Since my series on monumental lighting is moving slowly I thought I would post some older blog entries. This one is from my old MySpace account, viewed by at least half a dozen people.
This is a detail of a projecting terra cotta bay on a strange late Gothic Rennaisance Revival building in Rogers Park. Somehow the builders took a lot with a 50 foot frontage and dropped a 13 story building on it. To be fair, it's pretty nice looking, with some exceptional terra cotta details. And how about those cat brackets supporting the bays? Maybe they're supposed to be lions, but they look too lean. According to the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, the architects were Koenigsburg & Westfeld. Every hear of them? I'm guessing probably not. This used to be the Pratt Lane Hotel.
I was thinking about people in the Lakeview neighborhood upset about new buildings next to them that are 2 or 3 stories taller. Imagine living in the single family home next this building in 1927 and seeing steel columns being sunk 6 inches from the property line. And construction continued for 3 years... Maybe the whole neighborhood would have followed suit if the Depression hadn't hit.
Looking at this again I realize that the scan is pretty crummy. I may have to dig up the original and rescan. Or perhaps the original drawing is crummy. If that's the case, I'm out of luck.
My grandparents lived there for many years. On the 14th floor. Of course 13 was unlucky, so there was no 13th floor. The view from the fire escape outside their apartment door was incredible (and scary for me back then). Do you have any other information about it?
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P.S. I remember we got stuck in the main elevator a lot. So my family preferred to take the freight elevator where the shaft was closer to my grandparents' apartment at the end of the building.
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My great grandfather was the manager of Pratt Lane Hotel in 1932.
ReplyDeletei lived there from 1988 until 1990, in the front apartment on the 13th, aka, 14th floor. We left because the apartment was haunted by an angry woman. Many occurances witnessed by many, including balls of light, scratching and object manipulation. The strangest feature of this apartment was the walk in closet, which sported the scars of 22 locks from the top of the door to the bottom. It was always cold and had a habit of popping open when shut and the light would come on by itself. One spring day, there was a loud bang from the closet, and when we investigated it, there was a whole blown through the closet wall into the bedroom. That was pretty much the final straw. The activity increased as i grew further along in my 1st pregnancy, so we moved.
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ReplyDeleteI lived in apartment 1306 (top floor) for 15 years in the 40's and 50's.
ReplyDeleteHello Larry ... I just found this site & have been having a wonderful time down 'Memory Lane' .... I lived in The Pratt Lane Hotel in the early 50's & grew up in East Rogers Park as a child. I was hoping to get some info from your regarding, if, #1, you have pictures available of The Granada Theater and/or the corner of Pratt & Sheridan in general. Also, I've been trying to find the name & pictures of an old hotel that was on Lake Shore Drive, just some blocks down the road where the street curves and veers off to Michigan Ave. If there is a site I can go to to get this information and/or pixs, please advise. Thank You, 'The Rogers Park' Girl
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