Michigan Avenue and Terrace Row

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Found in Tour: Michigan Avenue

Landmark Images:
Michigan Avenue from Park Row; Louis Kurz for Jevne & Almini, 1866-67 (ichi-63068)

Michigan Avenue from Park Row; Louis Kurz for Jevne & Almini, 1866-67 (ichi-63068)

The viewpoint is north from a point in line with what is now Eleventh Street.  At this time the Illinois Central tracks and the breakwater to the east of it, both erected in the early 1850s (the railroad agreed to build the breakwater, which protected the shoreline, in exchange for the right to lay its tracks here), created a small lagoon along the shore.  Note the fenced and tree-lined pathway between the lake and Michigan Avenue, the soldiers conducting exercises, and the telegraph poles.

Terrace Row; Copelin & Melander, Stereograph, 1871 (ichi-64156)

Terrace Row; Copelin & Melander, Stereograph, 1871 (ichi-64156)

Designed by W. W. Boyington and erected in 1856 along Michigan Avenue south of Van Buren Street (just north of what would be the site of the Auditorium), Terrace Row caused a stir. Its eleven contiguous luxury homes were an innovative form of upscale Chicago urban living that seemed ostentatious to many at the time. The price of these four-story limestone-faced residences ran very high—from $18,000 to $30,000.

Michigan Avenue from the Lake; Louis Kurz for Jevne & Almini, Lithograph, 1866-67 (ichi-62074)

Michigan Avenue from the Lake; Louis Kurz for Jevne & Almini, Lithograph, 1866-67 (ichi-62074)

This view looking south and east toward Michigan Avenue before the fire documents the recent appearance of imposing residences facing the lake, indicating that this location was highly desirable in spite of the presence of the Illinois Central tracks and trains right along the lakefront.  Terrace Row is visible in the distance on the left.

Terrace Row after the Fire; P. B. Greene, Stereograph, 1871 (ichi-64279)

Terrace Row after the Fire; P. B. Greene, Stereograph, 1871 (ichi-64279)

William Bross—former lieutenant governor, co-owner of the Tribune, and Chicago booster extraordinaire—was one of those burnt out of Terrace Row. He described the building's last minutes: "The fire had already worked so far south and east as to attack the stables in the rear of Terrace Row, between Van Buren and Congress streets. Many friends rushed into the houses in the block, and helped to carry out heavy furniture, such as pianos and bookcases. We succeeded in carrying the bulk of it to the shore. There I sat with a few others by our household goods, calmly awaiting the destruction of our property--one of the most splendid blocks in Chicago."

Tuthill King Family Furniture (ichi-64451)

Tuthill King Family Furniture (ichi-64451)

According to family lore, the members of the Tuthill King family, who were among those who lost their homes in Terrace Row, brought this drawing room set (now in the collections of the Chicago History Museum) with them when they moved from Boston to Chicago in the mid-1830s. The furniture made the trip via the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. With the fire approaching, King realized that it was time to make a shorter but more harrowing journey. He purchased a horse and wagon, loaded the furniture into the wage along with some clothing and personal papers, and then set off with his wife for their daughter's house on Washington Boulevard in the West Division. Since the fire made a direct route impossible, they took a long detour south before crossing the river and heading back north.

The furniture was worth saving.  It was the work of the German-born craftsman John Henry Belter, who was based in New York and specialized in rosewood furniture in the rococo manner of Louis XV, who ruled France from 1715 to 1774.  Belter’s work defined high taste in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.  His furniture of this type is known in the contemporary antiques market as being in the Tuthill King style.  

King made his fortune in real estate.  In 1885, at the age of eighty-one, he created a sensation of sorts when, with his wife just three months in the grave, he announced his engagement to his forty-five-year-old nurse.  A story on the betrothal in the New York Times noted that King did not look his age.  “He is of medium height and weight, hale and pleasant looking, wears gold-rimmed glasses, and a white fringe of Horace Greeley whiskers,” the reporter wrote.  “He is eccentric in his manner and speech, and very candid.  He says his children have been fooling him for several years, but he intends to show them that ‘the old man is boss yet.’”

View South of Michigan Avenue from the West Side of the Illinois Central Railroad Tracks; J. W. Taylor, Photograph, ca. 1890 (ichi-20505)

View South of Michigan Avenue from the West Side of the Illinois Central Railroad Tracks; J. W. Taylor, Photograph, ca. 1890 (ichi-20505)

The lagoon between the Illinois Central tracks and the shoreline were by now filled in, in substantial part with rubble from the fire.  The presence of the tracks, which dominated the downtown lakefront since the early 1850s, was an aesthetic problem that would not be solved until the tracks were “sunken” by piling more fill around them as part of the early twentieth century development of Grant Park.  The three tall buildings along the right are in the block below Van Buren where Terrace Row had stood.  From left to right they are Adler & Sullivan’s Auditorium (1889), Solon S. Beman’s Fine Arts Building (1889, originally the Studebaker Building), and Burnham & Root’s original Art Institute of Chicago (1873), which became the Chicago Club when the Art Institute moved to its current home (Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, 1892) on the east side of Michigan Avenue at Adams Street.

Inter-State Exposition Building; J. W. Taylor, Photograph, ca. 1890 (ichi-64394)

Inter-State Exposition Building; J. W. Taylor, Photograph, ca. 1890 (ichi-64394)

The Inter-State Exposition Building, an immense structure designed by W. W. Boyington and built in 1873, stood on the east side of Michigan Avenue at Adams Street.  Until it was replaced by the current Art Institute of Chicago building in 1892, it hosted under its glass and iron roof (crowned with three cupolas) a series of trade shows, musical performances, political meetings, and public gatherings. The most significant event, however, was the original Inter-State Exposition, which ran from late September to mid-November of 1873. Its official aim was to promote the commercial promise of the upper Middle West, but its more important purpose was to declare the rebuilding a triumph.

Michigan Avenue, North from Congress Street; Kaufman & Fabry, Photograph, 1911 (ichi-14407)

Michigan Avenue, North from Congress Street; Kaufman & Fabry, Photograph, 1911 (ichi-14407)

The view up Michigan Avenue forty years after the fire.  We clearly see the Fine Arts Building, the Chicago Club, and, across the street, the Art Institute of Chicago.  Visible in the distance at Madison Street is the 394-foot Montgomery Ward Building (1899), on which is perched the statue of "Progress Lighting the Way for Commerce."

Aerial View of Central Downtown Chicago; Photograph, 1926 (ichi-05798)

Aerial View of Central Downtown Chicago; Photograph, 1926 (ichi-05798)

By this point Chicago's signature Michigan Avenue wall of buildings was well developed, the Art Institute had added its 1924-25 extension across the Illinois Central tracks, and Grant Park (which acquired its name in 1901) was beginning to be landscaped.  Railroad facilities still dominated what would become Millennium Park, north of the Art Institute and Monroe Street.