What is the oldest building in Chicago?
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The Iglehart House is an Italianate style house in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States, and one of the city's oldest surviving buildings. Located at 11118 S. Artesian Avenue, the original portion of the house in the back was built in 1857 by an unknown architect for Charles D. Iglehart, whose farmstead comprised the land now bounded by 111th, 115th, and Rockwell streets and Western Avenue. Iglehart's daughter Mary, who was born in the house in 1857, is the first child whose birth is recorded in what would become the village of Morgan Park. Iglehart was one of the founders of The Church of the Mediator, whose first building was built in 1889 at 110th and Hoyne Avenue on land that was donated for it by the Blue Island Land and Building Company. Due to the space required of a growing family, the two-story front portion of the house was added in the 1870s. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on July 13, 1994.
Iglehart House
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Clarke House may have been modeled on the home of William B. Ogden. The Clarke house is often described as the oldest surviving house in Chicago, although part of the Noble-Seymour-Crippen House in the Norwood Park neighborhood was built in 1833. (However, Norwood Park was not annexed to Chicago until 1893.) The Clarke House was designated a Chicago Landmark on October 14, 1970. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1971.
Henry B. Clarke House
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At the time of its completion, the building was one of two buildings in Chicago that was 18 stories or greater, the other being the Masonic Building (which was 21 stories tall). To this day, the Fisher Building is the oldest 18 story building in Chicago that has not been demolished. The Masonic Temple, while taller and older, was demolished in 1939.
Fisher Building (Chicago)
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The Manhattan Building is a 16-story building at 431 South Dearborn Street in Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by architect William Le Baron Jenney and constructed from 1889 to 1891. It is the oldest surviving skyscraper in the world to use a purely skeletal supporting structure. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1976, and designated a Chicago Landmark on July 7, 1978.
Manhattan Building (Chicago, Illinois)
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The LaSalle Street canyon is home to other historic buildings including the Rookery Building, a National Historic Landmark considered to be the oldest standing high-rise. A 1907 renovation included a lobby remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie School style. The name rookery comes from the previous building on the property which became home to many birds, especially pigeons. The nearby Reliance Building was the first skyscraper to have large plate glass windows comprise the majority of its surface area, and One North LaSalle was for some time one of Chicago's tallest buildings. Both the Reliance Building and One North LaSalle are on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1853, the governments of Chicago and Cook County have shared three different buildings at the north end of the canyon. The current Chicago City Hall, built in a Classical Revival style, was designed to symbolize the strength, dignity, and vigor of the government. Completed in 2001, an award-winning green roof was incorporated into the structure. All of the structures are designated as Chicago Landmarks.
Chicago Board of Trade Building
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One of the oldest churches in Chicago, First Unitarian Chicago was founded July 29, 1836 and is currently located at 5650 S. Woodlawn Avenue. Its founding was in part the result of a small group of Chicago Unitarians with the minister Charles Follen. Its first building was constructed in 1841 on what is now the site of the Picasso statue in Daley Plaza. The building, twice enlarged before it burned down, held the first church bell in Chicago placed there in January 1845.
First Unitarian Church of Chicago
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The Pontiac Building is a historic high-rise building located at 542 S. Dearborn St. in the Printer's Row neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1891, the building is the oldest surviving work in downtown Chicago designed by the architecture firm Holabird & Roche. The fourteen-story building represents the Chicago school of architecture and is designed as a steel frame covered in brick. The building's Dearborn Street facade features three tiers of bay windows, while the facade on Federal Street features one tier of bay windows flanked by two tiers of flat windows; while the outer two tiers on both facades each span two bays, the middle tier spans only one. The bottoms of these tiers of windows, located at the second floor of the building, feature terra cotta soffits; the building's cornice is also terra cotta. The first two floors of the building feature limestone piers with decorative capitals. Due to the building's architectural significance, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1976.
Pontiac Building
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The Rookery Building is a historic landmark, office building located at 209 South LaSalle Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Completed by John Wellborn Root and Daniel Burnham of Burnham and Root in 1888, it is considered one of their masterpiece buildings, and was once the location of their offices. The building is high, twelve stories tall, and is considered the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. It has a unique style with exterior load-bearing walls and an interior steel frame, which provided a transition between accepted and new building techniques. The lobby was remodeled in 1905 by Frank Lloyd Wright. Beginning in 1989, the lobby was restored to the original Wright design.
Rookery Building
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The Archbishop's Residence at 1555 North State Parkway is the official home of the Archbishop of Chicago and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1885 by the Most Rev. Patrick Feehan, first Archbishop of Chicago, it is a three-story, red brick building and is one of the oldest structures in the Astor Street District, according to the Landmarks Preservation Council.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
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The 42nd Precinct/Town Hall Police Station, located in Chicago's Lake View community area, is one of the oldest and most architecturally significant extant historic police station buildings in Chicago. It was constructed in 1907 on the site of Lake View Township's Town Hall and subsequently has been commonly referred to as the "Town Hall Police Station." Only three older police station buildings are extant in Chicago.
42nd Precinct / Town Hall Police Station
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St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School is a historic Lutheran school building located at 2101-2107 W. 21st Street in Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1882, it is one of the only surviving Italianate school buildings in Chicago. While the Italianate style was popular in Chicago in the second half of the 19th century, it was mainly used in homes and commercial buildings rather than institutional buildings, making the school's design uncommon even for its era. The school's distinctive Italianate features include its tall windows with arched lintels, its symmetrical front facade, its double bracketed cornice, and the cupola atop its roof. The school is also one of the oldest remaining school buildings in the Lower West Side and its adjacent community areas; only four older schools remain within these nine community areas, and St. Ignatius College Prep is the only older parochial school.
St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School