Uptown Square District

“These spectacular designs made Rapp & Rapp the king of movie palace architecture. The Uptown Theater's 4,381 seats made it the largest theater in the world until the opening of New York City's 6,500 seat Radio City Music Hall seven years later.”

“Among the oldest remaining structures in the Uptown Square district are the three apartment buildings constructed on the north side of Lawrence Avenue, between Winthrop and Kenmore. The designs of these three buildings—the Middlekauf Apartments (#39) (1901, architect John S. Woollacott), the Lawrence Apartments (#42) (1902, architect E. A. Hogenson), and the Fleur-de-lis Apartments (#43) (1905, architect Frank V. Newell) reflect the popular residential styles of the period, featuring Queen Anne massing and Classical Revival details.”

“These visually appealing, high-style designs were intended to bring attention to their uses and set the Uptown Square area apart from other commercial districts in the city. This district is also extraordinary for the quantity, variety, and flamboyant nature of decorative terra cotta employed in its buildings.”

“Much of their work was on luxury houses and grand apartments buildings, but Huszagh & Hill also worked on some of Uptown Square's most striking buildings: the Aragon Ballroom, the Wilton Hotel, the New Lawrence Hotel, and an addition to the Uptown Bank Building.”

“Uptown Square is also renowned for its exuberant style of architecture, which contributes to the district's distinctive character. Many buildings are at least four stories in height and include apartment hotels, office buildings, and theaters.”

“The Wilson Avenue Theater (originally the Standard Vaudeville Theater) at 1050 West Wilson (#57), the oldest theater in the Uptown Square District, opened in 1909 as a Standard Vaudeville venue.”

“The Lakeside, a two-story Classical Revival building designed by Chicago architect Ralph C. Harris, was the first movie theater to open in Uptown. The theater was one of a group of venues operated by the Ascher Brothers, one of the largest movie theater operators in the city during the 1910s and 1920s.”

“The first retail tenant of this small building was the Fannie May Candy Company. 1925 advertisements for the new shop (Fannie May's 28th in the city) in the Chicago Daily Tribune showed renderings of the building alongside the Uptown Theatre, with the slogan, “Good Candy and good entertainment go together.” The utilitarian brick facade of the adjacent North Side Fireproof Storage Building, immediately north of the theater, was replaced by a cream-colored terra cotta facade that complemented the facade of the Uptown.”

“The large number of small inexpensive apartments were attractive to recent migrants. Tens of thousands of white Appalachian and American Indian migrants settled in Uptown during the 1950s and 1960s.”

“The terra cotta ornament used throughout the Uptown Square District is executed in various colors and finishes, ranging from red and buff matte finishes to multicolored enamel glazes.”