Category Archives: My Photography Architecture Design

Trinity United Methodist Church (1929), 1024 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois — Stained Glass by Willett Studios (Philadelphia) and Its “Home Alone” Legacy.

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FEATURE Image: Reformation and the 18th century missions of Methodist founder John Wesley, detail of Willet stained- glass window, Trinity United Methodist Church, 1024 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois. March 2017. Author’s photograph.

The church buildings complex displays the key ecclesiastical architectural features of late American Gothic Revival style. Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 4.38mb DSC_0634 (1).

Architecture of Trinity United Methodist Church, Wilmette.

The Ashlar limestone church has stood on a prominent triangular corner of Lake and Wilmette Avenues for nearly 100 years. In the late American Gothic Revival style that flourished in the first third of the 20th century, the church displays in my photo its key ecclesiastical architectural features of (1) pointed‑arch windows with stone tracery, (2) tall bell tower with louvered openings, (3) buttress‑like vertical stonework emphasizing height, (4) a steep slate roof and (5) stained‑glass windows set in deep stone.  Designed by Granger & Bollenbacher, the church building completed in 1929 is designed to feel ancient, monumental, and rooted in medieval Christian tradition — exactly what Methodist congregations of the era wanted. Trinity UMC stands out on the North Shore because it is scaled to frame its narrative, more medieval stained glass and not for grandeur comparative to its neighbors such as Christ Church (Episcopal) in Winnetka designed by Bertram Goodhue, or for crisp academic lines such as First Presbyterian in Wilmette designed by Coolidge & Hodgdon, among others. Of Gothic Revival churches built between 1900–1935. Trinity fits squarely into that movement, but with its own personality, specifically its didactic windows. The building was erected when the congregation outgrew its earlier 1908 Romanesque brick church. The church’s current Gothic Revival building, designed by Chicago architects Granger and Bollenbacher, reflects inspiration from European cathedrals. Construction began in the late 1920s, but the 1929 Stock Market Crash halted many of the planned interior details. The stained- glass windows, including the prominent façade window, were designed and installed by Henry Lee Willet in 1954.

Founding History and Its “Home Alone” Legacy.

Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette is one of the North Shore’s oldest congregations, with a history that stretches back to the 19th century. Founded on March 24, 1874, the church originally bore the name First Methodist Episcopal Church of Wilmette. Over the decades, it evolved through several identities — Wilmette Parish Methodist Church (1930–1968), Trinity Church of the North Shore (1968–1989), and finally Trinity United Methodist Church of Wilmette, the name it carries today.  The church’s historic bell — once used to call worshippers, toll for local deaths, and warn the village of fires — now sits on display near the parking lot.

While its spiritual and community roles define its core identity, Trinity United Methodist Church is also widely recognized for its unexpected place in American pop culture. The church’s exterior appears in two memorable scenes in the 1990 Christmas classic “Home Alone.” In the film, directed by John Hughes, young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) first spots the church while fleeing the burglars and hides in the Nativity scene on the lawn. Later, Kevin approaches the church at night, drawn by the sound of the choir singing “O Holy Night.” These moments set the stage for one of the film’s most emotional sequences — Kevin’s conversation with Old Man Marley — though that interior scene was filmed at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park. Securing permission to film at Trinity was not straightforward. When Twentieth Century Fox approached the Village of Wilmette in early 1990, the Village Board narrowly approved the request in a 4–3 vote after discussion and date changes. Filming took place in late winter of that year, and the church’s brief but iconic appearance has since become a point of local pride. Today, Trinity embraces this connection, often noting that to many visitors, it is simply “the Home Alone church.”

More than a movie landmark, Trinity United Methodist Church in Wilmette remains a vibrant congregation committed to worship, music, community service, and hospitality — a place where history, faith, and a touch of Hollywood intersect on the corner of Lake and Wilmette Avenues.

Designed by Granger & Bollenbacher, a procession of stained‑glass windows that line the nave are set in deep stone. Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 3.40mb DSC_0635 (1)

How the architecture relates to the stained‑glass program.

The stained glass was created by Henry Lee Willett of Willett Stained Glass Studios in Philadelphia, one of the leading American studios of the mid‑20th century. The major façade window, dated February 14, 1954, shows Willett’s signature use of rich blues, jewel‑tone reds, elongated Gothic figures, and clear narrative panels. Its scale and design were chosen for narrative clarity, while the church’s deep window wells intensify color saturation and create a natural shadow‑frame that draws the eye toward the visual telling of Scripture — a hallmark of Methodist stained‑glass design. While Trinity’s windows feel sacred and are tall enough to make a visual statement, they are also narrow enough to keep scenes readable and, like most narrative stained-glass windows, arranged in story cycles. The church’s façade and nave proportions create a natural processional reading of the windows, allowing each panel — and the entire cycle together — to unfold as a coherent theological arc. Methodist churches of the 1920s often used architecture to shape a catechetical journey, with the Gothic style providing both a sense of transcendence and a visual link to the continuity of the church across the millennia. The building and the glass tell the same story: God speaks, calls, teaches, transforms.

Interior Analysis: Gothic Revival Structure.

The sanctuary speaks in the familiar Gothic vocabulary. Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 4.48 mb DSC_0654 (1)

A procession of rounded arches line the nave arcade, a testament to the congregation’s former Romanesque church building, with Gothic pointed-arch stained -glass windows above them guiding the eye upwards and forward. Above these, a ribbed or groin‑vaulted ceiling lifts the gaze further upward into a sense of height and devotion that feels almost instinctive. Reinforcing this vertical pull, the tall, narrow stained‑glass windows have proportions echoing centuries of Gothic design stretching light into color. Stone columns with simple capitals mark each step of the nave, guiding you along the long central aisle toward the chancel. The sanctuary is familiar Gothic interpreted through the American 1920s–30s lens—lighter, more vertical, devotional rather than medieval.

Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 3.89mb DSC_0657 (1)

The space warms into Methodist Gothic. Dark wood pews, wooden chancel furnishings, a prominent pulpit or lectern, and a central cross create an interior that feels both sacred and approachable. The materials and layout quietly affirm the Methodist emphasis on Scripture, preaching, and congregational participation.

Overhead, hanging lantern chandeliers complete the atmosphere. Their medieval‑inspired metalwork casts a warm glow that softens the stone and wood. Evenly spaced along the nave, they reinforce the processional rhythm, drawing the eye—and the worshipper—toward the chancel and the unfolding narrative held in glass and architecture. Gothic in form, Methodist in function, Willett in storytelling, and 1920s–30s American in craftsmanship, including acoustics shaped for congregational singing, the interior of Trinity UMC is a space designed to make worship feel like a journey: from the world outside, through the nave, toward the light of the chancel and the story told in glass.

How Methodist theology shaped 20th‑century stained glass.

Methodist stained glass in the early–mid 1900s has a distinctive character shaped by Methodist convictions about Scripture, preaching, and discipleship. Because windows were expected to teach, almost every Methodist window cycle from this era functions as a visual sermon. Their imagery is intentionally accessible, with a strong Biblical orientation and a clear narrative movement through salvation history.

Methodists understand themselves as heirs of the Old Testament, followers of Jesus, children of the Reformation, and participants in the church’s ongoing renewal. As a result, their stained‑glass programs blend Old Testament, New Testament, and Reformation themes. Typical cycles include scenes of the prophets, episodes from the Life of Christ, and depictions of key Reformers such as Martin Luther (1483-1546), William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536), and Methodist founder John Wesley (1703-1791).

Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 5.29mb DSC_0655 (1)

Façade window: Jesus Calling the First Disciples.

Façade window of Jesus Calling the First Disciples. Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 7.65mb DSC_0649 (2)

A foundational moment in the Gospels — and a favorite subject in mid‑20th‑century Methodist stained glass — is Jesus calling the first disciples. In this scene, Jesus summons fishermen from their boats with the words, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

The boat anchors the story in the Sea of Galilee, while the iconography makes the identification unmistakable. Jesus is shown with a cruciform halo and red and blue garments, signaling his dual nature. His authoritative, summoning gesture directs attention to the haloed figures of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who look up toward him in response to the call.

Detail of Façade window depicting Reformers.

At the bottom of the façade window are four scenes from the life of the Reformers. At LEFT is Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church (All Saints’ Church) in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, that sparked the Reformation. At the bottom right of the panel is a white rose with a red heart and black cross. That is Luther’s personal emblem, designed in 1530 and used on his letters and publications. He is wearing scholarly robes in the colors of deep red, green, and brown that Willett often used for Reformers.

At LEFT CENTER is the burning at the stake of William Tyndale in 1536 whose crime was translating the Bible into English for the ordinary people. Tyndale believed Scripture should be accessible to ordinary people and died for that conviction. The Reformation’s gift is to take the Bible out of the hands of the elite and place it into the hands of the people.

At CENTER RIGHT is John Wesley, founder of Methodism, preaching in the open air to Native Americans — specifically the Muscogee (Creek) people —during his mission to the Georgia colony between 1735 to 1737 which, after his return to England, accelerated the Methodist Movement which Wesley founded at Oxford in 1729. Wesley began preaching in the open air, embracing traveling ministry and forming societies as he did in America. By 1739, he built the first Methodist meeting house in Bristol, England.

At RIGHT John Wesley preaching to early American settlers. Wesley served as Anglican pastor of Christ Church in Savannah, Georgia, where he introduced strict spiritual disciplines. His time was marked by conflict, including a failed romantic relationship, and backlash from residents against his strictness, causing him to return to England heartbroken and disillusioned after only two years. 

Methodist stained glass seeks to be beautiful where clarity is key. The style tends to bold outlines, well delineated figures and readable gestures with minimal abstraction.

Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 5.20mb DSC_0645 (1)

Traditional enough to feel sacred – Modern enough to feel fresh – narrative enough to teach – artistic enough to inspire: Why Willett Studios was chosen.

Christ the Teacher — sometimes also read as Christ the Good Shepherd window. Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 3.95mb DSC_0664 (2)

This Willet window is a Life of Christ triptych, arranged in the traditional Methodist/Willett narrative pattern.

At the left, the window shows the ministry of compassion: a haloed Christ blessing or forgiving a kneeling woman, possibly inspired by the woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Willett often preferred such non‑specific healing scenes, using them to emphasize Christ’s compassion rather than tie the image to a single Gospel episode.

At the center, Christ stands elevated and alone in Willett’s characteristic depiction of Christ the Teacher — sometimes also read as Christ the Good Shepherd when paired with lamb symbolism above. He bears the cruciform halo (reserved only for Jesus) and wears red and blue robes to signify his dual nature as God and Man. His arms extend slightly in a gesture of blessing and invitation.

At the right, the scene shifts to Christ’s agony in the garden before his betrayal and arrest, capturing the moment of solitary struggle that precedes the Passion.

“Do all the good you can.”

Taken together, these panels proclaim a unified message: Christ at the center of the Christian life, the one who heals, restores, and calls disciples to follow. The sequence echoes the Methodist conviction embodied in the familiar motto: “Do all the good you can.”

Trinity UMC, Wilmette. March 2017. Author’s photograph. 4.12.mb DSC_0637 (1)

My Architecture & Design Photography: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Frank J. Baker House, 1909, 507 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091.

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Feature image: Frank J. Baker House, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1909, Wilmette, Illinois. Frank J. Baker (1864–1922) was a driving force in Wilmette’s early growth — a sharp‑minded engineer and influential executive with the North Shore Electric Company and Commonwealth Edison who helped bring electricity to the North Shore. He is most remembered for the remarkable 1909 Frank J. Baker House, a Prairie‑style landmark designed for him by Frank Lloyd Wright. A civic leader as well as an innovator, Baker co‑founded the First National Bank of Wilmette. He died in his Wright‑designed home just a week before Christmas in 1922 at 58 years old. December 2017. 99% 7.20mb DSC_0560. Author’s photograph.

The Frank J. Baker House, situated at 507 Lake Avenue in Wilmette, Illinois, is a 4,800‑square‑foot residence that stands as a significant example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s evolving Prairie School vocabulary. Designed in 1909, the house incorporates five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and three fireplaces, yet its architectural importance lies less in its programmatic elements than in its role within Wright’s broader experimentation with spatial organization and structural expression during this period.

Frank J. Baker House, 507 Lake Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois, 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright. “Frank J. Baker House” by Zol87 from Chicago, IL, USA is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

By the first decade of the twentieth century, Wright had begun to move beyond the predominantly single‑story Prairie houses of the late 1890s, exploring the potential of vertically layered two-story domestic space. The Baker House reflects this transitional moment through its T‑shaped floor plan—a configuration Wright employed in several contemporaneous works, including the Isabel Roberts House (below) built the previous year in River Forest, Illinois.

Isabel Roberts House, 603 Edgewood Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1908, Frank Lloyd Wright. It was remodeled in the 1950s. 69% 7.99 mb Author’s photograph.
My Architecture & Design Photography: RIVER FOREST, Illinois. (21 Photos & Illustrations).

The T‑plan allowed Wright to choreograph circulation along a dominant longitudinal axis while creating subsidiary wings that modulated privacy, light, and spatial hierarchy. In the Baker House, this plan form becomes a mechanism for integrating interior volumes with the surrounding landscape, reinforcing the Prairie School’s emphasis on horizontality and environmental continuity.

The exterior composition demonstrates Wright’s mature command of Prairie Style principles: a pronounced horizontal orientation, low‑pitched rooflines, and deeply cantilevered overhangs that visually anchor the structure to its site. These elements work in concert to diminish the building’s vertical massing, producing the characteristic “sheltering” effect that Wright associated with Midwestern domestic architecture.

Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903, likely a self-portrait. Public Domain.
In 1909 42-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright reportedly personally brought the plans to Baker in Wilmette by horseback. Public domain. see – New owners to breathe life into 1909 Wright home – Wednesday Journal – retrieved March 30, 2026.

The two‑story living room is the spatial and symbolic core of the house. Its brick fireplace—an archetypal Wrightian hearth—functions as both a literal and conceptual center, organizing the surrounding spaces and reinforcing Wright’s belief in the fireplace as the spiritual heart of the home. The sloped ceiling and continuous band of leaded‑glass windows along the north wall create a dynamic interplay of light and volume, while the vertical expansion of the room contrasts deliberately with the home’s otherwise horizontal emphasis. Few surviving Wright houses retain this particular combination of a T‑shaped plan and a two‑story principal interior, making the Baker House an important artifact in understanding Wright’s spatial experimentation.

The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 8, 1974, acknowledging its architectural significance. A comprehensive restoration initiated in 2020 under new ownership has sought to preserve both the material integrity and the spatial logic of Wright’s original design.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie‑style design features strong horizontal porches framing a two‑story diamond‑leaded glass window wall in the living room. The home includes five large bedrooms, three‑and‑a‑half bathrooms, and three fireplaces. The second level offers a primary suite with en‑suite bath, fireplace, and private porch, plus two additional en‑suite bedrooms, two more bedrooms, and a sitting room. The kitchen and breakfast room overlook the expansive yard. Wright designed the home’s 1922 addition. Public Domain.

Interior Analysis.

Upon entry, the visitor encounters a twenty‑two‑foot dining room articulated with diamond‑patterned leaded‑glass windows, a pitched ceiling, and extensive wood trim. This space exemplifies Wright’s strategy of compressing and releasing volume: the relatively intimate proportions of the dining room heighten the dramatic expansion experienced upon entering the adjacent living room.

The main‑floor kitchen, accompanied by a modest breakfast nook, reflects Wright’s early efforts to modernize domestic workspaces by integrating them more fluidly into the overall plan. The living room, by contrast, adopts a quasi‑ecclesiastical spatial character. Its cantilevered ceiling, which extends into a loft above, creates a sense of upward movement unusual in Prairie houses. The continuous horizontal and vertical window bands dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior, a hallmark of Wright’s belief that architecture should mediate rather than separate human habitation from the natural environment.

At the center of the home stands the principal brick fireplace, accompanied by an overhead balcony that provides an elevated vantage point and reinforces the vertical layering of the space. On the second floor, the master bedroom includes one of the home’s three fireplaces and a private enclosed balcony, further demonstrating Wright’s interest in creating intimate, retreat‑like upper‑level spaces within an otherwise horizontally oriented composition.

see – Frank Lloyd Wright’s Frank J. Baker House for Sale – Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation – retrieved March 30, 2026.

Frank J. Baker House, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1909, Wilmette, Illinois. 6.85mb DSC_0562 (1) December 2017. Author’s photograph.

My Architecture & Design Photography: Details/Particulars, Main Entrance, Metropolitan Tower, 310 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, architect (1924).    

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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.

Metropolitan Tower, built in Chicago in 1924, was Michigan Avenue’s first skyscraper. PHOTO: “Metropolitan Tower, Chicago in May 2016” by MusikAnimal is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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.

My Architecture & Design Photography: Details/Particulars, Beaux-Arts elevator bank (1907), Congress Plaza Hotel, 520 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Clinton J. Warren, architect (1893) and Holabird & Roche, architect (1902-1907).

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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.

My Architecture & Design Photography:  SKYLINE.

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Feature Image: October 2015. Chicago. 5.85mb DSCN1452 (1). Author’s photograph.

October 2016. Chicago 4.90mb DSC_0104 (1)

Chicago skyline from Museum Campus promontory (Northerly Island).

October 2015. Chicago. 5.85mb DSCN1452 (1). Author’s photograph.

Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue looking east, Chicago. From left: Trump International Hotel and Tower, Adrian Smith, architect (2009). Trump Tower Chicago is a 98-story skyscraper at 401 N Wabash Ave, completed in 2009. Rising 1,389 feet with its spire, it includes 486 condos, a 339-room hotel, and ranks as the 4th tallest building in the United States.

Wrigley Building, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, architect (1921).

Tribune Tower (partially hidden), Howells & Hood, architect (1925).

401 N Michigan Avenue (Equitable Building), Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1965/Facelift 1992/Renovation 2016). The plaza (Pioneer Court) of the Miesian 401 N. Michigan draws over 22,000 pedestrians daily from busy Michigan Avenue. Apple’s global flagship store shares the plaza that provides immediate access to the Riverwalk via the Spanish Steps. see – 401 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611 – Office for Lease | LoopNet – retrieved February 13, 2026.

360 N. Michigan Avenue (London Guarantee & Accident Building), Alfred S. Alschuler, architect (1923).

85 E. Wacker Drive (London House).

75 E. Wacker (formerly Lincoln Tower, originally Mather Tower), Herbert Hugh Riddle, architect (1928) and Harry Weese & Assocs. (Renovation/1983).

71 E. Wacker Drive (The Royal Sonesta Chicago Downtown, formerly Executive House Hotel), Milton Schwartz, architect (1959). 71 E. Wacker Drive is the first high-rise hotel in Chicago since the Great Depression. see – Executive House Hotel, 71 E. Wacker, Chicago – retrieved February 13, 2026.

May 2015. Chicago. 99% 7.92mb DSC_0468. Author’s photograph.

Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street looking west on Van Buren, Chicago. Left: Chicago Club, 81. E. Van Buren, Granger & Bollenbacher, architect (1929).

Right: CNA Center (333 S. Wabash Avenue), Graham, Anderson, Probst, architect (1972).

Near background: 333 S. State, DePaul Center (formerly Goldblatt’s, originally Rothschild & Co. Store), Holabird & Roche, architect (1912), renovation 1993.

Far background: Fisher Building (343 S. Dearborn Street), D.H. Burnham & Co., architect (1896) and Northern Addition, Peter J. Weber, architect (1907). Restoration and adaptive Reuse, 2001.

October 2015. Chicago. 4.28mb DSC_0061 (1) Author’s photograph.

Adams and Dearborn Streets looking north along Dearborn, Chicago. Left: 55 Xerox Center, 55 West Monroe, Chicago, Helmut Jahn, architect (1977-1980). Behind (partially hidden): Chase Tower (originally First National Bank of Chicago), Perkins & Will; C.F. Murphy Assocs. (1969).

Right: 33 W. Monroe, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architects (1980). Behind: Inland Steel Building, 30 W. Monroe, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architects (1954-1958).

Background: 2 N. State/1 N. Dearborn Streets (originally, Boston Store), Holabird & Roche (1906; 1917), renovation (2001).

November 2015. Chicago. 3.77mb DSC_0384 (1). Author’s photograph.

Halsted Street between Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard looking east, Chicago. Union Station Tower (MidAmerica Commodity Exchange), Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1971). Willis Tower (originally, Sears Tower), Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1974).

December 2015. Chicago. 2.40mb DSC_0577 (2). Author’s photograph.

Balbo and Wabash Avenues looking north on Wabash. Left: (with Columbia College wall sign) 33 Ida B. Wells Drive building, Alfred S. Alschuler, architect, (1925/1926). DePaul University College of Law, 25 E. Jackson and, beyond, 230 S. Wabash, a 21-story building built in 1910.

Center: Trump International Hotel and Tower, Adrian Smith, architect (2009).

At right: Roosevelt University: Auditorium Building, Adler & Sullivan, architect (1887-1889) and The Wabash Building, a 32-story zigzagging glass structure, Christopher Groesbeck, AIA, architect (2012). CNA Center (333 S. Wabash Avenue), Graham, Anderson, Probst, architect (1972).

December 2015. Chicago 3.60mb DSC_0986 (2)

From left: Old Colony Building, 407 S. Dearborn Street, Holabird & Roche, architect (1894), Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center, 71 W. Van Buren Street, Harry Weese & Associates (1975), Fisher Building, 342 S. Dearborn Street, D.H. Burnham, architect (1896) and Northern Addition, Peter Weber, architect (1907) and Sears Tower, 233 S. Wacker Drive, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1974).

July 2016. Chicago 5.33mb DSC_0743 (1)

Lincoln Park looking over South Pond towards downtown. At left: (partial view) Water Tower Place, 845 N. Michigan Avenue, Loebl, Schlossman & Hackl, architect (1976); John Hancock Building, 875 N. Michigan Avenue, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1969); 900 North Michigan Avenue, Kohn Pedersen Fox, architect (1989); Park Tower, 800 N. Michigan Avenue, Lucien LaGrange & Assoc., architect (2000); The Aon Center (formerly, Amoco Building; originally, Standard Oil Building), 200 E. Randolph Street, Edward Durell Stone; Perkins & Will, architects (1973); Trump International Hotel and Tower, Adrian Smith, architect (2009); At right: James House, 1560 North Sandburg Terrace, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, architect (1971).

July 2016. Chicago. 3.28 mb DSC_0045 (1)

Looking north on Wabash Avenue from Randolph Street, the Chicago elevated train follows a north-south route along Wabash Avenue and has been part of downtown since the late 1890’s. The “Kemper” sign is on the relatively dull modernist Kemper Building, now One East Wacker, Shaw, Metz & Assoc., architect (1962). Followed by 35 East Wacker Drive (formerly Pure Oil Building; originally, Jewelers Building) with its distinctive dome, Glaver & Dinkelberg; Thielbar & Fugard, Assoc. Archs., architect (1926). Partial view is Trump Tower. 

September 2016. Chicago.3.89mb DSC_0740 (1)

Right to left: The 233 E. Wacker Drive building (known as Columbus Plaza) in Chicago is 48-story apartment building, Fujikawa Conterato Lohan and Associates, architect (1978-1980).
The 111 E. Wacker Drive building (known as One Illinois Center) in Chicago, is a 30-story Modernist building featuring bronze anodized aluminum and dark-tinted glass, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in association with Joseph Fujikawa, architect (1967-1970).
The Swissôtel Chicago at 323 E. Wacker Drive, is a 45-story, triangular, all-glass luxury hotel, Harry Weese and Associates, architect (1989).  
The 345 E. Wacker Drive building (known as Coast at Lakeshore East) in Chicago is a 40-story residential apartment tower, bKL Architecture LLC, architect (2013).

September 2016. Chicago. 4.93mb DSC_0745 (1)

From the Riverwalk looking north along N. St. Clair Street: at right, the 27-story spandrel glass and metal panel 633 N. St Clair St. building, Loebl Schlossman [later; Dart] & Hackl, architect (1991).  
At left, the 63-story pinkish, rose-hued Swedish granite 161 Chicago Avenue East building (known as Olympia Centre) is a mixed-use retail, office, and residential skyscraper, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1984-85).
At right, the 74-story gray marble facade Water Tower Place, the first vertical shopping center on Michigan Avenue (8 floors), also includes the Ritz-Carlton hotel, luxury condos, and office space, Edward D. Dart (Loebl Schlossman Bennett and Dart), architect (1975).
The John Hancock Center—now officially 875 North Michigan Avenue—is a 100‑story, tapered mixed‑use skyscraper known for its iconic X‑bracing. Often described as a “vertical city,” it is considered one of the first major mixed‑use skyscrapers in the world and includes office space (floors 13–41), about 700 condominiums (floors 44–92), and the highest indoor swimming pool in North America on the 44th floor. Its 94th‑floor observation deck offers panoramic views of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Bruce Graham of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, architect (1969). It was engineered by Fazlur Rahman Khan, who pioneered the tubular structural system used in the tower.

September 2016. Chicago. 5.06mb DSC_0756 (2)

The Carbide and Carbon Building rises from 230 N. Michigan Avenue in Chicago like a gleaming Art Deco toast to the Jazz Age, Burnham Brothers, architect (1929). The 37‑story tower is instantly recognizable: its base wrapped in polished black granite, its shaft clad in deep green terra cotta, and its crown shimmering with 24‑karat gold leaf. Legend has it the architects shaped the building to resemble a champagne bottle — a fitting symbol for a city that never stopped celebrating its own ambition.

My Architecture & Design Photography: Infrastructure, Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge, 95th Street and S. Baltimore Avenue.

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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.

My Architecture & Design Photography: VILLAGE “ART” THEATRE (1916), 1548-50 N. Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60610. Designed by German-born Adolphe Woerner (1851- 1926) in Classical Revival/Renaissance Revival styles. One of Chicago’s oldest neighborhood movie palace chain theatres, it was demolished in 2018 for condos. Its decorative façade was saved. (9 Photos & Illustrations).

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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.

SOURCES:

https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Village_Theatre.pdf – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/2/28/18233421/condo-construction-village-theater-fifteen-fifty-park – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://www.urbanremainschicago.com/news-and-events/2018/06/03/chicagos-historic-village-theater-reduced-to-facedectomy-after-auditorium-demolished?fbclid=IwAR1IIsjQszVYuZ2mMhNy5QD1LHLP4UcAW-SmxegKhc2xZ2BeTLJUAng4YmY – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/409 – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/107764067/adolf-woerner – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://buildingupchicago.com/tag/avoda-group/ – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://www.friedrich-verlag.de/friedrich-plus/sekundarstufe/schultheater/theatertheorie/maskerade-im-theater-und-im-alltag-3524 – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23567141/herman_louis-gumbiner# – retrieved May 3, 2025.

https://www.chicagohistory.org/germania-club/ – retrieved May 5, 2025.

My Architecture & Design Photography: Founded in pioneer Hanover Township in 1852 for German settlers, Immanuel United Church of Christ on Old Church Road in Streamwood, Illinois is today in the Chicago suburbs. (4 Photos & Illustrations).

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FEATURE Image: March 2016. Immanuel United Church of Christ, 1500 Old Church Road, Streamwood, Illinois. Built in 1868, it is the congregation’s second house of worship on the site and remains the congregation’s active sanctuary. 7.49mb _0979

IMMANUEL UCC in Streamwood, Illinois, has a unique history within the context of the similar histories of other early settlers in Northern Illinois beginning in the 1820’s. Though diverse settlement throughout this part of the state was feverish (Chicago incorporated as a city in 1837), the prairie landscape expanse remained sparsely populated into the 1830’s and 1840’s with its mixture of farms, industry, and trade. The Streamwood church and burial grounds were founded in 1852 when W.G. Hubbard donated its five acres of land for “the sole and exclusive use of erecting a house thereon for religious worship and a burying ground.”

March 2016. Immanuel UCC is today part of a complex that includes newer church-related buildings. https://streamwoodiucc.org/home/about-us/church-history/ – retrieved January 30, 2025.

It was a group of 13 farmers who organized the church and chose its name: Deutsche Vereingigte, Evangelische Lutherische Immanuael’s Germeinde. Apparently, as Illinois was the edge of the Western frontier, in those days there wasn’t anyone around, or very many, to enjoin them to state it in English. Of course, it translates as “United Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Congregation.” Today, Streamwood is in Cook County and sits just on the other side of DuPage County to the south that broke off from Cook and was established in its own right in February 1839. The original relatively open site today is surrounded by tract housing and other modern development for as far as the eye can see or vehicle drives with Elgin about 9 miles to the west.

1851 map of Cook and Dupage Counties. Hanover is between Elgin and Schaumburg Townships. Public Domain.

Streamwood, incorporated in 1957, is one of three communities that comprise the so-called “Tri Village” area that includes Bartlett and Hanover Park. This part of Northern Illinois had served as a seasonal hunting and camping ground for the Cherokee, Miami, Potawatomi, and Ottawa Indians. In their turn, the land had been claimed by France, England, Spain, Virginia, and the Northwest Territory before it became part of the State of Illinois in 1818.

March 2016. The ImmanuelUCC church and burial ground were created in 1852 for German settlers in Hanover Township in today’s northwest DuPage/Cook Counties. Three U.S. Civil War veterans are buried here, including from the 127th Illinois Infantry; Volunteer 5th Calvary Illinois Regiment; and U.S. Calvary Co. H, 3rd Regiment. All three died and were buried in the cemetery decades after the war had ended. Author’s photograph.

While the church started out as Evangelical Lutheran, over time the congregation moved towards becoming part of the United Church of Christ. In 1959 the members changed its name to reflect that reality. The first church building that was completed in 1853 was replaced in 1868 and is the present one. Among other buildings added to the church complex, the same historic sanctuary remains this Chicago suburban congregation’s house of worship today.

March 2016. Landscape and grounds near ImmanuelUCC church in Streamwood. Hanover Township was an expansive area of farmland settled by mid-19th century German settlers to Illinois. Author’s photograph.

Sources:

DuPage Roots, Richard A. Thompson, editor, DuPage County Historical Society, 1985.

My Architecture & Design Photography: BATAVIA, Illinois. (34 Photos & Illustrations).

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FEATURE Image: May 2024. 143 First Street, c. 1863. 7.52 mb_6360. Since the 19th century Batavia, Illinois, 40 miles west of Chicago, was a railroad and manufacturing center in addition to its farmsteads. This mid-19th century limestone factory building is testament to Batavia’s industrial heritage. After the U.S. Civil War, Batavia was a major manufacturer of Conestoga wagons used in the country’s westward expansion.

Text & Photographs John P. Walsh.

May 2024. 143 First Street, c. 1863. 7.52 mb_6360. The square shaped south façade’s stone cut is more grandiose than the longer west side indicating that it is the front face of the building. The tower at the north end likely held the building’s water tank and added more room and height for pulleys and other equipment.
May 2024. Batavia is one of the towns along the Fox River settled in the 1830’s between Geneva and St. Charles to the north and larger Aurora to the south. 95% 7.75 mb DSC_6350.
July 2016.  Fermilab is to the east and adjacent to Batavia. Since 1969 it has housed a herd of bison when Fermilab’s first director, Robert Wilson, established the herd as a symbol of the history of the Midwestern prairie and the laboratory’s pioneering research at the frontiers of particle physics. Each spring new calves are born signaling the herd’s rejuvenation. 4.70mb _0577 see – https://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/bisoncam/ – retrieved 1.24.25.
May 2024. Campana Sales Company Factory, Batavia, Illinois, East Elevation, 1936-1937. The Campana Factory was built in the International Style to manufacture cosmetics for The Campana Company. At the time Campana’s “Italian Balm,” heavily promoted on the radio, was the nation’s best-selling hand lotion. The building was designed by Frank D. Chase & Company (founded in 1913) with Childs and Smith in Chicago. Frank David Chase (1877-1937) built newspaper plants in St. Louis, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City and a number of important buildings in Chicago including hospitals and office buildings. The central tower reflects the 19th-century heritage of Batavia’s limestone factories. The one story wings on the extremity of the building were added in the late 1940’s. The factory was purchased by the laundry detergent brand Purex who later closed Campana operations in 1982. 77% 7.72mb _6437.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102112/campana-sales-company-factory-batavia-illinois-east-elevation – retrieved January 22, 2025.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102113/campana-sales-company-factory-batavia-illinois-landscape-perspective – retrieved January 22, 2025.
May 2024. At the bottom of the tower of Campana Sales Company Factory the main entrance is stainless steel set into black polished marble. 7.48mb _6446.
May 2024. The Congregational Church, 21 S. Batavia Avenue, 1856. 89% 7.73mb _6372. The locally quarried limestone central section dates to September 1856. The church displays the eclecticism of New England Colonial and Classical styles. Though the building’s classical detailing of capitals and pilasters is mostly missing, the precisely cut and laid stone are original. These cut ashlar blocks include neatly finished arches, sills, and entablatures. The church’s design is attributed to architect Elijah Shumway Town (1804-1890) who built Batavia’s Bellevue Place Sanitarium in 1853 where Mary Todd Lincoln was committed for 4 months in 1875. When the original steeple was knocked down in a storm in 1877 it wasn’t replaced until 97 years later in 1974 and is the tallest steeple in Kane County. There have been subsequent additions to the church in the last 60 years. Established in Thompson Paxton’s cabin in 1835 as “Church of the Big and Little Woods” and affiliated with the Presbyterians, the church relocated to Batavia Avenue in 1841. Sharing a common belief in the anti-slavery doctrine, the church was supported by church members and the community-at-large so that the church changed its name to “Congregational Church and Society of Bavaria” in 1843.
May 2024. 355 First Street, 1852. 96% 7.83mb DSC_6389. This was the Methodist church built in the Greek Revival. The pilasters are Doric order that meet the main beam resting across the tops of columns (architrave), blank frieze, cornice, and classical pediment. After 1886 the building was used as a schoolhouse in the Batavia school system. Today it is law offices. In 1836 a group meeting in William Van Nortwick’s home in Batavia organized the “First Methodist Class” which marked the establishment of the Methodist church in Batavia.
July 2013. West wall stone work and window of former Methodust Church built in 1852. 7.02mb _0004
Born in Maine, Elijah Gammon (1819-1891) was a spiritual and business powerhouse. After he moved to Illinois he was the Methodist church’s first preacher in 1854. Having to give up preaching because of health in 1858, he changed careers to the manufacture of harvesting machinery. As he substantially contributed to the industry’s development and earned a fortune, his business responsibilities and success in no way limited his spiritual vision. https://aaregistry.org/story/elijah-gammon-supported-black-ministry/ – retrieved January 23, 2025.
May 2024. United Methodist Church of Batavia, 8 N. Batavia, 1887. 87%7.91mb _6498. United Methodist Church of Batavia, 8 N. Batavia Avenue, Batavia, Illinois was built in 1887. The rugged eclectic Richardsonian Romanesque-type building was designed by Solon Spencer Beman (1853 –1914) and inspired by a church in France that its donors had admired. The structure was almost entirely the gift of abolitionist Elijah J. Gammon (1819-1891), the church’s first preacher and local businessman, and Captain Don Carlos Newton (1832-1893), another active local businessman who had a house investment property across the street. Beman was an architect of note as he designed the planned Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory complex in Chicago as well as Chicago’s Fine Arts Building (1884) on Michigan Avenue. At the top of the tower is a Palladian window under a pyramidal roof while in the back are hipped roofs. The building’s boulders were taken from the contractor’s farm about a mile from the building site. The new church building replaced the first Methodist church in Batavia built in 1853 in Greek Revival and which still stands today.
Born in New York, Captain Newton was a very active businessman. He died unexpectedly at his home in Batavia after attending the Chicago World’s Fair for a week with his family in 1893. He was described as ”a persevering, self-made man.” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16849480/don-carlos-newton – retrieved January 23, 2025.
Chicago-based architect Solon Spencer Beman designed the United Methodist Church of Batavia in 1887. Beman is an architect of note as he designed the planned Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory complex as well as Chicago’s Fine Arts Building (1884) on Michigan Avenue. Several of his largest commissions, including the Pullman Office Building, Pabst Building in Milwaukee (1891), and the Romanesque Revival Grand Central Station (1890) in Chicago, have since been demolished. A number of architects trained with Beman, including Prairie School architect William L. Steele (1875-1949), church architect Charles Draper Faulkner (1890-1979) and Spencer Solon Beman (1887-1952).
May 2024. 415 Main Street, 1860. Eclectic Gothic Revival with Italianate features including scroll-cut square brackets tailored to the pitched roof line, segmental arches above the windows, and the heavy outlines of the door entrance. A polygonal bay and wings are informal features found in the Italianate that balances a formal façade. 89% 7.87mb.
July 2011. 415 Main Street (1860). The door is larger than the windows and offset by the small ventilating window at the top in the gable. 2.54mb100_3328 (1)
May 2024. 360 Main Street, 1855. 74% 7.72mb DSC_6409. The house is an example of the evolving transition from Greek Revival to Gothic Revival to Italianate.
May 2024. 33 S. Lincoln Street, 1850. 73% 7.85mb DSC_6520. The lengthy 1850 Greek Revival is formal and simple. There are four pairs of windows and an architrave, frieze and cornice characteristic of the type as well as its corner pilasters.
May 2024. 505 Main Street, 1858. The house is in the Swiss style and has a peacock feather spread motif above the second floor balcony. There are also trifoils set in circles in the gable. The brick sun room was added to the east around 1910. 92% 7.81mb DSC_6426 (1)
July 2011. 505 Main Street’s in-vogue late 1850’s peacock feather motif was made by scroll cut boards nailed to a backing and long tubes made by a lathe. To the left under the roof extension there is incised ornamentation with a tall thistle plant motif. 1.54mb 100_3331 (1)
May 2024. 356 First Street, c. 1850. 62% 7.80mb DSC_6395. Greek Revival frame clapboard house.
May 2024. 637 N. Batavia Avenue, 1906. The Prairie style house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) in 1906. It is frame and stucco with massive chimneys. With its horizontals, low pitched roof, casement windows and thin eaves, it is the Prairie style fully developed.
Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903, likely a self-portrait. Public Domain.
July 2013. Fabyan Villa was the home of George and Nelle Fabyan from 1908 to 1939. A mid-19th century farmhouse was acquired by the Fabyans in 1905 and extensively remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907. The house, on a hilltop looking east to the Fox River was the centerpiece of the Fabyans country estate called “Riverbank.” In 1914, the Fabyans purchased a windmill (photo below) that was located on a farm near Oakbrook, Illinois, and had it relocated opposite Riverbank on acreage that they acquired that same year.
May 2024. 111 S. Lincoln Street, c. 1850 92% 7.84mb DSC_6396. Though obscured by modern adaptations, the severe cube of the structure indicates its Greek Revival roots.
May 2024. 125 S. Lincoln, 1852. The Greek Revival style with the central section temple like with matching side pilaster ascending to a pediment as an incomplete entablature as one side is merely suggested by returns at the top of each pilaster. The wings include a one-story entrance and a two-story addition with cornice and dormers with window arches and tiny pitched roofs. 88% 7.78 mb DSC_6400
May 2024. 432 Main Street, c. 1850. The front porch may or may not be original but befits the broad formal mid-19th century Greek Revival structure. 93% 7.82mb DSC_6431 (1)
July 2011. Between Batavia and Geneva, Illinois, The Fabyan Windmill is an authentic, working Dutch windmill dating from the 1850s. It was built by a German craftsman, Louis Blackhaus, and moved to this location next to the Fox River from its original site near Oakbrook, Illinois, in July 1915. 2 mb 100_3357
July 2011. 333 S. Jefferson Street, Batavia Institute, Bellevue Mental Hospital, 1853. Following the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, Bellevue became the residence of Mary Todd Lincoln briefly in 1875. 2.87mb 100_3332
Mary Todd Lincoln in 1846. Mary Todd was 23 years old when she married 33-year-old Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois on November 4, 1842. Their four sons were all born in Springfield. In 1875 Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), her eldest son, had her institutionalized following a jury trial. She was committed to this private asylum in Batavia on May 20, 1875. Estranged from her finances and her son, she fell into a deep depression in the mental institution. Making contact with her lawyer and the press, the former First Lady got the wheels of justice and public opinion on her side. The resulting bad publicity for Robert Lincoln prompted the asylum director to pre-emptively change his opinion of Mary’s mental fitness so that in September 1875 she was released into the care of her sister Elizabeth Todd Edwards (1813-1888) with whom she was close and moved to Springfield. Following a second jury trial on June 19, 1876 that declared Mary “restored to reason,” Mary Todd Lincoln was back in charge of her money and freedom and promptly fled the country. She lived in France for the next four years. When she returned to Springfield in poor health in 1880, she lived again with her sister in Springfield. On July 16, 1882. Mary Todd Lincoln died of a stroke in Elizabeth’s home. Mary was 63 years old. Before her burial in Oak Ridge Cemetery next to her slain husband, her funeral was held at First Presbyterian Church in Springfield. Just steps from the Lincoln home, this was the church Abraham Lincoln started attending in 1850 after the death of their second son, four-year-old Eddie. The present church building was dedicated in 1868 and remains standing at 7th Street and Capitol Avenue today. see – https://www.nps.gov/features/liho/25/25.htm – retrieved January 23, 2025.
Elizabeth Todd Edwards. She and Mary were long close both in Springfield in the 1830’s and, later, at the White House. In 1875 Elizabeth accommodated her sister and the 64 trunks of her possessions with two rooms in her Springfield mansion. see – https://web.archive.org/web/20171201042129/https://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/elizabeth-todd-edwards/ – retrieved January 23, 2025.
July 2013. 333 S. Jefferson Street, Batavia Institute, Bellevue Mental Hospital, 1853. The monumental Italianate structure was designed by Elijah Shumway Town (1804-1890) who built Batavia’s Congregational Church. Projecting two story wings with Mansard roof containing a third story is built of slightly cruder stone and added before 1870.
July 2013. details.
July 2013. details. 5.11mb 0479
July 2013. 419 Union Street, 1863. The exuberance of the Italianate style is manifest in a soaring polygonal bay on the facade’s one side and a cupola on the other. Large windows are characteristic of the Italianate as are multiple curved brackets. Contrasting textures of stucco and heavy stone provide interest and work to suggest the appearance of more expensive materials and construction than actually used. This was the residence of one of the doctors at the Batavia Institute across the street. 4.77mb _0092 (1)
April 2016. Calvary Episcopal Church (222 Main Street), 1880. Designed in the “American Gothic” style, the medieval Gothic forms was a mid-to-late19th century revolt in English protestant churches to the prevailing neo-classicism of the previous 200 years. American influence included the stone building’s overall heaviness and particularly in its square-shaped tower that has a double pitched roof and with a sheet metal zone of bosses and discs between the levels and surrounding steeple dormers. 2.82 mb DSC_0476 (1)

Sources:

A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 304-319.

My Architecture & Design Photography: VITZTHUM & BURNS. Steuben Club Building (Randolph Tower), 1929. 188 W. Randolph Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60601. (3 Photos & Illustrations).

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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.

https://www.thechicagoloop.org/arch.vbur.00000.html – retrieved September 20, 2024.

https://rpwrhs.org/w/index.php?title=Holly_Theatre – retrieved September 20, 2024.

https://rpwrhs.org/w/index.php?title=Vitzthum,_Karl_Martin – retrieved September 20, 2024.