETERA and David Foster. Cetera sang lead vocals for the 1984 album, Chicago 17. The song reached no.3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985. Peter Cetera, bassist and founding member of Chicago, is from Morgan Park and grew up on Vincennes Avenue.
AJA EVANS, Olympic bobsled bronze medalist in 2014 and World Championships Bobsled Bronze medalist in 2017, is from Morgan Park.BRIAN PICCOLO in 1967. Public Domain. Brian Piccolo played for the Chicago Bears for four years before his death from cancer at age 26 on June 16, 1970. The Piccolo family lived in two different Beverly homes in that time. Signed by the Bears in 1965, the Piccolo family moved into a home in the 9200 block of Vanderpoel Street and later to a home in the 2000 block of West Hunt Avenue. In 1964 Piccolo led the nation in rushing at Wake Forest in North Carolina and was named Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. Piccolo was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Florida. His wife, Joy, came from Georgia. While Piccolo was passed over in the 1965 draft, the Bears did pick up running back Gale Sayers and linebacker Dick Butkus. In 1965 Piccolo tried out for the Bears as a free agent and made the practice squad. In 1966 he was on the main roster playing on special teams. In 1967 and 1968 Piccolo got more playing time backing up Gale Sayers. His best season statistically is 1968 when he gained 450 running yards on 123 carries, a pair of touchdowns, and 291 yards on 28 receptions. In August 1969 Piccolo was made starting fullback next to Gale Sayers in the backfield. It was during the Bears-Falcons football game in Atlanta in November 1969 that Piccolo took himself out of the game because of chest pain and a persistent cough. A couple of days later an X-ray showed a tumor in his lungs. Piccolo was diagnosed with embryonal cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of testicular cancer that had metastasized. Piccolo began chemotherapy and while today the cure rate for this form of cancer can be upwards of 90%, in 1970 it was virtually incurable. Gale Sayers playing. Public domain. In Sayers’ rookie NFL season, he set a league record by scoring 22 touchdowns—including a record-tying six in one game—and gained 2,272 yards and named the NFL’s Rookie of the Year. In his first five seasons, Sayers was in four Pro Bowls and was selected All-Pro first team five times. In 1968 a right knee injury forced Sayers to miss the last five games of season but he returned in 1969 to lead the NFL in rushing yards and was named NFL Comeback Player of the Year. An injury to his left knee in the 1970 preseason and subsequent injuries kept him sidelined for most of his final two seasons.
In 1967, Gale Sayers and Chicago Bears teammate Brian Piccolo became the first interracial roommates in NFL history. Their friendship, which ended with Brian Piccolo’s death at 26 years old in 1970 following a battle with cancer, inspired Sayers to write his autobiography, “I Am Third,” which became the basis for the 1971 made-for-TV movie Brian’s Song. Sayers, who had recovered from a serious knee injury with the help and grit of his team-mate and friend, Brian Piccolo, saw Sayers lead the NFL in rushing in 1969 (1032 yards on 236 carries; 8 touchdowns). For his successful efforts, Sayers won the George S. Halas Most Courageous Player award. Typically awarded in August, Sayers asked for the award presentation to take place at a May 25, 1970 dinner. His reason was that Brian Piccolo, who had been diagnosed with cancer in November 1969, was seriously ill. Just a couple weeks later, on June 16, 1970, Brian Piccolo died. The following year, when Brian’s Song debuted on ABC on November 30, 1971, it became the most-watched made-for-TV movie in history. Brian’s Song, starring Billy Dee Williams as Sayers and James Caan as Piccolo, included that award presentation in its drama that had taken place in real life just one year before. “You flatter me by giving me this award, but I say to you here and now Brian Piccolo is the man of courage who should receive the George S. Halas Award. It is mine tonight, it is Brian Piccolo’s tomorrow. “I love Brian Piccolo, and I’d like all of you to love him, too. And tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him.” Visiting the gravesite of Brian Piccolo, St. Mary’s Cemetery, Evergreen Park, Illinois, July 2017. Chambers House, 10330 S. Seeley, Chicago, 1874.
The Chambers House (above) has a well-preserved French Tower. The architect is unknown who built this suburban villa from the 1870s and which boasts plenty of style and details.
Louis A. Tanner House, 9640 S. Longwood drive, 1909, Tallmadge & Watson.Ignatius Chap House, 8831 S. Pleasant Avenue, 1928, Homer G. Sailor.
This modest late 1920’s home dressed in a Spanish Revival (or southern California hacienda) style has a central miniature tower and blind arches. Its colorful decorative tiles embedded into the stucco are original. The architect of the Ignatius Chap House (above) was Homer Grant Sailor (1887-1968) who was one of the last draftsmen for Louis Sullivan. In 1917 Sailor established his private practice, designing small Prairie School residences, low-rise commercial buildings and churches in the Chicago area. His work drew upon Sullivan’s simple massing and exhibits a program of applied terra cotta ornament more restrained than that of Sullivan.
Along with small parks and winding streets, roundabouts were part of the original plats of Beverly and Morgan Park. Along Longwood Drive. George W. Reed House, 2122 W. Hopkins Place, 1929, James Roy Allen.
The G.W. Reed House (above) is a massive building with irregular massing and that has 4 wings which pinwheel around a central core. With its assortment of beams, arches, and crenellations, the style is an amalgam of medieval, late medieval/early Renaissance, and with some Classical details. Built in 1929, the brick and limestone mansion on a Beverly hillside suggests a Tudor mansion added onto over different time periods. The house is one of two known extant works in Chicagoland of its architect, James Roy Allen (the other is the main gate of the Lake Forest cemetery at Lake Road). Allen designed the home for an executive of the Peabody Coal Company. The house has 19 rooms—plus a servants’ residence with three more rooms—and stands on one acre in the Dan Ryan Woods section of north Beverly. The interior is carved oak and walnut moldings set off by leaded glass windows, with four fireplaces and the original sterling silver andirons, as well as sterling silver sconces.
Magdalen H. Phillips House and Studio, 8910 S. Pleasant Avenue, 1954, William G. Carnegie.
The M.H. Phillips House (above) is a sprawling Late Prairie style single-story house on a northern Beverly hillside. It is by architect and engineer William G, Carnegie (1888-1969) who reiterates in the house design the popular idiom of Walter Burley Griffin with its deep eaves and patterned wooden muntins on the windows.
Everett Robert Brewer House, 2078 W. Hopkins Place, 1924, Murray D. Hetherington.
Beverly/Morgan Park displays work by generations of Hetherington family architects. This family’s architectural legacy began with John Todd (J.T.) Hetherington (1858-1936) who designed residences, churches, banks, and parks in Chicagoland. His son, Murray D. Hetherington (1891-1972) designed the Brewer House (above). He was the most prolific of the Hetherington architects to design in Beverly/Morgan Park and worked in the English Manor style, which is Tudor Revival sans half timbering. The Brewer House is a prime example of his work, many of these elegant residences designed in the booming 1920s into the 1930s. Hetherington paid close attention to the landscape settings of his houses as the Brewer House also conveys set atop hills and nestled by the Dan Ryan Woods. Using materials such as clinker brick and limestone the architect added texture and contrast to his designs and gave each house an individual character. The Brewer House’s irregular roofline with its variegated slate and random sized slabs are a case in point for this well-designed and constructed individuality. Hetherington interiors are also well designed and appointed with the modern design of large windows.
Murray D. Hetherington House, 8919 S. Hamilton Avenue, 1924, Murray D. Hetherington.This is the second generation Beverly/Morgan Park architect’s house. James Alex Brough House, 8929 S. Hamilton Avenue, 1927, Murray D. Hetherington.
J.A Brough House (above) is a stucco Spanish Revival house on a corner lot by Murray D. Hetherington in 1927. It sits across from the architect’s own home built in 1924.
8958 S. Hamilton Avenue, 1951, Joseph Emil Hosek.
Joseph E. Hosek (1907-1993) was based in the Chicago area who did buildings for various clients, primarily in southwestern Chicago and suburbs. This large Prairie-style multi-level home at 8958 S. Hamilton Avenue has 5-feet wide eaves and, in a nod to a popular post-war style, variegated facing stones.
Wood, stone and brick used by Joseph Emil Hosek for his house at 8958 S. Hamilton Avenue in Northern Beverly.S.P. Balzekas House, 9000 S. Bell Avenue, 1935, William Sevic.
S.P. Balzekas House (above) is a stylish Prairie and Modernist mid1930’s house. William Sevic was an American architect, active in Illinois.
Garden, Beverly/Morgan Park. William G. Ferguson House, 10934 S. Prospect Avenue, 1873, architect unknown.Ingersoll-Blackwelder House, 10910 S. Prospect Avenue, 1874; and addition, 1887. Architect (s) unknown.Luther S. Dickey, Jr. House, 10990 S. Prospect Avenue, 1912, Chatten & Hammond.
The L.S. Dickey, Jr. House is a successful example of the eclectic Arts & Crafts style. Seen here is its half-timbered double gable. Chatten & Hammond were a prolific architectural partnership. In 1907, Charles (C.) Herrick Hammond (1882–1969) formed a partnership with Melville Clarke Chatten, a firm that expanded to become Perkins, Chatten & Hammond in 1933. The partnership lasted until the early 1950s.
Dr. William H. German House, 10924 S. Prospect Avenue, 1884, Frederick G. German.
The Dr. W.H. German house is a catalog of the decorative power of wood sheathing, clapboards, patterned shingles, fretwood, and half timbers. Frederick G. German (1836-1937) was a Canadian-American architect with offices in the 1880s in Duluth, Minnesota.
Montague, M.L. (1901). Biographical Record of the Alumni and Non-Graduates of Amherst College (’72-’96) – The Third Quarter-Century. Amherst: Carpenter and Morehouse, Printers. p. 26.
Montague, M.L. (1901). Biographical Record of the Alumni and Non-Graduates of Amherst College (’72-’96) – The Third Quarter-Century. Amherst: Carpenter and Morehouse, Printers. p. 458.
The Cobden, 1892, 418-424 W. Belden Ave., Chicago, IL. 6/2014
The Cobden is a Richardsonian-Romanesque flats-above-storefront building that has anchored the northwest corner of busy Clark Street and residential Belden Avenue since 1892. It was designed by architect Charles Sumner Frost (1856 –1931) of the firm of Henry Ives Cobb (1859-1931) and Frost.
Born in Maine and trained as an architect in Boston, Frost moved to Chicago in 1882. When The Cobden was built, Frost was 36 years old and at the beginning of a new stage in his early mid-career. Cobb and Frost designed and began construction of the Potter Palmer mansion (1882-1885) at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive (demolished in 1951). The Cobden, two miles to the north in Lincoln Park by Lake Michigan, was built in a burgeoning residential area at 418-424 Belden Avenue.
The Cobden is greatly influenced by the Richardsonian-Romanesque style which was prevalent among young architects in the 1880’s and 1890’s before the onset of the Beaux-Arts revival. Adapted to a residential-commercial street in a middle class neighborhood outside Downtown Chicago, The Cobden shows the characteristics associated with the Richardsonian Romanesque style. These include clear, strong picturesque massing, round-headed arches, clusters of short squat columns, recessed entrances, richly varied rustication, blank stretches of walling contrasting with bands of windows, and cylindrical towers with conical caps embedded in the walling.
The Cobden, in its bays and a prominent central gable that breaks above the roofline, presented an attractive architectural variety on Belden Avenue.
In 1897 Charles S. Frost married Mary Hughitt, the daughter of New York railroad tycoon Marvin Hughitt (1837-1928), the president of the Chicago and North Western Railroad. When the partnership of Cobb and Frost ended in 1898, Frost partnered with Mary’s sister’s husband, Alfred Hoyt Granger (1867-1939). Granger came to Chicago also from Boston (he was born in Ohio) and designed The Art Institute Building on Michigan Avenue in 1893. Frost and Granger were known for their designs of train stations and terminals such as the LaSalle Street Station in 1903. In the first decade of the 20th century, Frost and Granger designed over 100 buildings for the Chicago and North Western Railroad, including the massive Renaissance-Revival style Chicago and North Western Terminal which opened in 1912 (and demolished in 1984 to make way for the Ogilvie Transportation Center in Downtown Chicago).
When the Frost and Granger partnership ended by 1912, Frost began to work independently and designed in 1916 the Navy Pier Auditorium. Following his father-in-law’s death in 1928, Frost retired from his architectural practice at the end of the same year. After designing hundreds of public, commercial, and residential buildings, mainly in Chicago, Charles S. Frost died in 1931 at 75 years old.
Charles S. Frost in 1920.
SOURCES:
Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 196.
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume XVII, 1920, pp. 336–337.
Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), 1906, THE MENTOR BUILDING, 39 S. State Street (6 E. Monroe Street), Chicago, from the southwest. Author’s photograph, 7/2015.
A Mentor building has stood on the northeast corner of State and Monroe Streets since 1873. Until 1906, a 7-story building was erected here.1
The 1906 building by Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926) is 17 stories high with two basements on rock caissons.2 Shaw’s only skyscraper presents an unusual mixture of styles, a talent for which Shaw built his practice’s reputation starting in 1897. The building was designed as a mixed use skyscaper, including retail sales and commercial business.3
Inspired by the Prairie style, there are windows grouped in horizontal bands between a four-level base of large showroom windows. The top is classically inspired with details that are strong and idiosyncratic. The brown brick and terra cotta building retains the character of its classical sources though they are used as large-scale motifs.4
Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926). Public Domain.
Shaw studied architecture at Yale University and apprenticed in Chicago for William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907). In Chicago and its northern suburbs Shaw had an illustrious career designing major commercial, church, and museum buildings and projects as well as mansions for the area’s elites.5
1 Frank A. Randall, History of Development of Building Construction in Chicago, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by John D. Randall, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1999, p. 196.
2 Ibid., p. 265.
3 Saliga, Pauline A., editor, The Sky’s The Limit A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Rizzoli New York, 1990, p. 73.
4 Alice Sinkevitch, AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, p. 59.
Chicago. Modern. Park Tower Condominium (1973). SCB. 8/2015. 3.15 mb
Park Tower Condominium is on the lakefront next to north Lake Shore Drive and across from Foster Beach in Lincoln Park. Its address is 5414 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago
Constructed in 1973 by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz (SCB), a Chicago architectural firm founded in 1931, the tower was planned as the first of three towers in a triangular formation but the others did not materialize.
Tallest building outside Downtown Chicago for 8 miles north to Foster Beach
At 55 stories tall (513 feet high), Park Tower Condominium is the tallest structure between downtown and Foster Beach and one of the tallest structures in Chicago outside the downtown area.
Park Tower Condominiumis one of the largest all-residential buildings in the city.It was originally built as luxury rental apartments, though the building became condos in 1979.
In the Edgewater neighborhood, Park Tower Condominium is one of three residential towers in Chicago with black Miesian windows and three rounded lobes. The others are Lake Point Tower (505 North Lake Shore Drive) and Harbor Point (155 North Harbor Drive).
Chicago. Modern. Park Tower Condominium (1973). SCB. 8/2015. 3.04 mb
View from northeast looking southwest. The curtain wall of the Park Tower Condominium is beautifully detailed and proportioned.
Photographs were taken by the author on August 7, 2015.
FEATURE image: Portion of the open-grate pony-truss bascule Chicago Avenue Bridge and concrete house, erected in 1914, as it was in its last years of operation. Pointing to increased high traffic volume and load-bearing capacity issues, the 104-year-old bridge was demolished and replaced in 2018. Author’s photograph taken in May 2016.
Built in 1914 by Ketler-Elliot Erection Company of Chicago, the original Chicago Avenue Bridge was one of the oldest pony truss bascule bridges in Chicago. Connecting River North and River West, the steel bridge was, after 104 years, demolished in November 2018 and replaced five months later, in 2019, by a temporary fixed bridge. Since this portion of the river is now used mostly for recreational purposes, a new, permanent immovable concrete bridge was expected to open over the Chicago River in this location starting in 2021, delayed by the pandemic, and that will not be a bascule bridge.
Looking west from the old Chicago Avenue Bridge. A pony truss bridge is a steel truss bridge that allows traffic over and through the truss, but with no cross brace across the top connecting its two sides. “Looking west on Chicago Avenue bridge” by Steven Vance is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
A pony truss bridge is a steel truss bridge that allows traffic over and through the truss, but with no cross brace across the top connecting its two sides. The truss bridge assembly of the Chicago Avenue Bridge was made of riveted steel beams—and a witness to Chicago’s early 20th century industrial manufacturing might.
As well as being “Hog Butcher For The World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler” as Carl Sandberg wrote in his 1914 poem, Chicago, published in the new (1912) Poetry magazine, Chicago was also at that time a world leader in steel production and bridge design.
Looking east in November 1914 at Chicago Avenue Bridge. Public Domain.
The basic design of any bascule bridge is similar to a medieval castle drawbridge. A leaf or span rises and descends that permits traffic upon it and— for the Chicago Avenue Bridge— also traffic below it on the Chicago River.
Chicago boasts more than 50 movable bridges. Single-leaf (truss) bascule bridges were constructed where the river was not very wide and a single bridge deck goes up and down between abutments. This was often used for train traffic which was convenient since Chicago was and still remains the railroad capital of the United States.
The more common double-leaf (truss) bascule bridge— including the Chicago Avenue Bridge—consists of two leaves or spans which meet in the middle over the river. Counterweights on each side of the bridge beneath it in a river pit (or pits) balances, stabilizes and fortifies the vertical movement of the bridge deck.
If the bridge deck is single leaf, the “Chicago Style” bridge rises in a piece vertically to one side of the river. If the bridge deck is two leaves, each rise to their side of the river and descend to close again by meeting in the middle of the bridge deck.
Bascule bridges are the most commonly found moveable bridges in the world because they operate quickly and efficiently. The Chicago Avenue Bridge was operated from a companion pitched-roof bridge house with rounded corners and rows of windows clad in decorative (today oxidized green) copper. The foundational portions of the bridge house were constructed of concrete. Upper portions were made of wood with roofing of vitrified tile. So far, the bridge house portion of the structure has not been demolished.
In 1914, the new Chicago Avenue Bridge across a jag of Chicago River abutting the national headquarters of Montgomery Ward whose complex was first built in 1907, made for a sleek, powerful, modern and elegant statement about industry and urban commerce in early 20th century Middle America.
There are numerous variations and designs of the bascule bridge which in Chicago includes the trunnion (“pivot point”) bascule (“seesaw”) bridge. The nation’s first such bridge started operation in Chicago in 1902 over the north branch of the Chicago River at Cortland Street which can still be seen in operation today. The bridge design became known as the “Chicago Style” as its leaf or leaves, suspended on axles (trunnions) with massive concrete counterweights located below the bridge in the riverbank pit, opens and lifts a single or dual bridge deck to clear the river for traffic without blocking the waterway with a central pier.
Chicago’s bascule bridges—and the Chicago Avenue Bridge was one of them—were designed to its specific location. Each was designed to take on heavy loads and the attendant vibration which included the ice and snow pack of Chicago’s typically harsh winters. The design and construction into bedrock took into account wind resistance, whether the bridge leaves were open or closed, and to wind speeds of 100 miles per hour in any and all directions.
By 1920, improvements in bascule bridge design allowed for the construction of a double deck trunnion bascule bridge where car, truck and foot traffic could be carried simultaneously on its upper and lower decks. The first such double deck trunnion bascule bridge in Chicago was near the site of the old Fort Dearborn on the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue—today’s busy DuSable Bridge, formerly Michigan Avenue Bridge which opened in May 1920.
The Chicago Avenue Bridge is also significant as it belonged to a set of Chicago city bridges built between 1910 and 1915 whose designs looked to go beyond their utilitarian function to incorporate artistic and other aesthetic elements. Beginning with the Chicago Avenue Bridge in 1913, the Chicago Planning Commission worked with the city’s Bridge Division at the bascule bridge’s design stage.
Engineer’s drawing of the Chicago Avenue Bridge, 1914. Public Domain.
Following the demolition of the Chicago Avenue Bridge in 2018, an immoveable temporary steel girder bridge was installed in 2019 over this span of the Chicago River. For the moment, bridge design has returned to utilitarian functionality alone with little or no artistic or aesthetic program which had been one of the progressive features of the Chicago Avenue Bridge over a century ago.
FEATURE image: The Brooklyn Bridge (looking westward), August 2005. Author’s photograph.
The Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is the oldest extant bridge in New York City—a city of bridges—and is also the city’s most architecturally famous. The opening of the hybrid cable-stayed and suspension bridge in May 1883 has been called “the Dawn of Modern New York” as it is the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge.
Spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it was designed and built by a father-son team. Construction began in January 1870 after being approved by Congress in 1869 whose concern was that the bridge project would in no way impede free and open navigation. Over the next over 13 years, an estimated 27 men died during the bridge’s construction. The New York terminus rests on bedrock while the Brooklyn terminus rests on clay. Following its opening in 1883 by the end of that year more than one million passengers crossed the bridge.
Brooklyn Bridge in 1903. Public Domain.
The total length of the bridge is 6,537 feet—nearly one-and-one-quarter miles. From the middle of the span, it is about 135 feet above the river with the span’s weight around 7,000 tons. The railroad on the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1888. The cables on the bridge are over one foot wide (16 inches) and took almost a year and a half (15 months) to string. Their calibration had to include calculations for variables such as wind and expansion and contraction due to temperature. The height of the Gothic-inspired towers are 159 feet above the roadway.
SOURCES: The Sun, New York, New York, June 11, 1891.
