There is a place where Chicago sends its shattered architectural landmarks, a skylit grand staircase in the Art Institute where the walls are decorated with noble, but forlorn, fragments–a chunk of a Louis Sullivan building here, a piece of a Frank Lloyd Wright building there. Their underlying message is unmistakable: Chicago is blessed with the talent to create buildings for the ages and cursed by an inclination to shortsightedly destroy them.
As 1996 draws to a close, the good news is that most of the design details pictured on this page will not suffer such a fate, to be snapped like branches from a tree. Instead, they will remain parts of a greater whole. Stung by criticism of a new landmark ordinance and a series of blunders that led to the demolition of a historic coach house, the administration of Mayor Richard M. Daley has pushed through the City Council 21 landmark designations–three times as many as in a typical year.
These are not just any buildings. Their ranks are filled with exemplars of the mighty, skin-and-bones modern architecture for which Chicago is justifiably renowned. But they also evince a stunning array of historical styles, from Victorian Gothic to Art Deco, that enliven the public realm from the Loop to the farthest reaches of the city. Their architects–Wright, Sullivan, Dankmar Adler, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, William Le Baron Jenney, Holabird and Roche, and Holabird and Root–constitute a virtual honor roll of American design in the late 19th and 20th Centuries. Perhaps most important, the buildings create architecture to make time visible.
If only the story ended there. It doesn’t.
The 21 new landmarks used to belong to a group of 30 buildings and districts that occupied a legal limbo — they had temporary protection from demolition, but lacked permanent landmark status. Nine of these sites have yet to be deemed worthy of saving from the wrecker’s ball. Unless they officially join the landmark rolls by April 1, their owners will be free to demolish or deface them, though none–with the exception of developer John Buck, who wants to shear off all but the facade of the Art Deco McGraw-Hill Building at 520 N. Michigan Ave. to make way for a shopping mall–has expressed any intention of doing so.
And so, the Romanesque Revival brownstones of the former Chicago Historical Society Building at 632 N. Dearborn St. (now the Excalibur nightclub) could someday be smashed to bits. The same goes for the gridded granite skin of the Second Leiter Building at 401 S. State St., which so handsomely expresses its skeletal metal frame.
Chicago arrived at this juncture the old-fashioned way: politics. The old landmark law gave aldermen prized wiggle room because it set no deadline for the City Council to act on recommendations from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, the city agency charged with protecting the past. Thus, the commission’s recommendations could sit, and sit, and sit–some, like the one for Mies’ innovative steel-and-glass apartment towers at 860-880 N. Lake Shore Drive, for as long as 16 years. That not only made aldermen unaccountable, but also tied up owners’ property endlessly and unfairly.
To avoid that stalemate, a “sunset” provision in the new law says that recommendations for landmark status die if the council does not approve them within a year. But the law, passed with Daley’s blessing, does not require aldermen to vote on the proposals. And if a recommendation is killed, there is no chance to bring it back to life. According to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a non-profit organization chartered by Congress, Chicago is one of the few major cities–if not the only one–with such a law on the books. Without economic incentives that will encourage owners to drop their objections to landmark status, the law’s impact on preservation could be chilling.
To be sure, some incentives are now in place, particularly in the Loop, and the Daley administration has promised to protect all the remaining buildings and districts. But eight of the nine pending landmarks are in the downtown ward of Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who insists upon owner consent for designation, even though it is not required by law. As a result, the future of the pending landmarks seems anything but assured. With Daley’s clout, most of them will likely be preserved. But some of them could still end up as architectural fragments–destined for the Art Institute or the city dump.
CLOSING THE LOOPHOLE
For years, a legal loophole allowed proposed landmark buildings and districts in Chicago to languish without a vote by the City Council. The buildings and districts were temporarily protected from the wrecker’s ball, but lacked permanent landmark status.
This year, after the City Council stripped 30 buildings and districts of their temporary protection, there was a public outcry. Since then, 21 buildings and districts have been designated landmarks. Nine sites await a City Council vote.
21 new landmarks
1. Chicago Building, 7 W. Madison St., 1904-05, Holabird and Roche, architects.
2. Essanay Studios, 1333-45 W. Argyle St., 1908, various architects.
3. Hawthorne Place District, 17 structures at 530-593 W. Hawthorne Pl., various dates and architects.
4. Hotel St. Benedict Flats, 40-52 E. Chicago Ave., and 801-805 N. Wabash Ave., 1882-83, James J. Egan.
5. DuPont-Whitehouse House, 3558 S. Artesian Ave., 1875-76, Oscar Cobb & Co.
6. Kaufmann Store and Flats, 2312-14 N. Lincoln Ave., 1883 and 1887, Adler & Sullivan.
7. London Guarantee and Accident Building, 360 N. Michigan Ave., 1922-23, Alfred S. Alschuler.
8. One North LaSalle Building, 1929-30, K.M. Vitzthum & Co.
9. Peoples Gas South Chicago Neighborhood Store, 8935 S. Commercial Ave., 1925, Herman Von Holst and George Grant Elmslie.
10. John Raber House, 5760 S. LaFayette Ave., 1870, architect unknown.
11. Soldiers’ Home, 739 E. 35th St., 1864-1957, W.W. Boyington and other architects.
12. Carbide and Carbon Building, 230 N. Michigan Ave., 1929, Burnham Brothers.
13. Foster House, 12147 S. Harvard Ave., 1900, Frank Lloyd Wright.
14. Printing House Row District, 21 buildings and several unimproved parcels in the area generally bounded by Polk Street and Congress Parkway, Plymouth Court and Federal Street, various dates and architects.
15. Illinois & Michigan Canal site on the South Branch of the Chicago River at Ashland Avenue, 1838-1848, 1865-1871.
16. 860-880 N. Lake Shore Drive, 1949-51, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
17. Ludington Building, 1104 S. Wabash Ave., 1891, William Le Baron Jenney.
18. Wirt Dexter Building, 630 S. Wabash Ave., 1887, Adler and Sullivan.
19. Frank F. Fisher Jr. Apartments, 1209 N. State Pkwy., 1936, Andrew Rebori.
20. Gage Group, 18, 24 and 30 S. Michigan Ave., 1899-1900, Holabird and Roche (Louis Sullivan for the facade of 18 S. Michigan Ave.).
21. Haskell-Barker-Atwater Buildings, 18-20 and 22-24 S. Wabash Ave., 1875, Wheelock & Thomas; 28 S. Wabash Ave., 1877, John Mills Van Osdel.
9 BUILDINGS PENDING
1. Brooks Building, 223 W. Jackson Blvd., 1909-10, Holabird and Roche.
2. Former Chicago Historical Society Building, 632 N. Dearborn St., 1892, Henry Ives Cobb.
3. Lake and Franklin Group, buildings in 200 block of West Lake Street and 170 and 180 blocks of North Franklin Street, various architects.
4. Second Leiter Building, 401 S. State St., 1889-91, William Le Baron Jenney.
5 333 North Michigan Building, 1928, Holabird and Roche/Holabird and Root.
6. Tree Studio Building and Annexes, 603-621 State St., 4 E. Ohio St. and 5 E. Ontario St., 1894, Parfitt Brothers with Bauer & Hill; Hill and Woltersdorf.
7. Walt Disney Birthplace House, 2156 N. Tripp Ave., Elias Disney.
8. Washington Block, 40 N. Wells St., 1873-74, Frederick and Edward Baumann.
9. McGraw-Hill Building, 520 N. Michigan Ave., 1929, Theilbar and Fugard. Source: Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
