Weights and Measures
[Pelouze Building (1916) Alfred S. Alschuler, architect; Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company Building (1908)
Hill & Woltersdorf, architects /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
In 1916 when William Nelson Pelouze asked architect Alfred Alschuler to design a new
building to house the offices and workrooms of the Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company, the area was about to undergo a dramatic change. If you were to wander through the streets of this Streeterville neighborhood today, you might be surprised to learn that this high-rent residential area was once home to a number of industrial buildings and the workers who filled them.
[Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company Building (1908) Hill & Woltersdorf, architects /Image & Artwork:
designslinger]
William Pelouze came to the city in 1882 when he was 16 years old and by 1894 had
several patents under his belt and the beginnings of his scale company. In 1908 when the firm moved into this building on Ohio Street at Franklin, the area was sandy, grassy and kind of removed from the mansions lining Pine Street, a couple of blocks to the west. That same year, Pelouze teamed up with other like-minded entrepreneurs and created the St. Clair Manufacturing and Warehouse District Improvement Association. Alschuler's design would sit next door to the red brick manufacturing building and would become one of the last industrial properties built in the district still standing.
[Pelouze Building (1916) Alfred S. Alschuler, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
By the time the new Pelouze building was finished, change was just around the corner.
Literally. In 1920, during the administration of one of Chicago's infamous mayors William "Big Bill" Thompson (who also happened to be Pelouze's brother-in-law), the city opened the Michigan Avenue Bridge and the transformation of nearby residential Pine Street into what we now know as Michigan Avenue, began. Slowly, the former manufacturing area to the east of Boul Mich became more and more residential and the former factory buildings were filled with white-collar workers or converted into residential lofts. And although there are still scales made under the Pelouze name, the company is now just a part of the giant corporate brand known as Newell Rubbermaid. But the building remains, reminding us of another time and era.
Posted by designslinger at 8/10/2010 1:44 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Architects, Preservation
Tags: Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company Streeterville industrial buildings Hill and Woltersdorf Alfred S. Alschuler W.N. Pelouze
Categories: Architecture, History, Architects, Preservation
Tags: Pelouze Scale and Manufacturing Company Streeterville industrial buildings Hill and Woltersdorf Alfred S. Alschuler W.N. Pelouze
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