Isaac G. Ettleson Building
[Isaac G. Ettleson Building (1911/1931) Harry Hale Waterman/Alfred S. Alschuler, architects /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
The white terra cotta eagles, spread wing to wing along the cornice line of the building at Sheridan & Broadway on Chicago's north side, is known as the Isaac G. Ettleson Building. Once occupied by the Hamilton State Bank, the avian crowned, 2-story structure was pretty much empty by the late 1920's when then owner Samuel Phillipson commissioned architect Alfred S. Alschuler to remodel and enlarge the vintage Ettleson building.
[Isaac G. Ettleson/Samuel Phillipson Building, 3837-45 N. Broadway, Chicago /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
Phillipson was a wholesale clothing merchant and a real estate investor. He began his career in the city's old Jewish neighborhood around Maxwell, Halsted and Roosevelt Road, then known as 12th Street. By the 1920s he had moved from a large near west side home on South Ashland Boulevard to a large home on Sheridan Road, located on the city's north side. The Phillipsons became active members of congregation Anshe Emet, which just happened to be located around the corner from the Ettleson building, and he began acquiring investment property in and around his new neighborhood.
[Isaac G. Ettleson/Samuel Phillipson Building /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
When Phillipson bought the Ettleson building, the existing structure did not fill the entire corner lot. It stood 25 feet south of Sheridan Road which was at the northern end of the property's lot line. (It's the area at the left hand side of the picture where the sign reads Starbucks.) So when Phillipson hired Alschuler in 1931, the architect increased the size of the existing structure 25 feet to the lot line, remodeled the old building, and added more office space to the second floor. Phillipson had secured a long term lease from F.W. Woolworth & Co. for almost the entire first floor, and he marketed the redone second floor offices to doctors and dentists.
Woolworth's left the building in the mid-1980s, as had most of the doctors and dentists. But Alschuler's Art Deco inspired ground floor storefront, along with the original, second floor, wood sash windows, survived for several years before being removed for the white-brick-and-stucco, vinyl-window-framed redo we see today.
See another gleaming white Alschuler project at: Cafeteria Style, and a dark bricked commercial commission at: Weights and Measures.
Posted by designslinger at 1/9/2012 2:00 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Decorative Arts
Tags: Harry Hale Waterman Alfred S. Alschuler commercial architecture Broadway Sheridan Road North Side
Categories: Architecture, History, Decorative Arts
Tags: Harry Hale Waterman Alfred S. Alschuler commercial architecture Broadway Sheridan Road North Side
Thanks for looking into this building. Very interesting and your photos (always, not just here) are gorgeous.
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You're welcome - and thank you too!
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I know this is not strictly architecture, but there is a wonderful trompe l'oeil painting on the back of a building on Wilson between Sheridan and Broadway. You see it on the north side as you approach Bway from Sheridan.
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Know exactly which building you're talking about. Can remember when the trompe l'oeil went up in the 1980s. The building started life as a theater, became a bank decades ago, and recently read that the current bank may be closing.
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Thank you for the information on the Ettleson Building. I live in the Uptown neighborhood and have often wondered about this building and its architect.
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You're welcome!
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This is some amazing ornamentation. I used to take Kung Fu classes on the second floor!
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OMG! With the K A R A T E spread across the windows.
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