Feature Image: December 2015. Main Entrance, Metropolitan Tower (1924), Chicago. 4.89 mb DSC_0963 (1). Author’s photograph.
Located at 310 South Michigan Avenue on the southwest corner of Jackson Boulevard, Metropolitan Tower originally served as corporate headquarters for S.W. Straus and Co., a banking and investment firm. The building was erected in 1924 by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White in their signature classical style. The architectural firm was one of the largest in the first half of the twentieth century and went on to build Chicago’s Civic Opera Building in 1929. Founded in 1912, the firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. by way of partner, Ernest R. Graham (1868-1936), and Burnham’s sons, Hubert and Daniel Jr. Five years later the Burnhams left to form their own firm (Burnham Brothers) and Graham partnered with others of the firm’s members: William Peirce Anderson (1870-1924), Edward Mathias Probst (1870-1942), and Howard Judson White (1870-1936). No expense was spared for the Straus Building’s interior, though of the original lobby’s opulence all that remains are the elaborate bronze elevator doors. The entrance’s coffered bronze doors by Italian sculptor Leo Lentelli (1879-1961) were destroyed. see – Saliga, Pauline A., editor, The Sky’s The Limit A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Rizzoli New York, 1990, p. 117.
Ernest R. Graham (1868-1936).
William Peirce Anderson (1870-1924).
Edward Mathias Probst (1870-1942).
Howard Judson White (1870-1936).
Leo Lentelli (1879-1961). The Italian sculptor created the original main entrance doors for Metropolitan Tower that were later destroyed. Public Domain.
The 30-floor classical-style Straus Building was renamed over the years for other of its famous inhabitants including Continental National Insurance Co. and Britannica Center for Encyclopedia Britannica. Metropolitan Tower was the first building in Chicago that took advantage of the new 1923 zoning ordinance for skyscrapers that allowed buildings taller than 260 feet (30 or more floors) with the necessary setbacks. Metropolitan Tower’s required setbacks begin at the 21st floor on which sits a nine-story tower until there is a second setback and then the final two stories. Crowned by a stepped pyramid and possessed of a powerful beacon that opened in 1924, the building is Chicago’s first Michigan Avenue skyscraper.
Unused for years, the building’s 1,500-pound carillon bells were restored in 1979 for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Chicago. Just steps from Metropolitan Tower, the papal visit included an outdoor mass in Grant Park on October 5, 1979, which attracted over one million attendees, the largest gathering ever in Grant Park history up to that time. see – CBS Chicago Vault: Pope John Paul II enthralls Chicagoans on 1979 visit – CBS Chicago – retrieved March 18, 2026.
At one time, the thirtieth floor was the Straus Tower Observatory, which was open to the public for viewing the city in all four directions. see – Home | Metropolitan Tower – retrieved February 24, 2026. Home to the Continental National Insurance Company soon after it was built, this iconic skyscraper is located within Chicago’s Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. The glass “beehive” supported by four bison figures at the top of the building held the blue light of a four-direction beacon. The ensemble, symbolizing industry, strength, and thrift, saw its beacon, signifying global reach, permanently shut down in 1934 following the financial failure of the S.W. Straus and Company during the Great Depression. The building was converted to residential condominiums in 2007. see – Metropolitan Tower | Powered by Baird & Warner– retrieved February 24, 2026; AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Alice Sinkevitch, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, page 42.
Feature Image: December 2015. Beaux-Arts elevator bank (1907). Congress Plaza Hotel, Chicago. 6.20 mb DSC_0617 (1). Author’s photograph.
The initial North Tower was built in 1893 during The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago from May 1 to October 31, 1893. It was built by famed developer R.H. Southgate and designed by Clinton J. Warren (1860-1938), a leading young hotel designer in the city. Warren moved to Chicago from Massachusetts in 1879 and the next year joined the firm of Burnham and Root. When he left the firm in 1886 to start his own firm he designed a long list of Chicago hotels. These included The Virginia Hotel (1889–1890), a ten-story building on the northwest corner of Ohio and Rush Streets, The Metropole Hotel (1891) an eight-story building on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and 23rd Street, The Plaza Hotel (1891–1992) at 1553 N. Clark Street at the southeast corner of Clark and North Avenue, The Lexington Hotel (1892) at 22nd and Michigan Avenue and The Auditorium Annex/Congress Hotel at 504 S. Michigan Avenue (1893), which is today The Congress Plaza Hotel. By 1900 Warren returned to Boston, Massachusetts, and died in San Diego, California, in 1938, by then his active years as an architect in Chicago obscured. His obituary in the New York Times failed to mention Warren’s training with Daniel Burnham, his influence on Chicago architecture by way of numerous prominent buildings over two decades in the city nor his work’s association to Al Capone by way of the gangster’s moving his headquarters to the Lexington Hotel in 1928 until 1931. Warren’s NYT obituary reads in full: “Clinton J. Warren SAN DIEGO, Calif., March 17 (AP). – Clinton J. Warren, architect, who designed buildings in Europe, Mexico and Eastern United States, died at his home here last night at the age of 80. Mr. Warren formerly lived in Winchester, Mass. His widow and two sons, Clinton Jay Jr. of San Francisco and John of New York, survive.” see – TimesMachine: March 18, 1938 – NYTimes.com and The Chicago Hotels of Architect Clinton J. Warren – Owlcation – retrieved February 22, 2026.
December 2015. Beaux-Arts elevator bank, 504 S. Michigan Avenue (1907), Chicago. 3.99mb DSC_0958 (2). Author’s photograph.
Originally named the Auditorium Annex it opened in 1893 to swarms of tourists and has remained open in this role continuously since to today (and is famous for its ghost hauntings). The Auditorium Annex became the closest major hotel at the time to two large train stations: Dearborn Station and Illinois Central Station both five blocks away. It was also the southernmost major hotel in Downtown Chicago and just a block and a half away from the elevated train station that took visitors to the World’s Columbian Exposition fairgrounds in Jackson Park. The gold elevator bank, featuring ornate gilded, Beaux-Arts styling, is located within the South Tower of the Congress Plaza Hotel, added between 1902 and 1907 designed by architects Holabird & Roche. see – Holabird & Roche. See- Chicago Landmarks – Architect Details – retrieved February 22, 2026.
William Holabird (1854-1923) and Martin Roche (1855-1927) of the architectural firm of Holabird & Roche that designed the South Tower of today’s Congress Plaza Hotel between 1902 and 1907. Public Domain.
This addition includes a luxurious banquet hall called the “Gold Room.” By 1908, the hotel had over 1,000 guest rooms and, in 1911, changed its name to the Congress Hotel inspired by its location on Congress Parkway (today’s Ida B. Wells Drive) and across from Grant Park. Several U.S. presidents have stayed in the Congress Hotel and could have used these golden elevators including Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge. See – Congress Plaza Hotel History | Congress Plaza Hotel – retrieved February 22, 2026.
FEATURE IMAGE: On March 3, 1934, John Dillinger (left in a mug shot) used the second floor of this three-flat building on Chicago’s north side as his first hide out after he and another criminal, murderer Henry Youngblood, drove directly here from a jail in Crown Point, Indiana following their break-out. In January 1934 Dillinger had been extradited to Indiana from Arizona. Public domain. Author’s photograph. May 2014.
In the Great Depression many banks had failed wiping out entire savings of millions of ordinary Americans. Banks that stayed open saw their primary business becoming foreclosures on ordinary American’s homes, farms, and businesses. And the economy was not improving. Bank robberies were viewed by some as a sort of just retribution in desperate times or even sometimes more favorably since bank robberies could involve the destruction of bank records, including mortgages, so that the bank could not as easily foreclose. There was a myth of the glamorous getaway involving handsome celebrity robbers. Such was the story of John Dillinger (1903-1934) with his gangs including Harry “Pete” Pierpont, Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis, John “Red” Hamilton, and Homer Van Meter and their girlfriends. John Dillinger, declared Public Enemy No. 1 by the FBI in June 1934, epitomized the early 1930’s Depression-era bank robber in America as he terrorized the Midwest following his release from jail from September 1933 until July 1934. In this period other robbers included “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Bonnie and Clyde who died in a hail of gunfire in May 1934 as these territorial and nomadic robbers’ crime sprees were splashed across newspaper headlines that the public consumed like that week’s latest movie serial.
FBI photograph of the Biograph Theater in 1934 shortly after the shooting of Public Enemy No.1, John Dillinger. Public Domain
New federal anticrime laws targeted interstate criminals that made bank robbery, the transport of stolen goods or the flight of a felon over state lines, a federal crime and came under the jurisdiction of the FBI. That is where this three-flat in Chicago enters criminal and criminal law history. About midway between Lake Michigan and Wrigley Field in Chicago sits John Dillinger’s Hideout, a red brick three-flat at 3512 N. Halsted in the Uptown neighborhood. After his Indiana jail break on Saturday, March 3, 1934, John Dillinger, with murderer Henry Youngblood, headed directly to Chicago and hid out for one night in this building. Dillinger stayed on the second floor of an apartment owned by Frances “Patsy” Frechette, the half-sister of Dillinger’s girlfriend, Evelyn “Billie” Frechette (1907-1969). This break out gave FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover his first big chance to apply federal anticrime laws after Dillinger broke out of the “escape-proof” jail in Crown Point, Indiana, having used a fake gun, stole Sheriff Lillian Holley’s car and drove the 50 miles or so across state lines to this building in Chicago, Illinois. Dillinger violated the Dyer Act and put himself in the jurisdictional sights of the FBI. On March 7, 1934, Hoover mounted a special operation to capture Dillinger, dead or alive, that would come to a successful, and bloody, conclusion on the evening of July 22, 1934, outside the Biograph Theater, about a mile and half straight south from this site. On a swelteringly hot night, Dillinger went to the air-conditioned movies and, having been set up there by the “Woman in Red,” would find himself hours later chilling in a morgue.
John Dillinger mug shot. Public domain.
Dillinger started early in a life of crime so that when he was 21 years old, he was serving what would be a nine-year sentence in an Indiana prison for robbery. Originally from Mooresville, Indiana, near Indianapolis, Dillinger and Chicago were paired for much of his adult criminal life. He joined the US Navy in Chicago in 1923 to escape an auto theft rap in Indiana. But 6 months later Dillinger gave up the ship, the USS Utah, and was dishonorably discharged. He was behind bars for that nine-year sentence for robbery starting in fall of 1924. When he was paroled in 1933, the ex-con turned to a life of violence as a bank robber. During his final 10-month crime spree Dillinger and his gang killed at least 10 people including a sheriff during one of their three jail breaks, and wounded seven more.
John Dillinger (left) with navy buds. Public domain.
To go from this hideout on March 3, 1934, to Dillinger’s death on July 22, 1934, was nearly half of Dillinger’s final 10-month episodic crime spree. In late January 1934 Dillinger and Billie and most of his gang was in Tucson, Arizona, with Dillinger checking escape routes to Mexico. Some of the gang was on the lam from a bank robbery in East Chicago, Indiana. Caught by local police, Dillinger was extradited by airplane to Indiana via Chicago and jailed in Crown Point, Indiana. It was there that he first hired Louis P. Piquett, a Chicago attorney known for close ties to the Chicago mob. Billie Frechette visited Dillinger at Crown Point in mid-February 1934. But, on March 3, 1934, Dillinger broke out of the jail and remained free until his death in late July 1934 at the hands of law enforcement.
3512 North Halsted, Chicago. Author’s photograph. May 2014.
There are many hideouts for Dillinger and his gang as they were highly peripatetic. But this hideout is significant since it is the first hideout for Dillinger on his final way to capture and death as Public Enemy No. 1 but also an American folk anti-hero. Dillinger arrived at the apartment of Patsy Frechette to hide out and reunite with Billie after crossing the state line in the stolen sheriff’s car. Dillinger was here for a significant rendezvous and transition though for too short a time for any law enforcement raid occurring at this specific address during his stay. The hideout is just steps – a literal 3-minute walk – from the long-established (1872) 42nd Precinct “Town Hall” police station. Instead, the FBI’s first major violent confrontation with the Dillinger gang following his escape took place weeks later at the Little Bohemia Lodge in northern Wisconsin in April 1934.
The next day, March 4, 1934, Dillinger set out for Minneapolis with Billie and rented an apartment (the Indiana sheriff’s stolen car was ditched in Edgewater) at Lincoln Court Apartments, Unit 303, at 95 Lexington Parkway in St Paul. On March 6, 1934, escaped con man Dillinger driving a 1934 Packard robbed a bank in Sioux Falls, North Dakota with gang members Homer Van Meter, Eddie Green, Tommy Carroll, and Baby Face Nelson. In the robbery a policeman was wounded and the gang took almost $50,000 ($1.2 million in 2026). One week later, on March 13, 1934, Dillinger, driving a Buick, robbed a bank in Mason City, Iowa, with the same gang members plus John Hamilton. Taking $52,000 in cash ($1.25 million today), a bystander was wounded as was Dillinger and Hamilton who returned to St. Paul for medical attention. That same day (March 14, 1934), Henry Youngblood, the murderer who escaped prison with Dillinger less than two weeks before, was shot and killed by law enforcement in Michigan. A deputy sheriff was killed in the capture.
Two days later, March 16, 1934, Dillinger and Billie return to Chicago. Days later he and Billie are back in St. Paul living together in the apartment under an alias (rent is $60 a month – about $1440 today). The criminal bank robber Dillinger drove to Ohio to see if he could spring from jail his mentor and partner Harry Pierpoint who had an impending death sentence but Pierpont, on October 17, 1934, was executed in the electric chair. On March 30, 1934, Dillinger was back in St. Paul with Billie and his gang members with girlfriends. At the same time, the FBI was tipped off as to Dillinger’s whereabouts and when three agents arrived at the apartment to investigate on March 31, 1934, Dillinger and Billie escaped though Dillinger was wounded in the leg. He sought medical attention across town in Minneapolis where he recovered during the next week though Eddie Green was shot and mortally wounded. The FBI, hot on Dillinger’s trail, raided the house of Dillinger’s half-brother Hubert in Indianapolis after Dillinger and Billie bought a car there with hot money and listed Hubert’s address as theirs. On Monday, April 9, 1934, Dillinger and Billie were back in Chicago where Billie was arrested at 416 North State as Dillinger escaped. Billie was held on a $60,000 bond ($1.44 million today) in response to the pair’s fleeing that shootout with law enforcement in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her trial in May 1934 resulted in a conviction. By Friday, April 13, 1934, Dillinger with Homer Van Meter had robbed a police supply station in Warsaw, Indiana, and stole firearms (Dillinger was partial to .38 revolvers throughout his career) and bulletproof vests.
Billie Frechette (1907-1969) was born on a Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. After her arrest she was tried and convicted of violating a federal law of harboring a criminal and served a two-year prison sentence without parole in a federal pen in Milan, Michigan. Public domain.
FBI wanted poster for Billie Frechette. Public Domain.
The next day Dillinger and Van Meter were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where they broke into a tourist camp and stayed in a cabin for a few days. Dillinger then drove to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with John Hamilton. Meanwhile Homer Van Meter, Marie Comforti, and Pat Reilly arrived at Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish, Wisconsin where that evening of Friday, April 20, 1934, Dillinger, Hamilton, and others arrived for a three-day paid stay. The lodge was owned and built in 1929 by a Dillinger friend. The proprietor’s wife, hoping to secure the FBI’s $10,000 reward for Dillinger’s capture (about $250,000 today), tipped off law enforcement on many fronts after an elaborate feint of trust/ mistrust among the lodge’s owners and Dillinger’s gang. The G-men immediately chartered two airplanes full of agents from St. Paul and Chicago to Rhinelander Airport. Agents in communities surrounding the lodge were summoned to assist in the raid. There were complications: the weather was bad (snow and ice), and the agents on arrival found they had only one car when they needed 6 or 7. Meanwhile Dillinger announced he changed plans and was leaving the Lodge early. After renting cars agents arrived by nightfall of April 22, 1934, and surrounded the lodge on foot. The agents were protected by bulletproof vests and armed with machine guns, revolvers, and tear gas.
Little Bohemia Lodge where the FBI bungled the capture of Dillinger on April 22, 1934, and killed an innocent guest. It was a human and public relations disaster for the newly minted federal law enforcement group. Built in 1929, bullet holes can still be seen from that night in the northern Wisconsin lodge building today. “Little Bohemia Lodge” by nanaze is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Inside the Lodge, it was Sunday night and the bar was busy with patrons. John Morris and Eugene Boiseneau, two young CCC workers, and a gas station attendant named John Hoffman had just finished their Sunday dinner and were about to leave. The snow in the night obscured everyone’s vision and when they approached the exit of the lodge they were ordered to halt by the FBI who thought they were Dillinger and his gang. The FBI soon opened fire. Their bullets pierced the car’s steel and hit its three occupants – wounding Morris and Hoffman and killing Boiseneau.
Mug shot of Lester Gillis, aka “Baby Face” Nelson. On July 22, 1934, Dillinger was ambushed and killed by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park, Chicago. The next day the FBI announced that “Pretty Boy” Floyd was now Public Enemy No. 1. On October 22, 1934, Floyd was killed in a shootout with agents including Melvin Purvis. Subsequently, J. Edgar Hoover announced that Nelson was now Public Enemy No. 1. Unlike Dillinger who could be polite, the owners of the Little Bohemia Lodge thought Nelson was a “psychopath.” He died from gunshot wounds sustained in a fierce shootout with FBI agents on November 27, 1934, near Barrington, Illinois, though he managed to kill both agents. Fleeing, Nelson died in a safe house in Wilmette, Illinois.Public domain.
This gunfire alerted Dillinger inside the lodge playing cards to law enforcement’s presence. Agents then surrounded the Little Bohemia Lodge and opened fire with a hailstorm of bullets believing Dillinger and his gang inside. But Dillinger, Homer Van Meter, John Red Hamilton and Tommy Carroll escaped as did Baby Face Nelson who killed one agent and left the proprietor and wife with their other guests to suffer the carnage. The FBI left emptyhanded but for some of the gang’s girlfriends who surrendered without incident.
Head of the FBI case in Chicago to get Dillinger and his gang dead or alive was Melvin Purvis. Public domain.
Later that day (April 23, 1934), Dillinger, Van Meter and Hamilton engaged in a gun battle with police in Hastings, Minnesota, near St. Paul. When Hamilton was wounded Dillinger drove back to Chicago but failed to get him medical attention so that, a few days later, Hamilton died in Aurora, Illinois, and was buried by Dillinger and others in a gravel pit near Oswego, Illinois. The getaway car Dillinger stole in Wisconsin that night after escaping the lodge was found blood stained in Chicago at 3333 North Leavitt on May 2, 1934. The raid, led by FBI chief in Chicago Melvin Purvis (1903-1960), who liked publicity, was heavily criticized in the press for the agents’ brutal methods and stupidity and was one of the worst public relations fiascos in FBI history.
John “Red’ Hamilton. Mug shot. Public domain.
With the FBI in hot pursuit of Dillinger and his gang, episodes of violence occurred between law enforcement and gang members and other criminals throughout the Chicago area where people were killed. Dillinger, who had become an internationally known superstar criminal, had been thinking about getting plastic surgery to conceal his identity. His legal counsel, Louis P. Piquett, put Dillinger in touch with an off-the-books operating room by way of James Probasco, another of Piquett’s clients. The surgery price was high and almost all profit for Probasco: $80,000 cash (about $2 million today). Probasco recruited Dr. William Loeser, a German immigrant who fled to Mexico to escape serving time for violating the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act of 1914 and developed a procedure to remove fingerprints. He was assisted by Dr. Harold Cassidy. Dillinger moved into Probasco’s home on Chicago’s north Crawford Road (now Pulaski Road) on May 27, 1934. The surgery took place the next day, with Dillinger opting to receive a general anesthetic. But a glitch in its application (Dillinger was swallowing his own tongue) made him choose a local anesthetic. For the next several hours, the doctors removed a mole from his forehead, dimple from his cheek, and changed the shape of his face and erased seams in his cheeks. They employed Loeser’s acid method to burn off Dillinger’s fingerprints.
Tavern owner James Probasco’s house at 2509 N. Crawford Road in Chicago where Dillinger underwent plastic surgery on May 28, 1934. Public domain.
The surgery, however, was more cosmetic than plastic so that Dillinger was still completely recognizable and his fingerprints remained after he recovered. James Probasco, four days after Dillinger’s death, on July 26, 1934, was brought under questioning for this episode by the FBI at the Bankers’ Building in downtown Chicago. Mysteriously, a window was open and Probasco leapt to his death falling onto the pavement. Attorney Louis Piquett went on trial for harboring a fugitive (Dillinger) but was found not guilty. In 1936, Piquett was retried for the same charge regarding Homer van Meter. Found guilty he served two years in prison, was fined $10,000, and disbarred in Illinois. In 1950, Piquett was pardoned by President Truman. Dr. Loeser was sentenced to one day in prison but had to serve 18 months for the Harrison narcotics case from which he fled. Dr. Cassidy received probation, served honorably in the army medical corps in World War II, but in 1946 had a breakdown and committed suicide.
“All My Life I wanted to be a bank robber. Carry a gun and wear a mask. Now that it’s happened, I guess I’m just the best bank robber they ever had. And I am sure happy.” – John Dillinger. On the alley wall in Chicago near the Biograph Theater where the bank robber was captured, dead, by law enforcement.
On June 22, 1934, the same day Dillinger was officially named Public Enemy No. 1, the high-profile criminal celebrated his 31st birthday with his new girlfriend, 26-year-old Polly Hamilton (1908-1969) at the French Casino nightclub in The Rainbo [sic] Building, 4812-4836 North Clark Street, in Chicago’s Uptown. A former employee and friend of brothel madam Anna Sage (1889-1947), Polly Hamilton met Dillinger at a Chicago nightclub in early June 1934 when she was working as a waitress and prostitute.
Polly Hamilton. Fair use.
The Rainbo, like many entertainment venues, struggled during the Great Depression. For a few months in 1934, the second year of the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago, the Rainbo Casino reopened as the “French Casino” (the building was demolished in 2003). A few days later (June 26, 1934), as Dillinger was watching the Chicago Cubs beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Wrigley Field, his gang members, as informants increasingly came forward, were being squeezed around the city and in the Midwest by law enforcement, whether by being killed, or captured and tried. On June 30, 1934, Dillinger, driving a Hudson, with Van Meter, Baby Face Nelson and John Paul Chase pulled off their last bank heist in South Bend, Indiana, stealing $30,000 (over $700,000 today). One police officer was killed in the melée as a bank cashier, vice president, a bystander and a motorist, as well as Van Meter, were wounded.
In July Dillinger began the month discussing Billie’s appeal, going to the movies, and attending the Chicago Century of Progress. On July 22, 1934, Anna Sage (the “Woman in Red”) contacted FBI head Melvin Purvis at 5:30 p.m. to inform him that Dillinger and their mutual friend, Polly Hamilton would be going to the movies that evening either at the Biograph Theater at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Park or at the palatial Marbro Theatre at 4110 W. Madison Street in West Garfield Park (the theater was demolished in 1964 and in 2026 its site remains an empty parking lot).
Anna Sage, “the woman in red” who set up John Dillinger to be shot outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago on July 22, 1934. Public domain.
At 8.15 p.m. Dillinger arrived at the Biograph Theater wearing a straw hat, white shirt, gray tie, white canvas shoes and gray trousers with Sage and Polly. When they entered the Biograph Theater to see “Manhattan Melodrama” with Clark Gable, 15 federal agents (according to the next day’s headline in the Altoona Tribune), including five East Chicago officers, descended on the area and staked it out. A little after 10:30 p.m. when the show emptied out, Sage, who was dressed in a bright orange-red dress, alerted officers to Dillinger’s identity in the crowd. Ambushed and shot without warning, Dillinger was killed instantly when two shots hit the face, one bullet exiting beneath the right eye. Witnesses described Dillinger being shot at very close range. The event caused a spectacle, with many onlookers dipping handkerchiefs and scraps of newspaper in his blood.
Dillinger’s body after the shooting was transported to Alexian Brothers Hospital at West Belden and North Racine Avenues (above). It then went to the Cook County morgue at West Polk and South Wood streets where large crowds gathered. There, an impromptupublic display of the body took place, where thousands of the general public shambled by. A plaster death mask was made of the dead criminal at the morgue. See – Medical – Hospitals – Chicago History In Postcards – retrieved Jan. 24, 2026. Fair Use.
Dillinger’s remains were taken back to Mooresville, Indiana by Dillinger’s father, half-brother, and their undertaker who came to fetch it out from the crowds. In Indiana, Dillinger was identified by his sister and then buried on July 25, 1934, in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. Anna and Polly had escaped Dillinger’s capture unharmed and relocated temporarily to Detroit. Sage collected the $5,000 reward (about $120,000 today) from the FBI but, two years later, was deported to Romania due to her conviction for operating a brothel where she died on April 25, 1947. Polly Hamilton moved back to Chicago under an assumed name, married, and died in 1969.
Feature image: July 2016. Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge, 95th St. & S. Baltimore Ave 4.03mb DSC_0774 (1). Author’s photograph.
This photograph of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge (also known as the “Skyway”) is at the exact point where it spans the Calumet River and Calumet Harbor, a major harbor for industrial ships. Built by the City of Chicago in 1958 this massive steel undergirding is part of the 7.8 miles long expressway toll road that connects Chicago’s Dan Ryan freeway on the South Side to the Indiana Toll Road. The main feature of the Skyway is this half-mile long steel truss bridge known as the “High Bridge” whose maximum vertical clearance allowing ships and objects to pass safely underneath is 125 feet or about 10-12 building stories. The Chicago Skyway truss is primarily made of rolled and built-up steel beams for incredible weight-bearing strength, durability and functionality.
July 2016. Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave 4.05 mb DSC_0772 (1) Author’s photograph.
The Skyway was operated and maintained by the City of Chicago until January 2005 when Skyway Concession Company, LLC assumed its operations under a 99-year operating lease. The lease agreement between Skyway and the City of Chicago was the first privatization of an existing toll road in the United States. In February 2016, Skyway was purchased by three Canadian Pension Funds (OMERS Infrastructure, CPP Investment Board, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan) and in December 2022 global toll road operator Atlas Arteria Group based in Australia, acquired 66.67% stake in the Skyway with OTPP retaining the rest. see – The Skyway – Chicago Skyway – retrieved December 19, 2025. While exact current figures go up and down, best estimates put daily vehicular traffic on the Chicago Skyway, both cars and trucks, at between 40,000 and 50,000 per day. see – FHWA – Center for Innovative Finance Support – Value Capture – Case Studies: Hays County, Texas Transportation Reinvestment Zones – retrieved December 19, 2025.
July 2016. Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave 4.93mb DSC_0765 (1). Author’s photograph. July 2016. Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave 2.21mb DSC_0764 (1). Author’s photograph. July 2016. Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave 5.13mb DSC_0769 (1). Author’s photograph.
FEATURE Image: The many prayer intentions received at the National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago are placed at the patron of hopeless cases’ devotional altar in the main sanctuary. These petitions are remembered at the National Shrine’s Masses and devotional prayers throughout the years. June 2018 80% 7.76mb DSC_9191. Author’s photograph.
The National Shrine of St. Jude at 3208 E. 91st Street on Chicago’s far southeast side at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish church was canonically established in 1929. Its official decree was promulgated on November 15, 1929, by Chicago Cardinal Archbishop George Mundelein (1872-1939). June 2018 88% 7.72mb DSC_9173. Author’s photograph.
The pastor of the church at the time was Fr. James Tort, a Claretian missionary, who had a deep personal devotion to St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases and those that are almost despaired of. The saint, not to be confused with the traitor, Judas Iscariot, is honored by the church universally as the saint who brings visible and speedy help in most dire circumstances. A portrait of the founder of the Claretians, Spanish priest and bishop, St. Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870), is one of the artworks that greet visitors into the main sanctuary. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is over the main altar. The devotional altar to St. Jude is right of the main altar. The altar to St. Jude contains a major relic of the saint: a piece of his bone. June 2018 84% 7.78 DSC_9177. Author’s photograph.
The shrine altar to St. Jude (right). In the darkest days of the Great Depression, Father Tort petitioned St. Jude with a request to help complete the parish church building for the people. In gratitude for the granting of this great favor. Fr. Tort promised to never cease to honor the saint, a true blood relative of Jesus and Mary, by dedicating a shrine altar to him in the church and to do all in his power to spread devotion to him. June 2018 2.29mb DSC_9186 (1). Author’s photograph.
This is one of the stained-glass windows in Chicago’s St. Jude Shrine. It depicts Jude preaching in Persia. Tradition holds that Saint Jude preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Libya. He is also said to have visited Beirut. In addition to being patron of hopeless cases, Jude is patron of vegetarians. That Jude is portrayed holding an image of Jesus Christ has an interesting origin. During Jesus’s public ministry, a king had an incurable condition and was dying in Edessa. He sent a letter asking for Jesus to come. Instead of going himself, Jesus sent Jude. As Jude set out on this journey, Jesus pressed a cloth against His face, and when he gave it back to Jude, it had the Lord’s image on it. When St. Jude then went to the dying king in Edessa, and the king looked at the cloth with Christ’s miraculous impression, he was immediately healed. June 2018 6.47mbDSC_9184 (4). Author’s photograph.
In 1940 when entertainer Danny Thomas (1912-1991) came to Chicago to do radio commercials, he found early success doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs. When work was finished, often around dawn, Thomas went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church. There Thomas learned about Chicago’s National Shrine of St. Jude on the far southeast side. A couple of years earlier, Thomas, starting out in show business in Detroit— and with his first child, Marlo Thomas, on the way— had dedicated himself to St. Jude as the patron of hopeless cases. Soon after visiting and praying at the Chicago shrine, Thomas was offered a stand-up comedy job in New York City at La Martinique at 57 West 57th Street. This job launched his entertainment career into the big time. Following World War II, Thomas was performing for $3,750 a week at New York’s Roxy Theater just off Times Square and was performing in nightclubs across the country as well as offered film roles. In 1953 he starred in his own television show, Make Room for Daddy (later, The Danny Thomas Show). The sitcom ran for 11 consecutive seasons and became more popular with each year. By 1957 it was the no.2 show on television and, when the sitcom ended in 1964, it was in the top ten. “Danny thomas kayrouz” by Hany raymond rahme is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Altar of St. Jude, The National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago. St. Jude Thaddeus was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles and. legend has it, that it was Jude who was the groom at the wedding feast of Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine (John, chapter 2). Matthew states that Jude was one of the “brothers” of Jesus usually interpreted as a blood cousin. St. Jude, pray for us! June 2018 73% 7.89mb DSC_9182. Author’s photograph.
Feature Image: On Saturday, June 7, 1924, Ruth M. Anderson was married in this sleeveless wedding dress (left) to William Noling in Evanston, Illinois. The dress is now on display in the Charles Gates Dawes House in Evanston. Dawes was Vice President of the United States from 1925 to 1929 under President Calvin Coolidge. Author’s photograph (October 2015).
Wedding at the House of the Bride’s family
The Noling-Anderson wedding was held in the house of the bride and her parents, Isak and Jennie (née Johnson) Anderson, at 1035 Ridge Avenue in Evanston. Built in 1914, the house still stands as it did over 100 years ago.
Noling-Anderson Bridal Party Dresses, 1924. Charles Gates Dawes House, Evanston, Illinois. Author’s photograph, October 2015. 7.44 mb DSC_0893 (1)
The dress is made of silk satin in an egg shell color. It is accented by an oval medallion with bands also made of silk satin. The medallion is embroidered with faux pearl and other glass beads.
Thoroughly modern flapper style
While her wedding dress was very fashionable for the mid1920’s – sleeveless tops of all shapes and sizes were the rage in 1924 – it probably was not allowed in one of Evanston’s houses of worship. The fact that it was sleeveless and au courant would be deemed by many as risqué for showing too much bare skin inspired by a thoroughly modern flapper style. It was only in 1924, for instance, that the Methodist Episcopal General Conference first lifted its ban on going to the theater as well as dancing though dance music was the radio’s most popular programming.
The bridesmaid dress (right) was the height of women’s style in 1924 – a mainly straight, knee-length skirt gathered slightly or cut with front pleats. Short sleeve and sleeveless tops were the rage in 1924 reflected in Hollywood by the Mack Sennett girls who starred in movies where they pranced on the beach in a chorus line in not much more than bathing caps and short swim suits.
The fashionable bride and her court might have sported the latest style of facial make-up which is hinted at in the display– masklike with garish, even orange, lipstick and heavy red rouge on the cheeks. Popular fashion accessories from 1924 are also evident – pearls knotted at the neck and simple, though elegant, arm bracelets.
Father of the bride was an Evanston banker, local businessman, andSwedish immigrant
The bride’s father, Isak Anderson, was born in Sweden and came to the United States at 20 years old in 1890. In 1891 he married Jennie Johnson and they had Ruth and another child. Ruth’s father was a bank director and partner in a local tailoring business in downtown Evanston at 608 Davis that today is a noodle shop.
They served “Prohibition highballs”
With Prohibition starting in 1920, guests at the wedding may have been served the latest popular highball whose recipe called for fruit juice and raw eggs. Their morning might have started with a bowl of Wheaties at breakfast, since the cereal of champions made its first appearance in 1924.
Ruth Anderson married William Noling in this house wearing that dress at 1035 Ridge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois, on June 7, 1924. Author’s photograph, May 2024 92% 7.81 mb
SOURCES: Dawes House, Evanston Illinois; The Swedish Element in Illinois: Survey of the Past Seven Decades, Ernst Wilhelm Olson, p. 586; American Chronicle, Lois Gordon & Alan Gordon, Yale University Press, New Haven & London,1999, pp. 230-238; Chicago: The Glamour Years (1919-1941), Thomas G. Aylesworth & Virginia Aylesworth, Gallery Books, NY, 1986, p.14.
FEATURE Image: February 2018. Village “Art” Theatre, 1548-50 N. Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610. The use of masks had been used in theatre since ancient times. They were usually tied to their dramatic source material and the inherent psychology of the characters. The Landmark Designation Report for the Village Theatre described this polychrome character head with musical instruments as “singing” in honor of the neighboring Germania Club, a German social club with its origins in men’s choral music. The head also wears a Baroque-style “wig” of oak leaves and acorns. In Germany, oak trees are revered, and acorns are a symbol of good luck. A decorative keystone on the theater’s round-arched window also has an acorn ornament. 88% 7.94mb DSC_4799 Author’s photograph.
Designed by architect Adolphe Woerner (born Stuttgart, Germany 1851- 1926), the Village (Art) Theatre opened as the Germania Theatre on July 29, 1916 and closed in its 91st year in March 2007. The building was erected by German-born Frank Schoeninger exclusively as a movie theater for $75,000 (about $2.2 million in 2025) and leased for an annual $7,000 rent (about $205,000 today) to Herman L. Gumbiner (Germany, 1879- 1952, Santa Monica, Calif.) in a 10-year contract with his company, The Villas Amusement Company (later Gumbiner Theatrical Enterprises). By 1910, buildings erected solely for the purpose to showcase motion pictures were becoming increasingly popular as the appetite to consume the latest silent motion pictures out of Hollywood was booming everywhere. These neighborhood movie houses, larger than dingy storefront nickelodeons and yet smaller than flamboyantly ornate vaudeville theatres, had movie “palace” touches while fitted conveniently into Chicago’s many local commercial strips. Nearly all of these first-generation movie theaters in Chicago have been demolished or remodeled for other purposes including those larger-scale theaters developed by major theater operators such as Balaban and Katz, Lubliner and Trinz, and the Marks Brothers. While those palatial theatres could hold between 2,000 and 4,000 movie-goers the Village Theatre, one of the last and best first generation movie houses to survive for so long, originally held 1,000 spectators. Originally named the Germania Theater because it was next door to the Germania Club, it looked to attract affluent club members to its flicks.
The Germania Theatre was built in 1916 on Frank Schoeninger’s open land pictured above between the Germania Club (completed in 1889) and his tavern and hotel on the corner of Clark Street and North Avenue. In 1986 the Germania Club, citing the dwindling numbers of members, finally disbanded. Public Domain.
Herman Gumbinger was a major film exhibitor who was busy in Chicago building his independent theatre chain in the 1910’s, with several new movie house projects and acquisitions throughout the city’s northside primarily. After building Chicago’s first independent movie house chain in the teens, Gumbinger relocated to Los Angeles, California, in 1921 where he built the famous Los Angeles Theatre in the Broadway Historic Theatre District of Downtown L.A. Erected at a cost of over $1.5 million ($31 million today) and designed by renowned movie theatre architect S. Charles Lee (1899-1990) Gumbinger’s theatre premiered Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Gumbinger Theatrical Enterprises finally dissolved in 1943.
Herman Gumbinger (1879-1956), c. 1924, built Chicago’s first independent movie chain, including what became the Village Art Theatre. By the end of the 1920s, Chicago had more than thirty of these movie palace theaters. Among its holdings, Herman Gubinger and his brothers operated the New Blaine which was renamed and is today the Music Box Theatre. Public Domain.
The Germania was one of the first-generation movie theatres built at the intersection of three Chicago neighborhoods – Gold Coast to the south and east, Old Town to the north and west and Lincoln Park to the north. An architectural mix of styles including Classical Revival (triangle pediments, pilasters and cornice with dentils fashioned in terra cotta) and Renaissance Revival (rusticated exterior and round-arched windows with keystones), the movie house also incorporated Germanic symbolism in its details reflecting the area’s then prominent ethnic group. During World War One, in a wave of anti-German sentiment, The Germania Club renamed itself the Lincoln Club. It changed its name back in 1921. The Germania Theatre changed its name to the Parkside and never looked back. In 1931 until 1962 it was known as the Gold Coast theatre. Meanwhile, prohibition closed down Frank Schoeninger’s tavern and he left for Wisconsin. In the 1960’s the theatre was updated and renamed the Globe Theatre. In 1967 the building was renamed the Village Theatre after it survived being demolished by the nearby Sandburg Village development.
Sandburg Village is a Chicago urban renewal project consisting of eight high-rise buildings, a mid-rise building and 60 townhomes and artists’ lofts. The development was first occupied In 1963 and completed in 1971. In the early 1960’s the Village Theatre was to be incorporated into the project until its landowner refused to sell. PHOTO: “20190323 08 Carl Sandburg Village (49490506022)” by David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA is licensed under CC BY 2.0.February 2018. The Village Theatre in the last days before its demolition. Its marquee from the 1960’s has been removed. The Village Theatre sat across the street from Latin School of Chicago at North and Clark Streets in Gold Coast/Old Town. In its Landmark Designation Report, the Village Theatre façade is described as having “a symmetrical arrangement, with a central theater entrance and separate entrances to the upstairs offices at opposite ends of the building. Each upper-story entrance has a deeply-recessed alcove lined with brick and white, carved-wood panels. A limestone slab step, inset with hexagonal tiles, is inside each alcove. Each alcove is framed with white terra cotta and brick pilasters on a base of gray terra cotta, made to imitate granite. The pilasters are topped with a triangular, white terra-cotta pediment.” 70% 7.93 mb DSC_4797. Author’s photograph.
The original two-story façade of red pressed brick and white beige glazed terra cotta decoration competed with a sizeable modern marquee that was removed before its demolition in 2018. Since after college I lived in Chicago for about 15 years, I recall seeing several films here. The ones I can remember seeing at the Village Theatre were Wall Street, House of Games, Fatal Attraction, Russia House, Michael Collins, and The Red Violin, among others of that period. In early 1991 the interior of the theater was divided into four screens and I didn’t stop going to movies there but just not as frequently as I did before. In April 2018, the Village Theatre and neighboring buildings along North Avenue were completely demolished to make way for construction of a condominium building. The ornate Clark Street frontage was stabilized as everything else crumbled to dust around it. The façade was repurposed to serve as the entrance for the new condo development known as Fifteen Fifty on the Park with units priced at opening at $1.625 to $5.85 million.
There had been at least three marquees for the Village Theatre: the original vertical Germania sign that was taken down almost as soon as it went up owing to anti-German sentiment in World War I; a horizontal, awning-style marquee like the one at the Biograph Theater (1914) at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Chicago that was put up in conjunction with its existence as the Gold Coast theatre; and this prow-shaped marquee (pictured above) with steel-and glass doors believed to be part of the mid 1960s modifications when the movie house was the “Globe.” PHOTO: “Germania (Parkside, Gold Coast, Globe, Village) Theatre, Chicago, IL” by BWChicago is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.The Village Theatre took the moniker Village Art Theatre after The Chicago International Film Festival used the Village Theatre as a venue to screen “art house” films starting in 1969. PHOTO: “Village Art Theatre” by BWChicago is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.The rear of the 102-year-old Village Theatre before its impending destruction in 2018. “Germania (Parkside, Gold Coast, Globe, Village) Theatre, Chicago, IL” by BWChicago is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.October 2018. Author’s collection.
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
Bessie Coleman, the first licensed Black female aviator, was born on January 26, 1892, in Texas. Her father, who was American Indian, left the family for Oklahoma when she was seven. Bessie stayed in Texas with her mother while her older siblings moved away. In the deeply segregated America of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, racism shaped nearly every aspect of life. Even so, Bessie’s mother encouraged her to excel in school, where Bessie became an avid reader.
Education and Early Work
At 18, Bessie attended what is now Langston University for one semester but lacked the funds to continue. She returned home to work alongside her mother, who labored as a maid and sharecropper.
At 23, ambitious and restless, Bessie moved to Chicago to live with her brothers. She worked menial jobs — manicurist, restaurant server — but found the city’s atmosphere freer than the Jim Crow South.
A New Possibility: France
During World War I, her brothers served in France and returned with stories of a society where women and Black people were treated with more dignity than in the United States. They told her that in France, women even flew airplanes — a revelation that electrified her.
In America, flying was largely a pastime for wealthy white men. Still, Bessie applied to U.S. flight schools and was rejected everywhere.
Support from Robert Abbott
Enter Robert Abbott, the influential Black Chicago newspaper owner of the Chicago Defender. Impressed by her determination, he urged her to go to France to earn her license. The French accepted her application, and Bessie crossed the Atlantic to begin training.
Training in a Dangerous Era
Flying in the 1910s was perilous. Open cockpits had no seat belts, aircraft were fragile, and accidents were common. Despite the risks, Bessie excelled. She became the first Black and American Indian woman to earn a pilot’s license.
She returned to the United States determined to build a career — but she lacked money and access.
Barnstorming Dreams and Barriers
To earn enough to buy her own plane and inspire other women and people of color, Bessie sought work as a stunt pilot. But once again, American flight schools refused to train a Black woman, even one already licensed.
Her dream would require the same persistence that had carried her from Texas to Chicago to France — and back again.
Bessie Coleman’s photo on her first pilot’s license, issued June 15, 1921. Public Domain.
Returning to France for Advanced Training
Bessie returned to France to get the specialized aviation training she still couldn’t access in the United States. Her determination — and the barriers she faced — had not gone unnoticed back home. By the time she returned to America for the second time, now a licensed pilot and trained stunt performer, the press greeted her with mostly positive attention.
1922: A Breakthrough Year
It was 1922, and Bessie was ready to take off. Her longtime supporter Robert Abbott arranged her first major air show in New York City, which immediately set reporters buzzing. Back in Chicago, her adopted home, Bessie began performing in more and more air shows, each one building her reputation.
A Rising Star of the Air Shows
To be a stunt pilot required absolute fearlessness, and Bessie’s daring routines — her figure eights, her loop‑the‑loops — made her a sensation across the country. She wanted to maintain and eventually own her own plane, but she didn’t yet have the money. So she borrowed whatever aircraft she could, determined to keep flying and to keep proving what a Black woman pilot could do.
“Queen Bess” Takes the Roaring Twenties by Storm
While some women performed wing‑walking stunts, none piloted the plane and performed aerial maneuvers the way Bessie did. Her skill, charisma, and courage made her a cultural phenomenon. Americans began calling her “Queen Bess” and “Brave Bess,” names that captured her place in the imagination of the roaring 1920s.
Bessie Coleman and airplane, 1922. Public Domain.
Aviation as Activism
As she was determined to do so, Bessie Coleman was making a difference in the nation. Of all these remarkable things in the air Bessie was known for, none was more significant than what she also achieved on the ground. Bessie Coleman told show promoters and managers that she would not perform at any show whose audience or performers were segregated by race or anything else. “Brave Bess” insisted that for all shows she performed in, there had to be just one gate for all people to walk through. At the time this was a profoundly radical request, particularly south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Speaking, Teaching, and Inspiring
Beyond stunt flying, Bessie lectured at schools and churches, urging young people — especially Black children — to pursue aviation. She saw flight not only as a career but as a path to dignity, opportunity, and pride.
Setbacks and Recovery
Still hoping to buy her own airplane, Bessie finally purchased one in 1923. But during a test flight, she crashed, breaking her leg and several ribs. She spent a year recovering in Chicago, grounded but not defeated.
A Return to the Skies
By 1926, Bessie was ready to fly again. She had no funds for a new aircraft, but a wealthy businessman donated a used plane. It was far from ideal — rickety, temperamental — and she hired a mechanic, William Wills, to get it into working shape.
Wills flew the plane from Texas to Florida for her next show, but along the way he had to make several emergency landings as the engine repeatedly failed. After repairs in Florida, he and Bessie took the plane up for a test flight on April 30, 1926, the day before the show.
The Fatal Flight
They tested the plane as Bessie hunted for locations for her stunts. During the practice run, Bessie leaned out of the open cockpit — without a seatbelt, standard for stunt pilots — to scout locations for her aerial maneuvers. Something went wrong mechanically. The plane lurched, and Bessie fell to her death. Moments later, the aircraft crashed, killing Wills as well. Bessie was 34. Wills was 24.
A Nation Mourns
By the time of her third memorial service in Chicago, more than 20,000 people had paid their respects. At the Chicago service alone, 15,000 mourners gathered as journalist Ida B. Wells read an essay honoring Bessie’s courage and legacy. Bessie Coleman was laid to rest at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, among many of Chicago’s Black notables.
A Legacy That Took Flight
In 1929, Black engineer and aviator William J. Powell founded the Bessie Coleman Aero Club in Los Angeles, training Black men and women to fly. By the 1930s, groups of Black female stunt pilots — including the Blackbirds — carried her inspiration into the sky.
In 1940, Bessie’s early champion, millionaire newspaper publisher Robert Abbott, was also buried in Lincoln Cemetery, not far from the woman whose dreams he helped launch.
Bessie Coleman, first Black and American Indian licensed aviator, two days before her 31st birthday, January 24, 1923. Public Domain.
SOURCES:
Bessie Coleman Bold Pilot Who Gave Women Wings, Martha London, 2021, Capstone Press, North Mankato, MN.
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.
