Chicago Daily News Building

[YankeeFan]

I installed an espresso machine in this building today.

I've always thought it was a beautiful building, and especially love how it pairs with the Opera House across the river.

I'd never been inside it before today though.

It's a little "scarred" with the walkway through the middle of it, but you can tell it was something special in its day.

Does anyone have any recollections of this building from its heyday?

 

[LongTimeListener]

Mundane and nondescript.

 

[da man]

Its heyday? How the hell old do you think we are?

 

[YankeeFan]

Its heyday? How the hell old do you think we are?

Well, I know we have some old timers here, and I was thinking maybe someone had a father or uncle, or something that worked in the building when it was still putting out a newspaper.

Daily News died in '78/'79? But they moved in with the Sun-Times before they died, right?

 

[YankeeFan]

Mundane and nondescript.

Exactly!

 

[HanSenSE]

The newspaper next to the opera house?

 

[I Should Coco]

Seeing that huge former newspaper building made me wonder again about Tribune Tower.

With way fewer employees, how much of the Trib's building is leased out these days?

 

[Joe Williams]

My recollections don't date back before the Sun-Times and the Daily News shared a building where the Trump Tower now stands.

What is the address (or intersection) of this old Daily News building?

 

[YankeeFan]

My recollections don't date back before the Sun-Times and the Daily News shared a building where the Trump Tower now stands.

What is the address (or intersection) of this old Daily News building?

Bounded by Washington to the North, the river to the East, Madison to the South, and Canal to the West.

Current address is now 2 N. Riverside Plaza. It's directly across from the Opera House, which was build after the Daily News building, but is similar enough looking in materials and design to be a very complimentary complementary building.

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1XZ2

 

[Riptide]

Current address is now 2 N. Riverside Plaza. It's directly across from the Opera House, which was build after the Daily News building, but is similar enough looking in materials and design to be a very complimentary building.

"Well, hello, Daily News. You're looking exceptionally good today."

"Why, thank you, Opera House! I got some sun yesterday."

 

[Joe Williams]

My recollections don't date back before the Sun-Times and the Daily News shared a building where the Trump Tower now stands.

What is the address (or intersection) of this old Daily News building?

Bounded by Washington to the North, the river to the East, Madison to the South, and Canal to the West.

Current address is now 2 N. Riverside Plaza. It's directly across from the Opera House, which was build after the Daily News building, but is similar enough looking in materials and design to be a very complimentary complementary building.

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1XZ2

Thanks, YF. I got it now. I was thinking the east side of the river rather than the west.
Never knew that building as the Daily News building and my old man worked in downtown Chicago for a while. I need to find out when they began to bunk with the Sun-Times in that ugly boxy building farther north and east along the Chicago river.

 

[YankeeFan]

The old Sun-Times building was really hideous:

The new Trump Tower/Hotel that replaced it, is actually pretty decent looking, and a nice addition to the skyline:

It's been in the news recently, as Donald finally got permission to emblazon it with his name, in 20' tall letters, which are in the process of going up now:

People are not thrilled with this development:

Leave it to a wealthy New Yorker to raise the ire of the citizens of the Second City.

And it's not because of something he said, or wrote, as a former . It's just five letters, the huge letters of this man's last name lit up for the entire Midwest to see: T-R-U-M-P.

Those five letters, more than 20 feet tall and 141 feet long, are being pasted to the most visible side of Chicago's Trump International Hotel and Tower. The location is about 200 feet above street level, on what by most accounts is an otherwise fairly tasteful skyscraper right between the historic Wrigley Building to the east, the iconic Mies Van Der Rohe IBM building to the west and other late 19th and early 20th century architectural gems (which make the Chicago Architecture Foundation's guided river tours a must-do when visiting here).

And when it's finished, it will be all lit up to glow like a giant bug zapper along Chicago's stunning skyline.

"It'll be like the Hollywood sign," to Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin.

"Just for the record," renowned architect Adrian Smith, who designed Chicago's Trump Tower, tells Kamin, "I had nothing to do with this sign!"

"It's an atrocity," said 35-year-old Zack Tiknis. "I read somewhere that they said it was graffiti. I don't even think it's graffiti, it's just a man who already needed to over-compensate, over-compensating even more. He's got a bloated personality and this is our visual proof."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/08/319810771/trump-stamp-has-many-chicagoans-irked-at-the-donald

 

[Bronco77]

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.

 

[CarlSpackler]

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.

 

[Bronco77]

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.

 

[YankeeFan]

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?

 

[Riptide]

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.

Some big names from the passed.

 

[Joe Williams]

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?

No Murdoch. Fail.