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archinform · 4 years ago

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Lost Chicago Building 5 - The Pullman Building

Life Span: 1884-1958 Location: 79 E. Adams – Southwest corner of Michigan & Adams Architect: Solon S. Beman

Illustrations, unless otherwise noted, are from the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive, Art Institute of Chicago. Accessed at: http://www.artic.edu/research/archival-collections

May 6, 1883 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the excavation for the nine-story headquarters of the Pullman Palace-Car Company on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street has begun. As the Home Insurance Building on La Salle Street is nearing completion – arguably the first metal-framed commercial skyscraper in history – the Pullman building will be “perfectly fireproof from cellar to garret – fireproof tile and iron beams being used throughout.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 6, 1883] The structure will have a dual purpose. The Pullman headquarters will have an entrance on Adams Street while a number of apartments in the building will be entered through the Michigan Avenue entrance. Company offices will occupy the first four floors of the building, and speculation is that the fifth floor will be given to the offices of General Phillip Sheridan. The five upper floors will be devoted to apartments of from seven to ten rooms and a number of bachelors’ suites from two to four rooms. The ninth floor will have a restaurant overlooking the lake with “a large covered promenade … making it a delightful resort in warm weather.” The half-million-dollar building will have its boilers located in a separate structure, given “the prejudice against living in a building with large steam boilers in the basement.” The Tribune assessment of the building concludes, “One of the objects sought by Mr. Pullman … was the furnishing to those employés of the company who desired them living apartments of superior character more convenient to their business than those in which many of them now abide … Mr. Pullman has expressed a wish that such a structure might be erected for their benefit.” [1]

Solon Spencer Beman, Architect (1853-1914)

“Chicago Pullman building. Design Preliminary sketch;” inscribed “BLC: J.K.P. del.;BRC: S S Beman / Architect .”

https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2020/04/pullman-building-at-michigan-and-adams-tip-top-inn-and-black-cat-inn-restaurants-chicago.html

Sanborn Map (detail), c. 1890; location of Pullman Building shaded purple.

“Michigan Avenue South from Grant Park Promenade,” postcard. Pullman Building is in the center of the view.

George Pullman (1831-1897), whose company by 1879 was the largest manufacturer of railway sleeping cars, with his Pullman Palace Cars being used by many railroads all throughout the country, wanted to construct a new factory town to bring together all the company’s manufacturing operations. The new “company town” would also house all of his workers. In 1879 Pullman brought New York landscape architect Nathan F. Barrett to Chicago to develop the concept. Barrett had introduced Pullman to Solon Spenser Beman, a twenty-six year old architect, also from New York, who had apprenticed with Richard Upjohn before starting his own firm in 1877. Pullman placed Beman in charge of the entire architectural design and construction of the buildings for new town. [2]

Nathan F. Barrett and Solon Spenser Beman, Town of Pullman, 1879 (Zukowsky, Growth of a Metropolis) Reproduced in Larson, Gerald R., “ 7.8. George Pullman Brings S.S. Beman to Chicago,” The Architecture Professor. https://thearchitectureprofessor.com/2020/09/23/7-8-george-pullman-brings-s-s-beman-to-chicago/

George Mortimer Pullman (1831-1897). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pullman

The former Pullman headquarters building in downtown Chicago at the northeast corner of Michigan and Randolph had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871, and the sleeping-car magnate obtained a permit to build a new 9-story building at the southeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street. Beman would design the building. The new Art Institute of Chicago building (1893) would later be directly across Michigan Avenue.

The Pullman Building viewed from the Art Institute, c. 1890s.

Beman’s design for the Pullman Building was influenced by the Romanesque style of architect Henry Hobson Richardson, which was sweeping the country in the late 1880s. Constructed of red granite, brick, and terra cotta at the corner of Adams and Michigan, the Pullman Building was a “massive and imposing” structure of 10 stories with corner turrets and a light well. The Chicago Tribune described its design as modification of the Norman round arched gothic, “the main object being to give it an expression of dignified elegance in its simple massiveness.” In common with other buildings built after the Great Fire of 1871, the Pullman Building was advertised as absolutely fireproof.

Excavation for the building foundations began in May 1883. Similar to other buildings of the Chicago School of architecture, iron beams and joists were used throughout the building. Stairways were also of iron; the building had four passenger elevators and a freight elevator, and was lit by both gas and electric light.

Construction was delayed by a strike by the Bricklayers’ Union, who decided that the fifty or so tile-layers working on the tile floors and other interior work should demand $4.00 per day rather than the $3.50 they were receiving. Non-union workers were brought in, and construction continued.

The Pullman Building was designed for multiple use: the first floor for stores dealing in light merchandise, the second and third floors for Pullman offices, the fourth and fifth floors for Army Headquarters of the Division of the Missouri and for telephone company offices; Chicago Telephone Company and Central Union Telephone Company are noted in the floor plans. The sixth floor was for general office space. Solon S. Beman’s architectural offices were located on the fifth floor.

The seventh through ninth floors were reserved for residence suites of various sizes, with private bathroom and hot and cold water for each. These suites are intended for those who wished to avoid the trouble of housekeeping. No cooking was allowed, however, provisions were made, however, for a restaurant on the ninth floor, with the kitchen and servants quarters on the tenth floor.[3]

Michigan Avenue residential entrance

side views on Michigan Avenue

Separate entrances for the offices and residences of the building announced its dual purpose: offices could be entered from Adams Street and residential apartments from Michigan Avenue. A light well in the building’s north side was open above a glass roof at the third story, giving the building a U shape.

Pullman executives occupied the lower floors. Other well-known building tenants included utilities magnate Samuel Insull, Allen B. and Irving K. Pond, brothers in architectural practice (Irving K. Pond worked in S. S. Beman’s offices), S. C. Pirie, of the Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company department store in Chicago; H.E. Hooper, US publisher of the Encyclopedia Britannica; and Florenz Ziegfeld, later renowned for the Ziegfeld Follies.

Adams Street entrance

Pullman Building, detail of arcade, north side, by photographer J.W. Taylor. Courtesy of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Melbourne. The Pullman History Site https://pullman-museum.org/theCompany/pullmanBuilding.html

The building’s business entrance on its north (Adams Street) side was through an imposing masonry arch springing from squat columns with stylized Corinthian capitals. A divided staircase of stone rose one story to the second floor, offering entry at its base to the first story and, through the central of three arches at the second story, to the business office area. This striking entry occupied the central light court in the U of the building, and was surmounted by a glass canopy at the third story. Rather heavy-handed and muscular in its effect, this sheltered entrance was more “public” than the building’s residential entrance, flush with the wall on the Michigan Avenue side.

Above this entrance, in the center upper stories of the building, were a vertical arrangement of semicircular windows framed in rather bizarre, interlocking horseshoe or keyhole arches. The composition’s sense of vertical movement contrasted with the horizontal bands of window openings in the rest of the building.

Pullman Entrance; J.W. Taylor photograph, 1893. Chicagology. https://chicagology.com/goldenage/goldenage067/

Arch and covered entry stairs

The Pullman History Site https://pullman-museum.org/theCompany/pullmanBuilding.html

Pullman Building, interior detail of 2nd floor entrance and open wells looking toward Office of the President (see 2d floor floorplan) by photographer J.W. Taylor. Courtesy of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Melbourne. The Pullman History Site https://pullman-museum.org/theCompany/pullmanBuilding.html

Pullman Building, President’s Office, Secretary by fireplace,1956. Chuckman Chicago Nostalgia. https://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/2011/11/page/2/

Selected floors plans, from The Pullman History Site at https://pullman-museum.org/theCompany/pullmanBuilding.html

First (entrance) Story

Second Story: vestibule from Adams stairs; President’s Office (see photos above)

Seventh & Eighth Stories; Apartments

Ninth Story: Apartments and Restaurant

The Tip Top Inn was on the ninth floor of the Pullman Building.

For the first few years the Pullman company ran its own restaurant, The Albion, on the 9th floor. It was considered advanced at the time to locate restaurants on top floors so that cooking odors would not drift throughout the building. In addition, diners at The Albion, and later the Tip Top Inn, had excellent views of Lake Michigan. [4]

The Pullman Company, after the death of George Pullman in 1897, remained in the Pullman Building until 1948, after which its offices were moved to Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. By that time, all the architectural features of the upper story-- the turrets, towers, and chimneys-- were gone.

In “A Proud Old Lady Admits Her Age,” a 1956 newspaper article noted that

The Pullman Building, Chicago’s oldest “skyscraper,” is facing the wrecker with the same cumbersome dignity which characterized its 72 year history. With its carpets, curtains, and other makeup gone it looks a little shabby, but is still in essentially the same form bestowed on it by architect S.S. Beman back in 1884. It has yielded little to the blandishment of technology and fashion.[5]

The Pullman Building itself was demolished during a razing craze during the tenure of Mayor Richard J. Daley, along with dozens more buildings in Chicago’s Loop and thousands in Chicago neighborhoods with hardly a peep of protest. The Pullman Building was replaced in 1958 with the Borg-Warner Building, an ugly anomaly among the Michigan Avenue cliffs in the Michigan Avenue Landmark District. [6]

In later years, the turrets and top portion of the building were removed.

Architectural fragment, Pullman Building, Art Institute of Chicago.

Pullman Building, Andreas’ History of Chicago. Image: https://chicagology.com/goldenage/goldenage067/

Many of the images used here are also available on the Illinois Digital Archives website at http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/search/searchterm/Pullman%20Building

NOTES:

[1] Connecting the Windy City. Accessed at: http://www.connectingthewindycity.com/search/label/Congress%20Street

[2] Larson, Gerald R., “George Pullman Brings S.S. Beman to Chicago,” The Chicago School of Architecture. Accessed at: https://thearchitectureprofessor.com/2020/09/23/7-8-george-pullman-brings-s-s-beman-to-chicago/

[3] Chicagology. https://chicagology.com/goldenage/goldenage067/

[4] “Famous in its Day: Tip Top Inn,” Restaurant-ing Through History. Accessed at: https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2014/03/30/famous-in-its-day-tip-top-inn/

See also Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal at https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2020/04/pullman-building-at-michigan-and-adams-tip-top-inn-and-black-cat-inn-restaurants-chicago.html

[5] “A Proud Old Lady Admits Her Age,” Copy from two undated, unidentified newspaper articles about the 1884 Pullman Building in downtown Chicago. View the article at http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/pshs/id/15324

[6] “The Pullman Building,” The Pullman History Site. Accessed at: https://pullman-museum.org/theCompany/pullmanBuilding.html

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saltyfukin-trash-baby · 6 years ago

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Haunted Illinois Review/ Research #2: Horrors of the Old Slave House

The large house on Hickory Hill just outside Equality, Illinois goes by many names including Crenshaw House/ Manor, Hickory Hill, and The Old Slave House. The original owner and builder, John Hart Crenshaw, used the house to run a “ reverse underground railroad” where he, with the help of some local “Night Riders”, would kidnap free African-American men, women, and children as well as escaped slaves coming from the south and sell them back into slavery. Hickory Hill was built for this very purpose with over a dozen cells built into the third story attic (barely big enough for the average-sized modern American to fit into). There are also rumors of a large carriage entrance enabling vehicles to enter directly into the back of the house and a tunnel running from the basement to the Saline River, however, if either of these features ever existed they are no longer there.

Crenshaw kept his captives in the cramped, poorly ventilated attic until they were transported to the south or his buyer arrived to take them. He began his criminal side business in the mid 1830′s after the house was completed sometime in 1935/36 and continued to kidnap and sell people for 30 odd years until he sold Hickory Hill during the civil war. John Hart Crenshaw died on December 4, 1871, and was buried in Hickory Hill cemetery.

In the 1920′s, the Sisk family, who owned the house at the time, began to get a surplus of tourist type visitors after hearing stories about the house. In 1930 they began charging admission for tours. The house is now a historic site and still allows day time visitors but no longer allows night time “ghost hunting adventures” due to an incident with a lantern being overturned and starting a small fire.

Reports of supernatural happenings started soon after the house was open to the public as a tourist attraction. Visitors often complained of hearing the sounds of rattling chains, crying and whimpering, many people also reported feeling as if they were being watched or were overcome by intense fear and sadness. There were also reports of other common paranormal activity such as cold spots, phantom touches/voices, etc.

As none of the former or current owners have reported experiencing anything paranormal or supernatural in the house before it was open to tourists, I’m not sure if the experiences were simply a case of tourist empathy and the power of suggestion or if the large amounts of activity and energy from the living tourists, jostled/awakened or empowered the spirits, making it easier for them to reach through the veil and interact with our world. Considering the tragic past and horrors of the house it is likely that there would be many restless spirits throughout the house, but especially in the attic and the cells (where most of the paranormal activity has been reported) which are the “main attractions”.

pictures:

the best photo I could find of the back of the house, the large square is where it is rumored the carriage entrance was. (cropped for convenience)

credit for all photos goes to David R. Chittenden

sources:

Haunted Illinois: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Prarie State - Troy Taylor

The Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal (TM)- Neil Gail, Ph.D.

https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2018/02/john-crenshaw-hickory-hill-plantation-old-slave-house-reverse-underground-railroad-equality-illinois.html

A Grave Interest-?

http://agraveinterest.blogspot.com/2011/10/old-slave-house-equality-illinois.html

(p.s. sorry for the long post, I wanted to be relatively thorough. (: )

#Haunted Illinois #Crenshaw House #Hickory Hill #Old Slave house #Spirits #ghosts #paranormal #supernatural

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