For honeymooners and mobsters alike, the Edgewater Beach Hotel put the pleasure in summer from the time its pink walls rose over Sheridan Road in 1916. It had all the amenities of a fine hotel, but the Edgewater’s trump card was the lake lapping at its back door. Dancing along the BEACH WALK to Paul Whiteman’s band was as sure a sign of summer as gin and tonics. Then came new owners and the extension of Lake Shore Drive in the early ’50s, which cut off the hotel from its raison d’etre. The Edgewater never quite recovered, yet before it was razed in 1969, a sale of its furnishings drew thousands of nostalgic beachcombers.
Number of “top hoodlums” whose party at the Edgewater was closely watched by detectives in March 1967: 200.
Radio characters created by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who got their start at the hotel’s radio studios: AMOS & ANDY.
Book and movie inspired by Eddie Waitkus, the former Cub who was shot by an obsessed fan at the Edgewater in 1949: “THE NATURAL.”
Percentage of hotel guests in a survey who admitted to taking toiletries from their rooms: 61.
“Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.”
–DR. OTTERNSCHLAG (LEWIS STONE) IN “GRAND HOTEL”
