City - Chicago, IL - The Great Northern Hotel 1904
by Mike Savad
Title
City - Chicago, IL - The Great Northern Hotel 1904
Artist
Mike Savad
Medium
Photograph - Colorized Photo
Description
Colorized photo from 1904
Original title: Great Northern Building & Hotel
Photographer: Detroit Publishing
Location: 321 South Dearborn, Chicago, IL
The building on the corner was The Great Northern Hotel, built in 1891 by the D.H. Burnham company, and was originally going to be called the Chicago Hotel. But the owners changed the name, probably because the original one was too bland sounding. It was a 16 story, 500 room hotel, and was very popular during the 1893 Chicago's World's fair. It even had an Aeolian Pipe organ in the lobby, which they played at weddings.
There was a funny story about how they were playing the wedding march, and when it got to a certain set of notes, there was this loud weird noise coming from one of the tubes. They tried it again, and once again there was this strange noise. The manager came down, in the middle of the wedding, set up a tall ladder and started to check each pipe. Then in one of them, there was a lot of fussing and scratching... The hotel cat got lodged into the pipe, and when it was removed, it made a sort of cork popping sound. He took it to the baggage room where it belonged.
Just down the street were a series of stores, the hotel itself had a pharmacy, but there was a fruit store, a place to shine your shoes, a bar, and even a barbershop that had all lady barbers! I think the most interesting thing are the signs, its always been a favorite of mine to see objects representing what they do, and in front of the steam bath there is a giant spigot. Next to that a large key which I assume is a locksmith.
Presently this location only has huge buildings. The hotel was demolished in 1940, and made room for the Federal building, which took up almost the entire space. The building next to this one, looks a lot like the Fisher building, which I assume is the same architect because the building looks identical, but the motif is totally different.
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September 22nd, 2021
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