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State & Madison

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Found in Tour: Heart of the Downtown, 2: The Northeast Loop

Landmark Images:

View of Booksellers' Row before the Fire; Lovejoy & Foster, Stereograph, ca. 1871 (ichi-29598)

This five-story marble-front building, on the east side of State Street just north of Madison, was one of the major retail structures erected as part of the shift during the late 1860s of Chicago’s upscale retail shopping area from Lake Street to State.

Booksellers' Row after the Chicago Fire; Lovejoy & Foster, Stereograph, 1871 (ichi-29599)

The loss of Booksellers' Row was one of the much-mourned blows to Chicago’s intellectual and cultural life suffered as a result of the fire.

Corner of State and Madison after the Fire; Photograph, 1871 (ichi-02811)

A few scattered people and four horse-drawn streetcars are the only signs of life and movement in this major intersection in what had been the city's emerging retail center. Some broadsides are posted on the ruins, and some of the rubble has been gathered into piles, but the awesome wreck of the old city and the smoky atmosphere still dominate the scene.

East Side of State Street, Looking North from Madison; Copelin Album, Photograph, 1878-79 (ichi-04753)

The area around State and Madison bounced back relatively quickly. Field & Leiter rebuilt a block to the north, at Washington Street, in 1873, and soon the ornate Colonnade Building rose on part of the site where Booksellers Row had been. Here we see an entire row of handsome five-story buildings containing stores (including the Mandel Brothers department store, second from the corner) and offices, in the center of which is the Colonnade. Just to the north, across Washington Street, is the 1878 Field & Leiter Store, which was constructed after the 1873 building was lost to another fire in 1877. Note the horses and the vehicles that brought the well-to-do “carriage trade” to State Street.

The major retail occupant of the Colonnade Building was Jansen, McClurg & Company, which was a book publisher as well as seller of books and stationery. It also published Chicago's leading late-nineteenth-century literary and cultural magazine, The Dial. In 1886 the company became A. C. McClurg. Its most successful title was Tarzan of the Apes, by Chicagoan Edward Rice Burroughs, published in 1914.

State Street looking north from Madison Street; J. W. Taylor, Photograph, ca. 1890 (ichi-22260)

The view here is similar to the preceding one, though now more directly up State Street. The intersection of State and Madison was well on its way to establishing its self-congratulatory reputation as “the world’s busiest street corner.”

State and Madison; Photograph, ca. 1889 (ichi-23658)

The view is west along Madison Street. Note the giant eyeglass frame on the side of the building on the left.

View West on Madison Street; J. Sherwin Murphy, Photograph, 1955 (ichi-64379)

The viewpoint is slightly to the north of that in the previous image. Over the years a series of McVicker’s theaters occupied this same location on the south Side of Madison Street. The first, built by James H. McVicker, opened in 1857 and, like Crosby’s Opera House, had been remodeled shortly before the great fire closed it down. It was soon rebuilt, and in the 1880s it was remodeled by the architectural firm of Adler & Sullivan, which at the turn of the century designed the Carson Pirie Scott Building (originally the Schlesinger and Mayer Store) on the southeast corner of State and Madison. This McVicker's was replaced in 1922 by the classical Greek structure viewed here. It was demolished in 1985. During its long history McVicker’s presented everything from Sarah Bernhardt to minstrel shows to vaudeville to big-budget movie extravaganzas to pornographic films.

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