Lytton's Department Store Building
[Lytton's Department Store Building (1913) Marshall & Fox, architects /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
Henry C. Lytton's story is very similar to many of the merchants who turned Chicago's State Street into a retailing mecca at the turn of the 20th century. He started out with a small dry goods operation, which he turned into one of the city's major retailing enterprises. He called his store the "Hub" because Lytton wanted buyers to think of his emporium as the hub of merchandise. As the business became more and more successful, Hub's starting cropping up around the country that bore no relation to the Lytton empire so the Chicago name grew to, "The Hub" Henry C. Lytton & Sons Company.
[Lytton Building, 14 E. Jackson Street, Chicago /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
Lytton used his rising personal income to invest in real estate and was one of downtown Chicago's largest property owners and in 1911 he purchased a piece of land across the street from the Hub store building at Jackson and State Streets. He then asked architects Marshall & Fox to design an office tower with ground level retail space which Henry would lease out to tenants, with no plans to move the Hub into the new building. Unfortunately for Henry, the entrepreneur did not own the land under the existing Hub building. He leased that land from Frederick Otis, and when the time came for renewal Otis was dead and his heirs wanted more money for a 99 year land lease than Henry was willing to give. So he simply moved the Hub into the first 8 floors of the new Lytton Building in 1913.
[Richard M. and Maggie C. Daley Building, DePaul University /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
Lytton retired soon after and turned over the presidency of the company to his son George. When George died of a massive heart attack in 1933, Henry stepped back into the job as president at the age of 87. In 1946, when he turned 100 and was still running the company, the Board of Directors officially changed the name of The Hub to Lytton's. The old merchant was the last survivor of Chicago giants like Marshall Field, Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears, who had changed the city's, and the nation's, retail landscape.
Henry died 2 years after receiving the honor and Lytton's, the store, lasted until 1986. In 2008 DePaul University acquired the building as part of its ever expanding Loop portfolio and in December of last year the school changed the name of the building to the Richard M. and Maggie C. Daley Building. This name change was in honor of the couples service to the city during the Mayor's 22-year-term. Daley is also an alumnus of DePaul's School of Law, as was his father, Chicago's 21-year-term mayor, Richard J.
See more of the downtown DePaul campus at: Three R's - Rothschild, Renovation & Reuse.
Posted by designslinger at 8/29/2011 3:34 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Adaptive Reuse, History
Tags: department stores State Street Chicago Loop Marshall and Fox
Categories: Architecture, Adaptive Reuse, History
Tags: department stores State Street Chicago Loop Marshall and Fox
I was happy to see that this building has been named for the Daleys. I didn't know about this.
I have a really stupid question that you may have covered already, but I missed. The flourishments that are on these old buildings -- how were they done? Were they done somewhere else and then attached to the buildings or were they carved onto the building as it was being built? I'm sorry if this has been covered before. I've always been curious about this. Thanks!
Toni
There are no stupid questions. The material is glazed terra-cotta. Chicago's full of the stuff. Since it starts out as clay and can be molded and turned into almost any shape imaginable, the possibilities for decoration were almost limitless. Plus, the glazed surface would make it easier, than say a more porous stone surface, for rain to wash off dust and debris. That was the theory anyway. The design was drawn up by the architects and the pattern was produced by a terra-cotta manufacturer, then sent to the building site in sections and assembled and attached by masons. The material became so popular the that the manufacturers started producing in-house patterns which could be purchased from a catalogue. Chicago was home to the very first terra cotta manufacturer in the country, and two of the largest terra-cotta producers were located here, Northwestern Terra Cotta and Midland Terra Cotta, but they've been out of business for years. Here are a couple of posts that included some info about the material: Terra Cotta Manufactured and Is That A Sullivan I See?.
Thanks for your explanation. I'm learning so much from you!
You are very welcome.