The Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame, lining the Merchandise Mart Plaza in front of Merchandise Mart, at 222 North Bank Drive, honors eight innovative Americans merchants with heroic four-times life-size bronze busts commissioned in 1953 by Joseph Kennedy. The busts are mounted on tall pillars and line the Chicago River like sentries facing north toward the gold front door of the Mart.
The Hall of Fame features busts of Edward A. Filene, the founder of Filene's and a pioneer in establishing credit unions, sculpted by Henry Rox; Marshall Field, the founder of Marshall Field and Company, and John R. Wanamaker, considered the father of modern advertising, both sculpted by Lewis Iselin; Julius Rosenwald, part-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and George Huntington Hartford, founder of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P), both sculpted by Charles Umlauf; Robert E. Wood, under whose leadership, Sears, Roebuck and company shifted from mail order sales to retail sales, and estalbished All Star Insurance, sculpted by Minna Harkavy; Aaron Montgomery Ward, who invented mail order with Montgomery Ward & Comapny, and Frank Winfield Woolworth, the founder of F.W. Woolworth Company, both sculpted by Milton Horn.
The Merchandise Mart, or Mart, was the largest building in the world, with 4 million square feet of floor space, when it opened in 1930. Originally owned by the Marshall Field family, the Mart centralized Chicago's wholesale goods business by consolidating vendors and trade under a single roof. Joseph P. Kennedy bought the Mart in 1945 for $12.5 million. Later managed by Sargent Shriver, the art deco building designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, was owned for more than 50 years by the Kennedy family through Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. until 1998, when MMPI was acquired by Vornado Realty Trust for $450 million in cash and a $100-million-plus stake in Vornado.
Tags: Merchandise Mart Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame busts Hall of Fame Illinois Chicago Chicagoist northside near northside Cook County Marshall Field bust sculpture Merchandise Mart Plaza Lewis Iselin
House of Blues opened its 4th restaurant-concert hall at the base of the of Marina City Towers in 1996. Host to a mix of blues, jazz, funk, rap and world musicians of varying notoriety, this spot is also a popular dining spot. HOB's upstairs music hall is decorated with Southern outsider art. Sight lines on the main floor are terrific, sound is almost as stunning but little seating is available.
Tags: House of Blues HOB blues club Illinois Chicago Chicagoist northside near northside Cook County
Marina City, mixed-use residential/commercial building complex occupying a city block bound by the Chicago River, North State Street, West Carroll Avenue, and North Dearborn Street, was designed in 1959 by architect Bertrand Goldberg for and completed in 1964.
Marina City was billed as a city within a city, featuring on-site facilities including a gym, swimming pool, ice rink, bowling alley, several stores and restaurants, and a marina beneath the raised platform at river level. The complex consists of two corncob-shaped 65-story, 587 foot tall residential towers, a saddle-shaped auditorium building, and a 13-story hotel building all contained on a raised platform cantilevered over defunct railroad tracks adjacent to the river. The residential floors of the twin towers sit on top of 15-story spiral parking garages. Each unit in the residential towers opens onto a 5.5 meter (18-foot) wide balcony on one of the "petals". When finished, the two towers were both the tallest residential buildings and the tallest reinforced concrete structures in the world.
The opening sequence of the Bob Newhart Show included a shot of Marina City, and many people assume that Bob's character lived there. He did not—the building used for the exterior shots of Bob's apartment building sits seven miles to the north, on Sheridan Road in the Edgewater neighborhood. The towers are featured on the cover of the Wilco album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. In the movie The Hunter, "Papa" Thorson (Steve McQueen) pursues a suspect in a car chase through the Marina City parking garage.
Tags: Marina City towers Illinois Urban Waterfront Wilco Bob Newhart Show Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Chicago Chicagoist northside near northside Cook County Bertrand Goldberg Bertrand Goldberg Associates
From left to right: Trump Tower (under construction), River Plaza, 500 North Michigan, Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower
The Trump International Hotel and Tower, also known simply as Trump Tower Chicago or Trump Tower, at 401 North Wabash, opened for business as a skyscraper condo-hotel in 2008./
The River Plaza Condominium, at 405 North Wabash Avenue, a 54-story, 525-foot-high highrise consisting of 679 residential units, was built in 1977 by Gordon & Levin.
500 North Michigan, a 24-floor, 325-foot high-rise, was built in 1968 by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.
The Wrigley Building, at 400-410 North Michigan Ave, was built from 1920-1924 to serve as the corporate headquarters for the Wrigley Company. Chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. commissioned the architectural firm Graham, Anderson Probst and White and chief designer Charles G. Beersman to design the first office building north of the Chicago River. The Wrigley Building was Chicago’s first air-conditioned office building. The circular temple and cupola rising above the 30-story, 425-foot south tower's massive two-story four-faced clock is patterned after the Seville Cathedral's Giralda Tower in Spain. The north and south towers are connected by three pedestrian walkways. The building is clad in approximately 250,000 individual glazed terra cotta tiles, the most extensive use of terra cotta in the world at the time. Six shades of white enamel, from gray to cream, were baked onto the cladding for easy cleaning. Each tile is uniquely catalogued in a computer to track maintenance. At night, the building is illuminated with floodlights, making it about to shimmer.
The Tribune Tower, at 435 North Michigan Avenue, was built between 1923-1925 as the headquarters for the Chicago Tribune. The neo-Gothic design, the last important example of American Perpendicular style, by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood was selected out of 263 entrants in a much publicized international design competition. The 34-floor, 463-foot skyscraper's upper tower, encircled by 8 flying buttresses adorned with sculptures of bats, was modeled after the Butter Tower at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen. A low-rise addition to the north was built in 1935, forming a small courtyard with a statue of Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale. The Tribune Tower features sculptural ornamentation executed by Rene Paul Chambellan. The building's ornate three story arched entrance is carved with figures from Aesop's fables. Rocks and bricks brought back by Tribune correspondents from important sites throughout the world are incorporated into the lowest levels of the building, and labeled with their location of origin. In all, there are 136 fragments in the building.
The Michigan-Wacker Historic District, crossing the Michigan Avenue Bridge and the Wabash Bridge over the Chicago River, covering parts of the Chicago Loop and Near North Side neighborhoods. The district's contributing properties include eleven high rise and skyscraper buildings erected in the 1920s with addresses on North Michigan Avenue, East Wacker Drive, North Wabash Avenue and East South Water Street, including 333 North Michigan, London Guarantee Building, Carbide & Carbon Building, 35 East Wacker, Mather Tower, the Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable Homesite, and the Wrigley Building.
The Tribune Tower was designated a landmark by the Chicago Department of Planning and Development on February 1, 1989.
In 2007, the Tribune Tower was ranked #38 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.
Michigan-Wacker Historic District National Register #78001124 (1978)
Tags: skyscraper skyline Wrigley Building Tribune Tower Chicago River Illinois Urban Waterfront AIA150 Chicago Chicagoist landmark Chicago landmark Michigan-Wacker Historic District national register of historic places Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Graham, Anderson, Probst and White French Renaissance Wrigley Company magnificent mile north side Charles G. Beersman near northside Cook County Charles Beersman spanish revival Howells & Hood John Mead Howells Raymond Hood trump tower Howells and Hood streeterville River Plaza NRHP U.S. National Register of Historic Places historic district U.S. Historic District
The Wrigley Building (left), at 400-410 North Michigan Ave, was built from 1920-1924 to serve as the corporate headquarters for the Wrigley Company. Chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. commissioned the architectural firm Graham, Anderson Probst and White and chief designer Charles G. Beersman to design the first office building north of the Chicago River. The Wrigley Building was Chicago’s first air-conditioned office building. The circular temple and cupola rising above the 30-story, 425-foot south tower's massive two-story four-faced clock is patterned after the Seville Cathedral's Giralda Tower in Spain. The north and south towers are connected by three pedestrian walkways. The building is clad in approximately 250,000 individual glazed terra cotta tiles, the most extensive use of terra cotta in the world at the time. Six shades of white enamel, from gray to cream, were baked onto the cladding for easy cleaning. Each tile is uniquely cataloged in a computer to track maintenance. At night, the building is illuminated with floodlights, making it about to shimmer.
The Tribune Tower (right), at 435 North Michigan Avenue, was built between 1923-1925 as the headquarters for the Chicago Tribune. The neo-Gothic design, the last important example of American Perpendicular style, by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood was selected out of 263 entrants in a much publicized international design competition. The 34-floor, 463-foot skyscraper's upper tower, encircled by 8 flying buttresses adorned with sculptures of bats, was modeled after the Butter Tower at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen. A low-rise addition to the north was built in 1935, forming a small courtyard with a statue of Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale. The Tribune Tower features sculptural ornamentation executed by Rene Paul Chambellan. The building's ornate three story arched entrance is carved with figures from Aesop's fables. Rocks and bricks brought back by Tribune correspondents from important sites throughout the world are incorporated into the lowest levels of the building, and labeled with their location of origin. In all, there are 136 fragments in the building.
The Michigan-Wacker Historic District, crossing the Michigan Avenue Bridge and the Wabash Bridge over the Chicago River, covering parts of the Chicago Loop and Near North Side neighborhoods. The district's contributing properties include eleven high rise and skyscraper buildings erected in the 1920s with addresses on North Michigan Avenue, East Wacker Drive, North Wabash Avenue and East South Water Street, including 333 North Michigan, London Guarantee Building, Carbide & Carbon Building, 35 East Wacker, Mather Tower, the Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable Homesite, and the Wrigley Building.
The Tribune Tower was designated a landmark by the Chicago Department of Planning and Development on February 1, 1989.
In 2007, the Tribune Tower was ranked #38 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.
Michigan-Wacker Historic District National Register #78001124 (1978)
Tags: skyscraper skyline Wrigley Building Tribune Tower Chicago River Illinois Urban Waterfront AIA150 Chicago Chicagoist landmark Chicago landmark Michigan-Wacker Historic District national register of historic places Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Graham, Anderson, Probst and White French Renaissance Wrigley Company magnificent mile north side Charles G. Beersman near northside Cook County Charles Beersman spanish revival Howells & Hood John Mead Howells Raymond Hood Howells and Hood streeterville 500 North Michigan NRHP U.S. National Register of Historic Places historic district U.S. Historic District