Chicago interiors

the long version

No one doubts the important of a building's exterior. Chicago itself is symbolized by the Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, the John Hancock. But it is the interiors of buildings that reveal changing fashions and taste, the way people thought of themselves and their times. In this book, David Lowe, the author of the highly praised Lost Chicago, leads the reader through the doors of Chicago's beautiful restaurants and impressive hotels, its sumptuous residencies and exclusive clubs, its powerful train stations and chic night spots. Here is the post-fire Palmer House, the La Salle Hotel's roof garden, Astor Street's Court of the Golden Hand when it was a private house, the South Shore Country Club in its heyday, and old Washington park race track. David Lowe discusses in his introduction the important of the interior as a sign of the times and details some of the changing styles that have swept over Chicago. In all there are some 250 rare illustrations in this book, many reproduced here for the first time, many of vanished places. They are the result of long research in Chicago's great pictorial archives, as well as those of New York, Washington, Boston, and other cities. This is a book to delight those who would love to dine in the Pump Room, dance at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, and then catch the last act at the Palmer House's Empire Room.