What Newspaper Lobbies Should Look Like

Everyone who works at a newspaper should begin the day by walking into a building like the Chicago Tribune's. Perhaps it would remind them of the potential nobility of their profession and how journalism can be, and should be, a pillar of Democracy.

The Tribune Tower was erected in 1925. It is the work of New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood (who went on to build the McGraw-Hill Building), who beat out famed Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen a famous 1922 contest to win the assignment. (Many at the time thought the modernist Saarinen should have prevailed over the more old-fashioned Hood-Howells conception.)

Read more »

Lost City: Chicago Edition: Hollander Storage

Shiver and cower before the hulking immensity of Hollander Storage in the Logan Square section of Chicago!

Ahem, excuse me: Hollander International Storage and Moving Company, Inc. The enterprise's full name, don't you know. This business was founded in 1888. And, as far as I can tell, this impressive, five-story, brown-brick building was erected around that time period.

The outfit is still in family hands. The website tells us, with due confidence, "Whether you require residential moving, business relocation, long-term storage, or something in between, it's a commitment four generations of the Hollander family has nurtured." Hey, they've got my attention.

Lost City: Chicago Edition: The Logan Theatre

The Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, down on its luck for some years but now in the midst of a resurgence, has been robust enough to hold on to its grand old movie house, appropriately named the Logan. It's a bold presence with a large vertical sign climbing up the facade and an old-fashioned marquee and box office, and a lovely stained glass arch outside. Inside, there's a rather spectacular, Art Nouveau, fully stocked bar. I'd go to the theatre just to drink there.

It was opened in 1915 as the Paramount Theater. It had only one screen then, as did many movie houses. In 1922, a family named Vaselopolis took over. It remained in family hands for many years. (Scion Chris Vaselopolis was born in the theatre.) The building enjoyed a thorough renovation in the 1990s. The theatre is now owned by the Mark Fishman, a real estate magnate who bought it in 2010. (Fishman, unfortunately, also owned may apartment buildings in the area and have a rep for jacking up rents. Is suspect Fishman's renovation of the Logan is less altruistic in nature and more about improving the general value of the neighborhood so he can charge higher rents. Still, better to have had the reno done through greed than not at all.)

Read more »

Lost City: Chicago Edition: A Good Sign: Grace's Furniture

This fabulous sign—much too fabulous for a furniture store—is just off Logan Square in Chicago, on Milwaukee Avenue. Carpeting, Appliances, Easy Credit. Grace really spelled it out for you.

The sign's not as old as it looks. Grace's Furniture was founded in 1974 by Julio and Digna Martinez. It was named after their daughter. It went out of business in 2010.

Here's the other side of the sign: 

Read more »

Lost City: Chicago Edition: Milshire Hotel

The Milshire Hotel is grand old edifice on N. Milwaukee Street in the now fashionable Logan Square section of Chicago. It is little changed, inside and out. The vertical neon sign is original as is the traditional wooden booth the hotel manager sits in just inside the door.

The Milshire is today what it always was, that kind of shady urban hotel where people of no fixed address stay for short (sometimes very short) or long periods of time. As you can see from the faded ad on its side, it was a "weekly transient" hotel, even back in the day. Today, shifty character pass in and out of the front door. Nonetheless, there's a cheap coffee shop inside that advertises its wares ("Cappuccino!") to all and sundry.

I thought of taking a cup of coffee in this establishment, except when I entered the Milshire all eyes suddenly fell on me, and one lean, scruffy individual began to make a beeline toward me, as if he knew me or I owed him money. I beat it. The episode lasted a total of five seconds, but there something genuinely frightening about it.

Good thing, too. Further investigation led me to understand that this is a favored lodging of prostitutes, pimps, drunks, druggies, rats, mice and bedbugs. A shame. Such a handsome facade. (With it's burnt-out letters, the hotel's sign seems to be sending a message to passsersby as to its true line of business.)

Read more »

Lost City: Chicago Edition: Carson Pirie Scott Building Still Empty

The Carson Pirie Scott Building on State Street, one of the greatest achievement of architect Louis Sullivan, and a one-time commercial anchor of downtown Chicago, remains vacant and empty, three years after the department store chain abandoned its flagship home. 

I was in Chicago recently, and decided to check out the downtown for the first time since it was gutted of all soul by the swift departures of Marshall Field's, Berghoff's, and Carson Pirie Scott. Field's is now a Macy's and some Chicagoans I spoke to are still angry about it. But at least the grand building is open for business. The Scott structure, just two blocks to the south, is a sad ghost of itself, the breathtakingly ornate cast iron frontage put to no use. 

Supposedly a Target may inhabit the space. Is that better or worse than it's remaining empty? Isn't it awful that the only businesses today that can use a grand space such as this are the soulless, big-box chains the blight our landscape?