City landmarks officials are trying to prevent the demolition of an elegant, 19th century building that is among the first structures built in Streeterville after the Great Chicago Fire. The non-profit Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation applied for a demolition permit in July to bring down the 1870s building located at 161 E. Erie St.
But the Chicago Department of Planning’s Historic Preservation Division put a 90-day hold on the permit under the city’s Demo Delay Ordinance, a provision created to help ward off the demolition of potentially historic buildings. The stay of execution has less than 40 days left. But it has given the city’s preservation staff time to put together a recommendation asking the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to grant the building preliminary landmark status at the panel’s Oct.
3 meeting. The four-story, limestone-fronted Italianate building is among a vanishing class of structures that date back to the heady years when Streeterville was rebuilt in the aftermath of the 1871 fire. “It’s a very historic building that adds a lot of character to the neighborhood,” Deborah Gershbein, president of Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR), said of 161 E.
Erie. “We really don’t want to have it torn down.” Vintage buildings at risk Located a block east of Michigan Avenue, 161 E.
Erie is quite the charmer, with its light-colored stone face, intact cornice, and pleasant horizontal ranks of windows. And the building is being .