Chicago Daily News Building

That building served as the Daily News' headquarters until about 1959 or so, when Field Enterprises (the department store colossus that also owned the Sun-Times) bought the Daily News and moved it to the Sun-Times' building.

Chicago had four newspapers when I was growing up in the area in the '60s and '70s and the Daily News was the feistiest and most aggressive of the bunch until it hit the financial skids in the mid-'70s and finally folded in '78.

One unfortunate aspect of that old Daily News building is that I have heard that Sam Zell's office is there. The guy still ticks me off, even though he's no longer wreaking havoc at Tribune Co.

 

The Daily News building is usually passed by people walking to Union Station without most realizing what it was. There are some cool friezes (not including John) on the side of the building that make it cooler/more obviously art deco up close than these panoramic views indicate.

 

The Chicago and North Western terminal was next door and commuters would walk through a concourse in the old Daily News building to a street-level exit. During my childhood, that concourse had a mural on the ceiling that depicted scenes from producing a newspaper, even though the Daily News had moved.

The Opera House building across the river isn't a prominent part of the skyline anymore, but it was one of the tallest in Chicago well into the '60s. There was a huge "Kemper Insurance" sign at the top of the building back then. One of my high school English classes went there for a field trip to see the ballet, which wasn't exactly on my list of "must-see" activities as a teen.

 

I walked passed this building today along the river and noticed the names of some publishing giants inscribed above some windows.

The names are (Joseph) Pulitzer, (Samuel) Bowles, (Joseph) Medill, (Benjamin) Franklin, (James Gordon) Bennett, (Charles Anderson) Dana, (Victor) Lawson, and (Horace) Greeley.

http://chicago-architecture-jyoti.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html

As a Mount Rushmore of newspaper publishing, how do you think it does?

 

Some big names from the passed.

 

No Murdoch. Fail.