Quirky History in the Printers Row Area
Original Chinatown (Chicago Tribune, Jan 22, 1911, page 61)
SW side of Clark and Van Buren, across from the prison
Half a block remains downtown of Chicago’s original Chinatown. A Chicago Tribune reporter visited the street in 1911. He reported most of the Chinese workers had been displaced by the skyscraper boom expanding south. Italians and Hungarians were running the barber shops and laundries. There was still an exclusive Chinese residential neighborhood “around narrow Federal Street,” consisting of the Canton Hotel and a row of brownstones.
The reporter noted many elements of the old Chinatown were missing by 1911 — no more Tong Wars, idol worship, mysticism, or the opium dens. He spoke at length with someone, identified only by a nickname, about the lack of the type of architecturally ornate Chinatown that was luring the new auto tourists to New York and San Francisco. They discussed a scheme for tourism on Federal Street that sounds very much like what would be built in Armour Square after WWI.
What caught my attention in the article was the mention of the nearby “nook of Bohemia” that was frequented by “Americans.” While there is much discussion of the printers and publishers of the area, I see little mention of the content creators. The term Bohemian, referring to hipsters and artisans, is usually credited to New York City during prohibition in the USA. We should be looking more closely at turn of the century and early 1900s Chicago.
Read more about Old Chinatown at Preservation Chicago https://preservationchicago.org/chicago07/old-chinatown/
Opium Smoking (Chicago Tribune, Nov 3, 1901, page 39)
Original Chinatown
According to a 1901 Tribune article, opium smoking was seen a problem in Chicago by the late 1800s. Allegedly, dens could be found among Chinese laundries around the city. The largest concentration was on S Clark, between Van Buren and Harrison, in the “cheaper grade of Chinese tea stores and curio shops.”
The article pointed out it was rude to ask another user to share paraphernalia. It would be like asking to use another person’s tooth brush. Everyone was expected to purchase their own equipment. To enter the dens, it was noted, “All that was needful was that the smoker not be a member of the police force or a person without money.”
In an effort to curtail opium, Illinois made it illegal for two or more people to smoke together. The article described “inexperienced slummers,” in addition to “criminals,” seeking out the illicit hidden rooms expecting to find opulence in return for the expense. Instead, the den furnishings were usually cheap and shabby, as they were likely to be seized during raids.
The article concluded the problem of opium was being made worse by the new laws. People were buying their supplies and taking the drug home to avoid prosecution. Criminals in the North Side courts were showing increased addiction to opium.
Creative people, in the Victorian Era and later, smoked opium. It seems likely they would have been drawn to S Clark Street in Chicago. Writers, and other related workers, would have benefited from the close proximity to Printers Row.
Hidden Underground Freight Tunnels 1904–1959 (Chicago Tribune, Oct 28, 1980, page 25)
30 to 40 feet below the surface of the city streets is an abandoned city of freight tunnels. Printers Row is near the southern end of a network of 58 miles of small tunnels with tracks around the Loop. The tunnels opened in 1904 to deal with the congestion of a growing metropolis sharing the streets with the country’s cross-country freight shipping hub, according to a 1980 article.
The system reached its zenith in 1914. The tunnels connected most of the railway freight houses, department stores, warehouses, and office buildings utilizing “150 mine-type locomotives.” It was deserted by 1959. After WWII the fabric of American life was greatly altered by the shift to the suburbs and use of surface trucks on paved roads for shipping.
The article noted later proposals for the abandoned tunnels included mushroom farming to “containing prisoners in times of civil disturbance.” While underground infrastructure isn’t sexy, it was Chicago’s amazing transportation system that helped industries like publishing thrive during the twentieth century.
Tinpan Terrace (Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1910, page 77)
Exact address unknown
Chicago has long been noted for its music scene. In the early 1900s New York City, their music publishing industry was nicknamed Tin Pan (or Tinpan) Alley. In Chicago, a 1910 article said publishers of rag time music were concentrated in a single building referred to as Tinpan Terrace. The reporter didn’t give the exact location, although he noted there were music publishers along Clark Street.
The reporter complained rag time was making an “early summer assault” on the classics in 1910. The music could be compared to the noise from the canning factories of the stockyards, and “not in the least like the sort of warble stuff to be heard in the halls of the Fine Arts building or the musical colleges.” He lamented the destruction of popular music and that Tinpan Terrace “had gone mad.”
Monadnock Building
53 West Jackson Boulevard
According to Wikipedia, “The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root and built starting in 1891. The tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed, it employed the first portal system of wind bracing in America. Its decorative staircases represent the first structural use of aluminum in building construction. The south half, constructed in 1893, was designed by Holabird & Roche and is similar in color and profile to the original, but the design is more traditionally ornate. When completed, it was the largest office building in the world. The success of the building was the catalyst for an important new business center at the southern end of the Loop.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadnock_Building
The Monadnock Building is part of the Printers Row House Historic District. Many businesses related to the industry were housed there. Notice the use of bricks. It resembles an adobe style building of the Southwest, in that the walls are very thick at the base to help support the weight. According to Preservation Chicago, the area of the original Chinatown was known as Little Cheyenne, “as it had all of the ‘Lawlessness of the Old West and was lined with every sort of dive, saloon, gambling house, and house of ill-repute…’”
According to Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon, in the second half of the nineteenth century, “[O]ne cannot understand the growth of Chicago without understanding its special relationship to the vast region lying to its west.” Williams also says, “[N]o city played a more important role in shaping the landscape and economy of the midcontinent…”
At the time the skyscraper skyline of the late 1880s was being constructed on the edge of Printers Row, Chicago was the center of the United States cattle industry and the gateway city to the American West. Chicago was as much of a Western city as it was Eastern.
Printing Press
Corner of Federal & Harrison
An actual old printing press sits out on the sidewalk.
Grace Place (Chicago Tribune, Oct 10, 1920, page 126)
637 S Dearborn
The early 1900s skyscraper boom that seemed destined to overrun Printers Row was halted by WWI. After the war, real estate speculation was tentative. A skyscraper proposed for Chinatown in 1911, at Clark and Van Buren, appears to have never been built. The tallest buildings began to appear further north and along the lake shoreline. With improved both public and private transport, lakeshore living didn’t have to be limited to summer resorts.
With the advent of the automobile, coupled with the race riots of 1919, the city was ready to spread out more in the early 1920s. A new Chinatown was built south of Roosevelt Road, instead of the earlier discussions about a tourist attraction on Federal Street. The very last Asian hold outs of the area would be displaced by the 1970s, from urban renewal, to New Chinatown on the North Side, now centered around Asia on Argyle.
A short article in 1920 said a new 4 story building was planned by a real estate developer in Printers Row. It would cost $80,000, be finished by the new year, and be rented exclusively to printers at 637 S Dearborn.
The final 3 story building is now Grace Place. Printers would remain in the area until the publishing industry collapsed. The promises of urban renewal have been slow to materialize for the neighborhood.
Chicago Klan №15
19 W Adams St,
While most people tend to think the Ku Klux Klan being active in the south, Chicago has the dubious distinction of having had the largest concentration of KKK members in the country in the early 1920s, according to The Ku Klux Klan in City 1915–1930 by Kenneth T. Jackson. Publications both for and against KKK activities sprang up around the country. The pro-Klan Chicago Dawn: A Journal for True American Patriots started around the University of Chicago campus. Hyde Park, and surrounding neighborhoods, would always make up the bulk of its advertisers. By March of 1923 it had moved downtown and was “practically demolished by a crudely made black powder bomb” in April. By February of 1924 it had ceased publication.
Tolerance, produced by the American Unity League to fight the KKK, was published weekly at 127 N Dearborn. Until it was forced out of business by a lawsuit, it was one of the most effective papers in the country at exposing Klan activities. They ran the names and addresses of the secret membership. See http://willennar.pastperfectonline.com/library/90842596-BFEB-447A-A678-348511044768
The KKK chapter from the 1920s closest to Printers Row I’ve been able to locate was Klan no. 15 at 19 W Adams, which is likely the western end of Berghoff restaurant, although numbering of city streets has changed over the years.
Money Museum https://www.chicagofed.org/education/money-museum/index
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 230 S LaSalle St
When it comes to printing, nothing beats the ability to print money. The federal government has a network of regional reserve banks to manage the currency it issues. The Midwestern headquarters for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin is located in Chicago. The public is invited to visit their Money Museum.
From Atlas Obscura — “Located in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, a massive currency storage and processing center, the Money Museum tries to make money fun with zany exhibits such as a cube containing a million one dollar bills and a change filled ‘money pit’ that would make Scrooge McDuck jealous.”
What the best part? “Admittance to the museum is free and in fact, factoring in the sack of torn up money most guests leave with (usually consisting of around $400), this may be the only museum that pays you to visit.” https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/money-museum
Park no. 543 Printers Row Fountain https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/park-no-543/
Between Federal & Dearborn, Harrison & Polk
While maps tend to list the name as “Printers Row Park,” it’s technically Park no. 543 of the Chicago Park District.
