Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/693

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CHICAGO.
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CHICAGO.

on La Salle Street are the Tacoma, the Association, New York Life and Home Insurance buildings, and the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, one of the finest banking edifices in the city.

The new Federal Building, 16 stories high, covers an entire block, 321 by 396 feet, bounded by Adams, Jackson, Dearborn, and Clark streets. The structure is of granite and steel, and is surmounted by a great dome. The original appropriation for the building was $4,000,000; and in 1903, $750,000 additional was voted by Congress to finish the interior.

In this vicinity are four great buildings, 16 stories high: the Great Northern Hotel and Theatre, the Monon, the Manhattan, and the Monadnock, costing $3,000,000, constructed of steel, and finished in granite and marble. Next to the last is the Union League Club, one of the most handsomely appointed club-houses in Chicago, West of the Federal Building, on Adams Street, is the Rand-McNally Building, well equipped, and one of the largest printing and publishing houses in the world. On the same street is the wholesale establishment of Marshall Field & Company, by Richardson—of note as a more attractive type of the commercial building, wherein purely commercial utility is not preëminent. At the corner of Monroe and Dearborn streets is the First National Bank, containing one of the largest banking rooms in the world. Dearborn Street is the site of several tall structures, among which the Unity, Hartford, Marquette, Old Colony, Manhattan, and Fisher buildings are prominent. Situated on one of the most busy corners in the heart of Chicago is the new 16-story building of the Chicago Tribune, one of the best examples of the growth of the aesthetic in Chicago. It is in the Italian style, being attractively built of Bedford stone, gray pressed brick, and terracotta trimmings. The corridors are floored in mosaics, with marble wainscoting. The woodwork is in mahogany throughout, and the floors of the office portions of the building are of polished oak. On State Street is the Spanish Renaissance Columbus Building, completed in 1893, at a cost of $800,000. It is 14 stories high, with a tower 240 feet high, tipped with a globe of opalescent glass, lighted by a powerful electric light. Over the entrance is a bronze statue of Columbus, and in the interior are two glass mosaics depicting scenes in his life. The retail house of Marshall Field & Company, on State, Washington, and Randolph streets and Wabash Avenue, represents the climax of Chicago's great buildings. There are in this structure over 1,000,000 square feet of floor-space, equivalent to 23 acres. The new granite addition of 12 stories erected upon the site formerly occupied by Central Music Hall. State and Randolph streets, rests upon 84 caissons of concrete, extending nearly 100 feet below the street-level. On one corner of Randolph Street is the Masonic Temple, the highest building in the city. Other structures of interest are the Fair, a building 190 by 350 feet, and 180 feet high, with a floor-space of 677,500 square feet; the building of Siegel, Cooper & Company, which affords 542,700 square feet floor-space; the Title and Trust Company Building, 16 stories high, which contains the Law Library of the Chicago Bar Association, and offices occupied mainly by lawyers; the Venetian and Reliance buildings; the Merchants' Loan and Trust Company Building, a 12-story structure of granite, finished in mahogany and marble; the publishing house of A. C. McClurg & Company; the Kimball Hall Building, a musical centre with 200 studios, a music-hall, and two recital-halls; the stately Schiller Building, containing the Dearborn Theatre, and halls, club-rooms, and offices; the new Ashland Block, built in classic style; and Bush Temple.

On Michigan Avenue and Congress Street is the Auditorium, built at a cost of $3,500,000, of granite and brick, 10 stories high, and extending, on the longest front, 300 feet. It contains a large hotel facing the lake, and a beautiful theatre. The tower, occupied by a station of the United States Weather Bureau, commands a magnificent view from its height of 270 feet. The main entrance, on Congress Street, leads through a beautiful court, splendidly decorated and with an elaborate mosaic floor, to the grand staircase of marble and bronze. The theatre, which seats 5000 persons, is luxuriously furnished and decorated with attractive mural paintings. The Fine Arts Building, Michigan Boulevard, is a centre of artistic, literary, and educational interests. It contains three auditoriums; Studebaker Hall, with a seating capacity of 1550; University Hall, with 703 seats; and an assembly room. North of it is the splendid Romanesque Chicago Club House, and farther north the Montgomery Ward Building, with a tower which rises above the roof of the Masonic Temple. On the Lake Front Park, at Adams Street, is the building of the Art Institute, 320 feet long and 208 feet wide, built of Bedford limestone in Greek style. The institution, dating from 1860, was known previous to 1882 as the Chicago Academy of Design. It contains a library and lecture-hall, and collections of great value, some of which are loaned, including paintings, sculptures (both originals and reproductions), textiles, and antiquities. Connected with the institute is a school of art instruction (see below). On the opposite side of the avenue, to the north, is the magnificent structure of the Chicago Public Library, built 1893-97. It is a successful rendering of the classic type of architecture, and cost $2,125,000. The interior is enriched with Sienna and Carrara marble, with 10,000 square feet of glass mosaic, and with beautiful frescoes, mottoes, etc. The library has been planned to accommodate 2,000,000 volumes, and an illustration of its extraordinary size may be found in the delivery-room, 139 by 49 feet. The building contains also a large G. A. R. Memorial Hall.

On the North Side, on Walton Place, is the Newberry Library, an imposing structure of steel and granite, which, when completed according to the projected plan, will occupy an entire square, and afford room for 4,000,000 volumes. Other institutions of allied character, which have noteworthy buildings, are the Chicago Historical Society, in a stone edifice at Ontario Street and Dearborn Avenue—the repository of a fine collection of paintings and interesting historical relics, and of a valuable library; and the Chicago Academy of Sciences in Lincoln Park. The buildings of the University of Chicago, of which twenty or more have already been erected, are planned to cover a plot of 40 acres, bordering the Midway Plaisance between Jackson and Washington parks. They are built principally of limestone, in Gothic type. Other notable