1449 S. Michigan Avenue

Two major recording studios were headquartered in the 1900 building: Vee Jay Records (1960 – 1966) and Brunswick Records (1966 – 1976). The Four Seasons, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson and John Lee Hooker recorded here. The Beatles’ first U.S. album was on the Vee Jay label and distributed here.

—Frederick Nachman

Whether by neglect or new development, Chicago lost several historic or architecturally important structures in 2015.

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Within Chicago’s Loop neighborhood, among the urban canyons of soaring glass & steel office buildings, there is a unique and rare collection of architecture: the commercial buildings erected in the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire. These are commonly referred to as the “Post-Fire” era buildings, built from 1872 up until the advent of modern building materials and advanced construction techniques. These unprecedented approaches to commercial architecture facilitated the birth of the multi-story “skyscraper” in the early-mid 1880s, notably William Le Baron Jenney’s Home Insurance Building erected in 1883.

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