Yale Apartments

“Besides houses, he designed several prominent churches and schools in the community, including the First Presbyterian Church of Englewood (64th and Yale, demolished), the Covenant Baptist Church, the Shurtliff School (71st St. and Yale) and the Harvard Club (63rd St. and Harvard, demolished).”

“After a period of neglect, the Yale is currently being converted into senior apartments. The Yale Apartments has been recognized for its architectural quality over time. It was identified as significant in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey and has been individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.”

“The Yale Apartments is significant as a large, finely crafted high-rise apartment building built in response to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and resulting real estate development in nearby neighborhoods such as Englewood.”

“The building exhibits excellent craftsmanship in both materials and detailing, utilizing limestone, yellow brick and terra cotta to create both Romanesqueand Classical-style ornament. The Yale Apartments possesses a rare early interior atrium, ringed with galleries and topped by a glass-and-metal skylight.”

“Within several years, all tall buildings utilized such construction, including the Yale Apartments. Other innovations in building technology also contributed to taller high-rise construction. Improvements in elevator design, including the development of electric-powered elevators in the late 1880s, made upper-floor offices more desirable.”

“New windows are visually compatible with the historic character of the building. The Yale Apartments also retains its unusual interior atrium. Although details of the atrium have been changed over time, including the installation of new metal railings, the atrium retains its overall historic sense of space and volume and remains an impressive feature of the building.”

“Windows are ornamented with yellow terra cotta. The building's main entrance faces Yale Ave. and is set within a larger two-story archway built of gray limestone. A secondary cornice separates the top floor from those below, while the building parapet is ornamented with Classical-style swags.”

“Along with its overall Romanesque Revival design, the Yale has both Romanesqueand Classical-style ornament. Romanesque details include the building entrance arch, with its foliate ornamentation, and round-arched windows on the building's third and top floor.”

“The Yale Apartments possesses excellent physical integrity, displaying through its siting, scale and overall design its historic relationship to the surrounding Englewood neighborhood. It retains its historic overall exterior form, materials and detailing, including limestone and terra-cotta ornament.”

“Typically, a light court rose above a building's first two or three floors, which served as a "podium" for the building's upper floors, which would then wrap around the light court in a U- or O-configuration.”