Happy 150th birthday Howard Van Doren Shaw!

May 7, 2019 marks the 150^th anniversary of the birth of architect Howard Van Doren Shaw.  One of the best-known architects in his day, Shaw’s distinctive blending of traditional elements with his own personal style, led to his reputation in the architectural community as the most radical of the conservatives, and the most conservative of the radicals. 

Glessner House, in partnership with Friends of Historic Second Church, will honor Shaw by hosting a half-day symposium on May 11, 2019, with five scholars exploring various aspects of Shaw’s career.  The symposium will take place in the sanctuary of Second Presbyterian Church, Shaw’s masterpiece of the Arts and Crafts movement, and the only one of his designs to be designated a National Historic Landmark.  For more information on the symposium, or to purchase tickets, click here.  In this article, we look back at Shaw’s life and several commissions he received in the South Loop which exhibit the breadth of his abilities.

Howard Van Doren Shaw was born on May 7, 1869 to Theodore and Sarah (Van Doren) Shaw.  Theodore was a successful dry goods merchant and a descendant of an early Quaker settler who came to America with William Penn.  Sarah was a talented painter and a descendant of a prominent Dutch family that included the first mayor of Brooklyn, New York.  Shortly after Shaw’s death, fellow architect Alfred Granger noted that Shaw had inherited his father’s “strength of character and quiet firmness” while receiving “his artistic taste, his love for color and fantasy” from his mother.  

Shaw’s parents married in 1865 and established their home at 66 Calumet Avenue (later 2124 S. Calumet).  By the time Howard was a young boy, the house sat in the midst of the most exclusive residential district in the city.  He received a privileged upbringing, attended the exclusive Harvard School for Boys at 2101 S. Indiana Ave., and became a member of Second Presbyterian Church, which his parents had attended since the time of their marriage.  Shaw earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale in 1890 and that fall, entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he completed the rigorous two-year architecture program in just one year. 

He returned to Chicago in 1891 and quickly obtained an apprenticeship in the prominent firm of Jenney & Mundie, an outstanding training ground that had produced architects including Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan.  The office was located in the Home Insurance Building, Jenney’s most prominent building, widely regarded as the first true skyscraper.  In the summer of 1892, Shaw headed off to Europe for an extended journey studying and sketching architecture.  While in Spain, he met and traveled with James Renwick Jr., the architect of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, and Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

Shaw house, 2124 S. Calumet Avenue

Returning to Chicago in early 1893, he rejoined the firm of Jenney & Mundie, and in April, married Frances Wells, the daughter of a pioneer Chicago boot merchant.  By early 1894, Shaw established his own practice, setting up his office on the top floor of his family home on Calumet Avenue.  He hired a draftsman, Robert G. Work, and quickly established a reputation for designing distinctive residences in a variety of architectural styles.

In 1897, Shaw received his first large commission through his Yale classmate Thomas E. Donnelley.  The building at 731 S. Plymouth Court housed the Lakeside Press, later R. R. Donnelley & Sons.  The vaulted fireproof structure with reinforced concrete floors showed Shaw’s ability to design a building that was both beautiful and highly functional. 

That same year, he received his first commission from Second Presbyterian Church, to design the Crerar Sunday School Chapel at 5831 S. Indiana Ave.  The building, designed and built at the same time as Shaw’s summer house, Ragdale, in Lake Forest, features a similar façade with twin gables sheathed in a smooth stucco finish.  The Chapel and Ragdale both exhibit Shaw’s early mastery of interpreting the English Arts & Crafts style. 

The first of three houses Shaw designed in the neighborhood stood at 1900 S. Calumet Ave. and was commissioned by Charles Starkweather in 1899.  Although based on classic Georgian design, interesting features such as the Palladian window cut into the pediment over the main entrance show Shaw’s interest in, and mastery of, introducing his personal touch into each commission he received. 

In March 1900, Second Presbyterian Church suffered a devastating fire which destroyed the sanctuary but left the outer walls intact.  Shaw was commissioned to rebuild the sanctuary, the design of which was inspired by his love of the English Arts & Crafts.  He and his wife traveled to England that summer for inspiration, and the completed designs were presented to, and approved by, the church board of Trustees that fall.  He engaged several talented Chicago craftsmen, including muralist Frederic Clay Bartlett, lighting designer Willy H. Lau, and the leaded glass firm of Giannini & Hilgart, to execute his vision for the space.  Shaw carefully incorporated several motifs including grapevines, pomegranates, and angels to create a unified appearance throughout the sanctuary, from the lighting fixtures and windows, to the carved wood ornament and cast plaster panels.  The result, completed in late 1901, is a gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, that was an essential tenet of the Arts & Crafts movement.

As work on the church was nearing completion, Shaw received a commission from his father-in-law, Moses D. Wells, for a commercial office and warehouse building at 1249 S. Wabash Avenue, known as the Eiger Building.  The façade of the five-story structure was almost entirely glass, with huge groupings of windows set back between thin vertical brick piers that clearly express the structural frame of the building.  The windows on the top floor, smaller in scale, are set within a long horizontal frame, giving the façade a carefully balanced composition which, combined with the simple but distinctive ornament, made the building stand apart from similar nearby structures. 

In 1902, he designed the Henneberry Press building one block to the north at 1139-1143 S. Wabash Avenue for a printing company.  The eight-story structure, again exhibiting huge amounts of glass on the façade, displays a clearly articulated base, middle, and top.  Shallow pediments at the base and cornice give a sense of verticality and lightness to the composition.

Shaw designed two additional houses in 1903.  The first was built for John B. Drake, Jr. and stood at 2106 S. Calumet Ave., just a couple of doors north of his family home.  For the Drake house, Shaw turned to the Tudor style creating a pleasing asymmetrical brick façade, anchored by a central recessed entryway and wrap-around porch. 

The second house designed that year was more controversial.  Built for his Yale classmate Ralph Martin Shaw (no relation) at 2632 S. Prairie Ave., the narrow brick rowhouse was stylistically different from its neighbors, but more importantly, addressed the need for housing an automobile.  The ground floor was centered by the entrance to the “motor room” or garage that featured a large turntable set into the floor so that the auto could be turned around when it was time to exit.  The ground level was visually cut off from the rest of the house by a projecting limestone lintel above which was set a large grouping of three windows, denoting the main living spaces on the second level.  Although praised by architects, Shaw’s handwritten note next to a photo of the house in his scrapbook read “very avant-garde and criticized.”

Shaw’s later commissions in the neighborhood reflect its rapid transformation from residential to commercial in the first decades of the 20^th century.  In 1907, he designed a printing plant for the publishers, Ginn & Co., on the 2300 block of South Prairie Avenue.  Built of reinforced concrete in the Classical Revival style, the most notable feature was a series of three-story brick columns which lent a grand effect to the façade.  The building was the center of two preservation battles at the turn of the 21^st century; the reconstructed façade survives at 2203 S. Martin Luther King Dr.

In 1911, Shaw received another commission from the Donnelley company, which had outgrown its Lakeside Press building on Plymouth Court.  That year, the company acquired all of the lots on the east side of the 2100 block of Calumet Ave., directly across the street from the house in which Shaw’s widowed mother was still living.  Considered one of the finest examples of “Industrial Gothic,” the building’s design reflects Shaw’s directive to design the structure “so that it will not be beautiful only today, but one hundred years from now.  We want to build it so people will say that it is art, intelligence and beauty rather than a flashy display of money.”  

Brick and limestone piers are clearly articulated as buttresses with recessed spandrels and large expanses of glass in between.  Ornament includes rich stone carving and terra cotta plaques depicting historic printers’ marks.  It was built in four phases, the last completed after Shaw’s death, but true to his original design. 

Shaw’s final commission in the neighborhood was for the Nyberg Automobile Works at 2435-37 S. Michigan Avenue, reflecting the growth of “Motor Row” along that street.  Completed in 1912, the building featured huge plate glass windows at ground level to showcase the automobiles, with a variety of Shaw ornament enlivening the façade above. 

Although Shaw never designed another building in the neighborhood, he remained active throughout the Chicago area and beyond, designing everything from houses to industrial buildings, and from the planned company town of Marktown in East Chicago, Indiana to the first modern shopping mall, Market Square, in Lake Forest.  Shaw died on May 6, 1926, one day before his 57^th birthday while being treated for pernicious anemia in Baltimore.  He was awarded the prestigious gold medal from the American Institute of Architects the day before his death.  Shaw was only the fifth American to receive the medal, which is awarded by the national AIA Board of Directors “in recognition of a significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.”  

His wife later wrote, “It was said about William Morris, ‘You can not lose a man like that by his own death, only by your own.’  I know his family feels this to be true of Howard Shaw.”  The architectural community felt the same – he was highly regarded by his peers for his distinctive style and was still actively engaged in his architectural practice at the time of his final illness.  He was buried at Graceland Cemetery, the family plot centered by a marker of his own design, surmounted by a copper orb displaying the words of the 23^rd Psalm. 

The Spirit of Music

On April 24, 1924, a memorial was unveiled in Grant Park honoring Theodore Thomas, founding music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Although designed as a lasting tribute to the man who established Chicago as a center for outstanding classical music, the monument itself has had a shaky history, and very nearly disappeared altogether.  In this article, we will explore the creation of the Theodore Thomas memorial and how it ended up at its current location just north of Balbo Drive.

The B. F. Ferguson Monument Fund

Benjamin Franklin Ferguson was a prominent Chicago lumber merchant.  His home, a massive brick Queen Anne style home completed in 1883, still stands in the West Jackson Boulevard landmark district.  When he died in 1905, Ferguson left a bequest of $1,000,000 for the establishment of a fund, the income of which was to be expended by the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago (of which John Glessner was a member) to fund public monuments.  Specifically, the income was to be used “in the erection and maintenance of enduring statuary and monuments in the whole or in part of stone, granite or bronze, in the parks, along the boulevards or in other public places, within the city of Chicago, Illinois, commemorating worthy men or women of America or important events of American history.” 

The first monument to be erected by the fund was the Fountain of the Great Lakes by Lorado Taft, dedicated in 1913 on the south terrace of the Art Institute of Chicago.  By the early 1920s, additional monuments included:

-Statue of the Republic, Daniel Chester French, sculptor, 1918 (Jackson Park)

-Alexander Hamilton, Bela Lyon Pratt, sculptor, 1918 (Grant Park)

-Illinois Centennial Monument, Evelyn B. Longman, sculptor, 1918 (Logan Square)

-Eugene Field Monument, Edward McCartan, sculptor, 1922 (Lincoln Park)

-Fountain of Time, Lorado Taft, sculptor, 1922 (Washington Park, Midway)

Sculptor Albin Polasek

By the time the massive Fountain of Time was dedicated in late 1922, discussion was already underway for a permanent memorial to Theodore Thomas, who had died in 1905.  The site selected was a location just south of the Art Institute, facing Orchestra Hall (now Symphony Center).

Czech-American sculptor Albin Polasek (1879-1965) was commissioned to create the work, which was titled “The Spirit of Music.”  Polasek began his career as a wood carver in Vienna, immigrating to the United States in his early twenties and settling in Philadelphia.  In 1916, he was invited to head the department of sculpture at the Art Institute, where he remained for over 30 years.  He retired to Winter Park, Florida in 1950 and his home and studio are open to the public as the Albin Polasek Museum andSculpture Gardens.

Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1924

An article in the Chicago Tribune, dated April 13, 1924, noted the following:

“Albin Polasek, head of the sculpture department of the Art Institute, will soon have the satisfaction of seeing his beautiful monument to the memory of Theodore Thomas erected in bronze . . . ‘The Spirit of Music,’ Polasek has called his memorial.  The figure is of heroic size and stands thirteen feet high.  She holds a lyre in her arm, the strings of which she has just struck, the act being indicated by her uplifted right hand.  With its granite pedestal the bronze figure will of course stand several feet higher than its thirteen feet.  The great seat just to the east is a semi-circular affair about forty feet in length.  Upon it figures of the orchestra are carved.  Polasek has done in this a truly powerful and significant piece of sculpture.  It is effective, simple, striking, decorative, impressive, and artistic.”

As noted in A Guide to Chicago’s Public Sculpture by Ira J. Bach and Mary Lackritz Gray (The University of Chicago Press, 1983), the bronze figure, actually 15 feet in height, was “to have the grandeur of a Beethoven symphony and to be ‘feminine . . . but not too feminine.’”  The guide also describes the hemispherical base upon which the figure stands, featuring “low relief figures of Orpheus playing his lyre, Chibiabos, from Longfellow’s ‘Song of Hiawatha’ singing, and a group of animals listening.”  Polasek insisted that the face peering out from a small classical mask at the lower end of the lyre was his own.

Howard Van Doren Shaw

Architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926) collaborated with Polasek on the memorial, designing the massive granite exedra and bench to display Polasek’s incised carving of the orchestra members being led by Thomas.  The back side of the exedra features a memorial panel with Thomas’ bust surrounded by the following inscription:

“Scarcely any many in any land has done so much for the musical education of the people as did Theodore Thomas in this country.  The nobility of his ideals with the magnitude of his achievement will assure him everlasting glory.  1835-1905.”

Dedication

The bronze figure was completed in 1923, the date noted on its base, but was not set into place and unveiled until April 24, 1924.  The dedication ceremony began at 4:00pm with a program and concert in Orchestra Hall.  Thomas championed German music, so it is not surprising that the works performed that afternoon included the Chorale and Fugue by Bach-Albert, the first movement from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, and the Prelude to the Mastersingers of Nuremberg by Wagner.  Charles H. Hamill gave an address on the life and work of Theodore Thomas.  Charles L. Hutchinson, president of the Art Institute and the B. F. Ferguson Monument Fund, presented the memorial, which was accepted by Edward J. Kelly, president of the South Park Commissioners.  (The South Park District merged with others to form the Chicago Park District in 1934).

The assembled audience then adjourned to the location of the monument immediately south of the Art Institute.  Thomas’s daughter, Mrs. D. N. B. Sturgis, unveiled the memorial “while trumpets played a theme from the ninth symphony of Beethoven and crowds stood with bared heads.”

Later History

In 1941, the monument was moved to the north end of Grant Park, very near to the original peristyle designed by Edward H. Bennett.  That structure was demolished in 1953 when the Grant Park underground parking garage was constructed, and The Spirit of Music was placed in storage.  When it was re-erected five years later near Buckingham Foundation, only the bronze figure was installed.

In the late 1980s, the original granite sections of the exedra were found along the edge of Lake Michigan where they had been dumped.  They were retrieved by the Chicago Park District and restored, and the present setting for the memorial was created at the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive.  The rededication of the monument took place on October 18, 1991, concluding the year long celebration of the CSO's centennial season.  Sir Georg Solti was joined by Rafael Kubelik and Daniel Barenboim for the ceremony, which was followed that evening by a concert recreating the very first performance of the orchestra in October 1891.  

The adjacent Spirit of Music Garden has for many years now been home to the popular Summer Dance, continuing, in a somewhat different vein, the legacy of music in the cultural fabric of the City of Chicago.

Statue Stories

In August 2015, The Spirit of Music was one of thirty statues in the city to be featured in “Statue Stories,” funded by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and produced by Sing London.  At each of the thirty sites, visitors can swipe their smart phone and get a call back from a celebrity, telling the story of the monument.  The Spirit of Music story is read by soprano Renee Fleming, creative consultant with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  For more information, visit Statue Stories Chicago.

The South Shore Cultural Center building celebrates its centennial

On January 24, 1916, an entry in Frances Glessner’s journal noted that she went to see the new South Shore Country Club building.  New indeed – the rebuilt Country Club had been formally opened amidst great celebration just four days earlier.  Designed by the architectural firm of Marshall and Fox, the elegant Mediterranean Revival style structure continued to house the Country Club until 1974, when the property was sold to the Chicago Park District and converted into its present use as the South Shore Cultural Center. 

ORIGINS

The Club itself dated to 1905, when Lawrence Heyworth first conceived the idea of a country club in conjunction with the Chicago Athletic Association, of which he was president.  As Heyworth recalled many years later, he desired a country club so that CAA members “could enjoy dining and wining in a beautiful place out in the country instead of having to resort to dives and saloons, which at that time were about the only available suburban places.”

Heyworth assembled a group of directors including Harold F. McCormick, Joseph Leiter, Charles A. Stevens, and Harry I. Miller, and purchased 65 acres of land along Lake Michigan, between 67^th and 71^st Streets.  After formally incorporating the club in April 1906, hey hired the firm of Marshall and Fox to design the building and oversee its construction in quick order “as we could not collect the club dues until we had the grounds and the building finished.”  (The partnership of Marshall and Fox, consisting of Benjamin H. Marshall and Charles E. Fox, was formed in 1905.  This was an important early commission for the firm, which would go on to design projects for a number of club members).  For inspiration, the architects were giving a photograph of an old Mexican club in Mexico City that Lawrence Heyworth liked.   (Newspaper accounts later compared the architectural style to George Washington’s Mt. Vernon, reinforcing the fact that journalists are by no means architectural historians).

The first club house opened on September 29, 1906 with over 600 guests present to christen the building with 92 cases of champagne, valued at $3,000.  That fact led to the headline in the Chicago Tribune the next day which read “New Club Toast Defies Farwell,” acknowledging the protest of Arthur Burrage Farwell and the Hyde Park Protective Association, which was attempting to prevent the serving of liquor in the club, located within a dry district.  The attorneys for the club, used an argument reminiscent of George Wellington “Cap” Streeter, who claimed for himself the land comprising present day Streeterville on the grounds the land wasn’t part of the original plat of the city.  The directors of the club, using similar logic, noted that the land upon which the club stood was “made land” and at the time the boundaries of Hyde Park were drawn, the club land “was under the waters of the lake.”

LAWRENCE HEYWORTH

Heyworth was the son of a successful real estate developer who arrived in Chicago from England in the 1860s.  Growing up amongst the Prairie Avenue crowd, he graduated from Yale with a degree in engineering in 1890.  He obtained a position with the contractor George A. Fuller, who oversaw construction of numerous skyscrapers in the city, including the Monadnock and Rookery buildings.  In 1897, Heyworth wed the daughter of Otto Young, a millionaire wholesale jeweler and real estate investor with an impressive mansion on Calumet Avenue and the largest summer “cottage” at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 

In late 1901, the Heyworths purchased the Howard Van Doren Shaw designed house at 1900 S. Calumet Avenue, just two blocks north of Otto Young’s mansion.  With two young children, the couple appeared to have everything needed for a happy life.  In 1904, Heyworth supervised the construction of a skyscraper at 29 E. Madison Street for his father-in-law, Otto Young.  Designed by Frederick P. Dinkelberg for D. H. Burnham & Co., the classic Chicago School designed building, with lavish tapestry-like ornament, was named the Heyworth Building.  It was designated a Chicago landmark in 2000, the Heyworth name still prominently displayed over the main entrance.

In June 1906, Cecile Young Heyworth sued for divorce from her husband, noting numerous indiscretions that had been documented over the course of a year by a private investigator she had hired.  The couple had not lived together since shortly after the birth of their daughter, Lawrence Heyworth continuing to occupy the Calumet Avenue home.  The divorce was granted on June 9, 1906, just as plans were being finalized for the South Shore Country Club to open.  (Note: The Heyworth’s son Lawrence Jr. achieved notoriety in 1944 when, during his World War II service as a Navy officer, he helped rescue aviator and future president George Bush from the Pacific Ocean).

Heyworth remarried in 1914, and he and his new wife Marguerite moved into a luxurious home in the South Shore neighborhood, not far from his beloved Club.

CLUB EXPANSION

The club thrived and in less than ten years, it became apparent that a much larger club house would be needed to accommodate the growing membership.   The original clubhouse was moved 700 feet to the south, except for the spacious ballroom addition designed by Marshall and Fox in 1909, which was incorporated into the new building.

The new clubhouse, also by Marshall and Fox, was four stories in height and was a greatly enlarged version of the original structure.  The H-shaped plan incorporated the ballroom wing to the south, a corresponding dining room wing to the north, and a huge connecting “passagio” in between, with a solarium projecting toward Lake Michigan. 

Two pairs of symmetrical towers with balconies crowned the low pitched terra cotta tile roof set atop walls clad in cement stucco with a pebble dash finish.  As an article in The Architectural Record noted, “The exterior of the building does not strive for effect through applied ornament.  It is merely a building of good proportions, eminently suitable for its purposes.” 

Members and their guests approached the club house through a stately gatehouse, part of the original 1906 design, and proceeded down a curved driveway lined with a pergola, or trellis covered walk.  The driveway encircled an elaborate garden designed by landscape architect Thomas Hawkes in collaboration with Marshall and Fox. 

The style of the interior was entirely different, incorporating elements of the Classical Revival and Adamesque styles.  The entrance vestibule and corresponding solarium were illuminated with large skylights, reflecting light upon the white diamond patterned floors with Greek key borders. 

Of particular note was the ceiling of the solarium, centered with a huge plaster medallion embellished with the signs of the zodiac. 

The main foyer, known as the Passagio was two stories in height and connected all the main interior spaces.  It was decorated with fine Adamesque details in blue, pink, and white and was illuminated with three huge crystal chandeliers. 

At the south end of the Passagio was the ballroom with Classical details including Ionic columns with gold capitals, clerestory windows, and dentil trim.  Colonnaded side aisles, large arched windows, and beamed ceilings gave a sense of grandeur to the space.

The dining room anchored the north end of the Passagio, and was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, set into colonnaded walls.  A 300-foot terrace surrounded the dining room, and was used for outdoor dining.  Corinthian columns, faux painted to appear like marble, were topped with gold capitals.  

The decoration of the room was done in pink, blue, and white with delicate cameo-like inserts on the ceiling, walls, and chandeliers. 

The building also contained 93 sleeping rooms, billiard parlors, card rooms, libraries, and buffets.  The extensive grounds included stables, a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, a bowling green, and an expansive private beach on Lake Michigan. 

The first event in the new club house was a New Year’s Eve celebration on December 31, 1915 which drew 2,000 people for a midnight supper. 

The formal opening of the clubhouse occurred three weeks later on January 20, 1916 with, once again, more than 2,000 people in attendance to inspect the elegant building which cost in excess of $400,000 to construct.  Lawrence Heyworth noted that the equipment in the new building “is conceded by those who have seen it to be, without exception, the finest in the world.”

LATER HISTORY

By the early 1960s, the racial makeup of the neighborhood had changed dramatically.  The wealthy white families who made up the membership of the club began moving from the neighborhood in large numbers.  In 1967, the club considering opening its membership to Jews (for the first time since the 1930s) and to African Americans (for the first time ever).  When that move was voted down, the fate of the club was sealed.  In 1973, the club voted to liquidate their assets and the final event, the Cotton Ball, was held in the elegant rooms on July 14, 1974.  An auction of the property of the club was held for members later that month.

The property was sold to the Chicago Park District for $9,775,000.  Although the original plans called for the demolition of all the buildings, a coalition of neighborhood activists and historic preservationists convinced the Park District not to demolish and instead convert the clubhouse into the newly christened South Shore Cultural Center.  Over the span of twenty years, the main buildings were renovated and repurposed.  Other buildings, including the original clubhouse built in 1906, were demolished.

The non-profit Advisory Council at the South Shore Cultural Center was formed in 1986 to advise the Park District on all operations of the Cultural Center, to develop and expand cultural, recreational, and education activities for adults and children, and to promote the maintenance and beautification of the park. 

Today, the Center houses the South Shore Cultural Center School of the Arts which includes youth and teen programs, community art classes, the Paul Robeson Theater, a fine art gallery, two dance studios, music practice rooms, and a visual arts studio.  Banquet facilities are available for rent, and the Washburne Culinary Institute operates a teaching program in the Parrot Cage Restaurant.  The golf course continues to operate and is open to the public, as are the beach, picnic areas, gardens, and nature center. 

The Center has been used in several movies including The Blues Brothers where it was used as the “Palace Hotel Ballroom.”  Future president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle held their wedding reception there on October 3, 1992. 

It was designated a Chicago landmark on May 26, 2004.  

Special thanks to William Krueger, author of Chicago's South Shore Country Club (Arcadia Publishing, 2001) for his 2011 tour of the clubhouse and grounds.

Chicago's First Christmas Tree - 1913

On Tuesday, November 24, 2015, the City of Chicago will conduct its 102^nd annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony.  The tree will be located in Millennium Park at Michigan Avenue and Washington Street, just two blocks north of the location of Chicago’s first Christmas tree in 1913.  Since 1966, the official Christmas tree has stood in Daley Plaza (except for 1982 when it was placed at State Street and Wacker Drive).  In this article, we will look at the beginning of the decades long tradition of the placement of the tree in Grant Park.

Charles L. Hutchinson

The idea for the 1913 municipal Christmas tree started many weeks in advance with the creation of the Municipal Christmas Festival Association headed by Charles L. Hutchinson, long time president of the Art Institute.  Hutchinson assembled an impressive list of artisans to assist the effort including architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, and artists Frederic Clay Bartlett, Abram Poole, and Lorado Taft, all of whom “(put) aside their own personal affairs in a public spirited way.”

A large site in Grant Park north of the Art Institute at Monroe Street was selected and christened the “Court of Honor” – a name last used during the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.  In addition to the main tree itself, a large arcade consisting of a series of arches served as a backdrop, with dozens of smaller trees forming a grove.  

On December 19, the top section of the tree was set in place atop a grouping of three huge telephone poles secured in a concrete base.  The top was a single 35-foot tree donated by F. J. Jordan, a former partner of Captain Herman Scheunemann, the famous captain of Chicago’s “Christmas Tree Ship” which had gone down in Lake Michigan the previous year.   In an article which appeared in the Chicago Tribune on December 20, Jordan noted:

“This is the best gift I could give to the city.  I have watched this old tree grow for many years.  Many times I was tempted to bring it to some rich family.  But it didn’t seem quite right to the poor girl and poor boy, who had no tree at all.  Now it belongs to the city, and rich and poor alike may enjoy it.”

The telephone company funded the erection of the tree and Commonwealth Edison furnished the elaborate lighting.  As such, the actual cost of the whole project was only $3,000 – funded by businessmen appointed to the Municipal Christmas Festival Association, and their friends.  Henry Blair donated 25,000 tickets on the street railways which were distributed through various social service agencies to children who would otherwise be unable to attend the festivities.

Crowds began to gather by 4:00pm on Christmas Eve, lining both sides of Michigan Avenue between Monroe and Washington Streets.  The Chicago Band provided entertainment.  Michigan Avenue was closed to traffic at 5:30pm and soon after, Mayor Carter H. Harrison Jr. arrived in the company of Charles L. Hutchinson, with a squadron of twelve mounted buglers from the Illinois National Guard acting as escort.  The ceremony began at 5:45pm.  Charles Hutchinson opened the festivities, concluding with the introduction of the mayor, who ended his remarks with the following statement:

“Let us hope the lights on this tree will so shine out as to be an inspiration to Christian charity and to inject new courage and new hope into the hearts of those not so fortunate as we are.”

Mayor Carter H. Harrison, Jr.

At precisely 6:00pm, the mayor pushed a button to illuminate the 600 varicolored bulbs on the tree and the huge star of Bethlehem at its apex.  The crowd, estimated at 100,000, most of whom had been unable to hear the mayor’s speech, “cheered lustily.” 

One of the more creative aspects of the ceremony setting was designed by artist Abram Poole in collaboration with the Illinois Central Railroad.  The railroad agreed to stop all of its trains during the ceremony and installed a half dozen engines behind the Court of Honor.  According to a Tribune article on December 21:

“Abram Poole has designed a scheme of color and lights such as Chicago has never seen since the nights of splendor at the world’s fair.  The colonnade, which is to form a background for the tree, is to be all trimmed with green, festooned with lights of all kinds, steady and flickering, and behind this will be a crimson splendor of Bengal lights on a still larger, more distant background of white, rolling, billowing, changing steam.”

A “motion picture machine” was installed in one of the office buildings on the west side of Michigan Avenue in order to project onto a huge screen installed between the Christmas tree and the Art Institute.  This was probably the least successful element of the ceremony, as the films did not relate to the holiday festivities, but instead were provided by the Public Safety Commission “to show how carelessness may result in accident.”

Following the illumination of the tree, the band, housed at the north end of the grounds, played a “Salute to the Nations” – a medley of national anthems.  

Crowd facing the Chicago Athletic Association

The crowd then turned to hear a trumpet fanfare coming from the Venetian balcony of the Chicago Athletic Association.  An improvised sounding board had been added to the balcony to improve sound quality and the balustrade was draped in rich red velvet draperies borrowed from the Art Institute.  Bass Henri Scott and tenor George Hamlin sang selections from opera, followed by the opera company chorus and Paulist choir singing selections from the north terrace of the Art Institute.   The ceremony concluded with everyone present joining in the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner.”  The crowd lingered for hours.

The tree was illuminated nightly throughout Christmas week until New Year’s Day.  The Association pronounced the entire event a huge success, with the hopes that it would become an annual event.  More than a century later, we can thank these civic minded individuals for starting what has become one of Chicago’s most anticipated and best loved holiday traditions.

Next week: A century ago – the Christmas tree of 1915 as recalled by John Glessner; perhaps the most spectacular municipal Christmas tree of all.

Second Presbyterian Church Designated a National Historic Landmark

On March 11, 2013, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Director of the National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis announced the designation of 13 new National Historic Landmarks, including Second Presbyterian Church located at 1936 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood.  National Historic Landmarks are nationally significant historic places that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States.  The program, established in 1935, is administered by the National Park Service on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior.  Currently there are 2,540 designated National Historical Landmarks, of which 85 are in the State of Illinois.

Second Presbyterian Church, already listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a designated Chicago landmark, is one of only three churches in the state to be elevated to this highest landmark status.  The others are Unity Temple in Oak Park designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Church of the Holy Family in Cahokia, a 1799 log structure and the oldest church building west of the Alleghany Mountains.  Other significant National Historic Landmarks in Chicago include the Auditorium Building, the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Store, the Charnley-Persky House, Glessner House Museum, Hull House, Orchestra Hall, the Pullman Historic District, the Reliance Building, the Robie House, the Rookery Building, S. R. Crown Hall, and the Site of the First Self-Sustaining Nuclear Reaction.

The official press release issued by the Secretary of the Interior noted that “Second Presbyterian Church represents the visual and philosophical precepts of the turn of the century Arts and Crafts design movement.  Its interior, the masterwork of noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, presents some of the finest examples of Arts and Crafts mural painting, sculpture, stained glass and crafting in metals, fabrics, wood and plaster.”

The sanctuary of the church is widely regarded as one of the largest and best preserved Arts and Crafts interiors in the nation, created in 1900-1901 following a devastating fire which destroyed the original sanctuary but left the exterior limestone walls intact.  Shaw, a highly-regarded Chicago architect studied the emerging English Arts and Crafts movement extensively and used its ideals to create an American version of the style in buildings ranging from private residences to factories.  He enlisted other leading Chicago craftsmen to help design the interior of the church including muralist Frederic Clay Bartlett, stained glass artisans Giannini & Hilgart, and lighting designer Willy H. Lau.  The sanctuary also contains a wealth of important stained glass windows including nine by the firm of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and two rare English windows designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and manufactured by Morris & Company.

Second Presbyterian Church, founded in 1842, has been an important cultural institution and community center since it opened at its present location in 1874, serving a multi-cultural congregation, and providing programming including After School Matters, a concert series and much more.  Friends of Historic Second Church, a separate not-for-profit organization formed in 2006, has as their mission to “preserve and restore the internationally recognized art and architecture of Chicago's landmark Second Presbyterian Church, educate a worldwide audience about its historical and cultural significance, and share those resources with the community.”

The church has become a valuable partner with Glessner House Museum, offering visitors the rare opportunity to see some of the finest examples of Arts and Crafts design in both ecclesiastical and residential settings.  Tours of the church are offered by Friends on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:00 to 3:00pm and on Sundays at 12:15pm.  For further information on tours and the art and architectural treasures of the church, visit www.2ndpresbyterianfriends.org or call 800-657-0687.

Below are images showcasing just a few of the many extraordinary features of the church.

Pre-Raphaelite mural by Frederic Clay Bartlett

Original ingrain carpeting purchased through Marshall Field & Company

Organ loft drapery detail

Pulpit chair designed by Shaw

Pulpit candelabra (above) and detail (below)

Globe light fixture, recently restored

Plaster detail on ceiling

Decorative plaster panels on face of balcony

Baptismal font, carved from a solid block of limestone

St. Cecilia window, designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones,

made by Morris & Company

Pastoral Window by Tiffany Studios

Ascension Window, designed by William Fair Kline,

made by Calvert and Kimberly for the
Church Glass and Decorating Company