Skip to main content

A Slice of Italy in Chicago

 

The Italian Courtyard of Le Petit Gourmet once had a cocktail bar and served lunch, tea and dinner in the late 1940s, according to a description on the back of the postcard.


The Italian-style courtyard shown in the postcard was loved by many before it was razed in 1967. The scenic “slice of Italy” located near 600 N. Michigan Ave. featured shops, restaurants and about 20 apartments for artists.

The courtyard was surrounded by three buildings that were fitted together between 1919 and 1926. The Chicago Daily Tribune wrote that the project was one of the earliest private urban renewal projects in the city. When the first building was acquired by the Ira B. Cook estate, Michigan Avenue was still named Pine Street and the area was surrounded by soap factories and breweries.

The new owners handed the building and its development over to Architect Robert S. DeGolyer, according to the Tribune. The idea for a shop-studio compound was also worked up by artists Nancy Cox McCormick and Frederick Grant.

In 1921, a run-down hotel to the south was renovated, and another building on Ontario Street was bought in 1926. In the courtyard’s early days, it housed a large shopping space called Le Petit Bazar, which benefitted the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid society. The group of well-known Chicago women who started that charity were Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. John Alden Carpenter and Mrs. Marshall Field.

Those who lived in the buildings surrounding the courtyard included artists, writers, critics, architects, designers and advertising personalities, among others. Portrait painters Leopold Seyfert and Paul Trebilcock resided there.  One apartment was occupied by the Baroness Violet Beatrice Von Wenner, who is known for painting portraits of five presidents as well as European and Middle Eastern royalty.

Von Wenner asked the Tribune, “Why do they have to tear it down? Do we need another monster high rise building?” A 27-story office building was soon built at the site, and the little slice of Italy disappeared from Chicago, making way for more high-rise office and retail buildings that would come to characterize North Michigan Avenue.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Burlesque Dancer Sally Rand Took the Chicago World's Fair by Storm

Sally Rand danced at the Streets of Paris exhibit. Postcard printed by Curt Teich & Co, Chicago. Sally Rand was never supposed to perform her iconic “fan dance” at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. The dancer’s requests to perform inside the Streets of Paris exhibit had been turned down several times. But Rand decided to take matters into her own hands by riding into a pre-opening party on the fairgrounds, uninvited, on a white horse wearing nothing but a velvet cape. The crowd loved it. Rand was arrested but released the next day, when she promptly accepted an offer to perform as the headliner in the Café de la Paix’s floor show for $90 per week. While her dancing broke boundaries and city decency ordinances at the time, her legacy was born and Rand made her cultural mark on the world. According to The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair by Cheryl Ganz, 29-year-old Sally Rand had previously worked as an acrobatic circus performer and film stuntwoman. She had also alread...

Marshall Field's at Christmas

  The aisle on the first floor of the State Street store is 358 feet long. Postcard publisher is unknown.  Many Chicagoans continue to miss visiting Marshall Field’s during the holiday season. Just talking about the famed Christmas windows and holiday decorations brings about memories of the department store’s glory days. Many of us can recall the strong smell of perfume that would greet visitors upon entering the flagship State Street store, along with the huge white Romanesque columns decorated with Christmas fare on the first floor. The real fun, however, was taking the elevator to the 7 th floor to get a glimpse of the giant Christmas tree inside the Walnut Room restaurant. The best place to view the tree was one floor up on a balcony area. Christmas decorations on the first floor. Postcard publisher is unknown.  Frango mint chocolates were piled high in various areas throughout the store, and many visitors couldn’t resist buying a box. Frango chocolates were once ...

Putting the “Toddle” Back in “That Toddling Town”

  Postcard designed and sold by appshop. The “toddle” was a jazz dance step that became popular across the nation just in time for the Roaring Twenties. And Chicago became known as “that toddling town” thanks to the lyrics of Fred Fisher’s 1922 song “Chicago (That Toddling Town).” While many still know Frank Sinatra’s famous cover version of that song, the dance step has largely been forgotten. In a 1921 South Bend News-Times article, dance teacher Arthur Murray describes the toddle as having the “delightful abandon so characteristic of everything American.” According to Murray, the toddle was similar to the shimmy but without the shoulder shakes. It also bore a resemblance to the fox trot but with an extra bounce added to the steps. Songwriter Fred Fisher was not the first to associate the toddle with Chicago. A variation of the toddle, which focused on movements of the hips rather than the feet, was called “the Chicago toddle” or simply “the Chicago.” In 1921, a print adverti...