Courthouse Place, also known as the Cook County Criminal Court Building, is a

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesq ...

-style building at 54 West

Hubbard Street Hubbard Street is a street in Chicago, Illinois named for early settler Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard. Hubbard Street has three distinct sections. The first, east of the Chicago River, runs from Kingsbury Street to Michigan Avenue. The second, long ...

in the Near North Side of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. Now an office building, it originally served as a noted courthouse. Designed by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Otto H. Matz and completed in 1893, it replaced and reused material from the earlier 1874 criminal courthouse at this site (the location of the trial and hangings related to the

Haymarket Affair The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square (C ...

). The complex included in addition to the successive courthouses, the Cook County Jail, and a hanging gallows for prisoners sentenced to death. By the 1920s the attached jail, which was behind the courthouse and no longer exists, had a capacity for 1200 inmates but sometimes housed twice that and the court rooms were backlogged with cases. For its first 35 years, the present Courthouse Place building housed the

Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...

Criminal Courts and was the site of many legendary trials, including the

Leopold and Loeb Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. (November 19, 1904 – August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (; June 11, 1905 – January 28, 1936), usually referred to collectively as Leopold and Loeb, were two wealthy students at the University of Chicago ...

murder case, the

Black Sox Scandal The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate le ...

, and the jazz age trials that formed the basis of the play and musical ''Chicago''. Newspapermen

Ben Hecht Ben Hecht (; February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A successful journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplay ...

and

Charles MacArthur Charles Gordon MacArthur (November 5, 1895 – April 21, 1956) was an American playwright, screenwriter and 1935 winner of the Academy Award for Best Story. Life and career MacArthur was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the sixth of seven chil ...

based much of their 1928 play, ''

The Front Page ''The Front Page'' is a Broadway comedy about newspaper reporters on the police beat. Written by former Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, it was first produced in 1928 and has been adapted for the cinema several times. Plot Th ...

,'' on the daily events in this building. Other authors of Chicago's 1920s literary renaissance who were employed in the fourth floor pressroom include

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg ...

Sherwood Anderson Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...

, and

Vincent Starrett Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett (; October 26, 1886 – January 5, 1974), known as Vincent Starrett, was a Canadian-born American writer, newspaperman, and bibliophile. Biography Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett was born above his grandfathe ...

. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

on November 13, 1984 and designated a Chicago Landmark on June 9, 1993. In 1929, the Criminal Courts left the 54 West Hubbard Street location as did the

Cook County Jail The Cook County Jail, located on in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally coll ...

, and the building was then occupied by the Chicago Board of Health and other city agencies. After poor alterations and years of neglect, the building was acquired by a private developer, Friedman Properties, Ltd in 1985. The property was restored and refurbished as "Courthouse Place," an office development later expanded to include the restoration of other surrounding historic buildings.

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Notes

{{Chicago Landmark municipal Government buildings completed in 1893 Chicago Landmarks Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago Former courthouses in Illinois County courthouses in Illinois Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Illinois Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois

Gallery

See also

Notes