In the rather Sisyphean effort to boil down the efforts of hyper-active Lorado Taft into a short article for the Hyde Park Herald, I came across his attempt to defend the German Building that was the symbol of Jackson Park for 30 years. I’ll only have a sentence in the article—if that!—so I thought I’d chat about the building here.
CORRECTION Urban Renewal Talk
My brain slipped!! On WEDNESDAY September 11 at noon CDT, I’ll be giving a Zoom talk swooping through the history of Hyde Park’s much studied urban renewal. It starts with an overview of how the area formed (which defines what got “renewed”), the forces for and against integration, and the role of the University of Chicago. It will be posted later on the Village’s YouTube channel if you can’t make it live. You can sign up for a reminder here:
https://chpv.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=339585&item_id=2241681
German Building
The German Building was made of permanent materials—a limestone basement, brick first floor, half-timbered upper floors, and a tiled roof. The interior had 6 foot high oak wainscoting in one wing, elaborately tiled floors, carved wooden ceilings, and splendid stained glass. The German monarchy had spent a fortune on it, even though its main purpose was to provide offices for the German commissioners and visiting dignitaries. The real business of selling German business happened in the themed buildings where they spent more than any other foreign government. There was also a German village on the Midway for those who wanted a stein of beer.
Because of the big splash, they got plum real estate for their stand-alone building, right on the lakefront.
It was near where the Lakeside Lawn Bowling Club plays now, north of the 59th Street Harbor.
With the large German population in Chicago, it was a popular destination, even though there wasn’t much inside. The exhibit was an extensive display of old and new books and engravings. There was also a chapel area that showed off lavish ecclesiastical objects and vestments, including a Nuremberg clock—where mechanical figures rotated through the hours, illustrating the scenes of the Passion play at Oberammergau. One of the stained-glass windows memorialized the many U.S. Navy sailors killed by a hurricane off Samoa in 1889. It was donated after the fair to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and is supposed to still be in their chapel.
The face it turned toward the lake celebrated the unification of the German States. The architectural style reflected the city hall in Rothenberg ob der Tauber. The 150-foot bell tower housed chimes for the hours and quarter hours and a set of large bells that rang a peal twice a day. The bells were returned to Berlin after the fair to be installed in the chapel that memorialized the Kaiser’s mother. Below the bells were gilded statues of St. Michael, St. George, Strength, and Wisdom. Next down the front were the frescoes--an immense German eagle in black, followed by a sunburst, two knights with swords defending the German crown, and, over the three entry arches, the coat of arms of the German states.
Because it was so grand, inside and out, and built of permanent materials, the German government did not want to tear it down after the fair. The South Park Commission said they didn’t want it. The Germans considered donating it to a German-American society as a clubhouse. Another idea was to donate it to Lincoln Park where the German neighborhood would appreciate it. In the end, inertia set in and it stayed.
Judging by the many images, it was a beloved landmark, open during summer months for music concerts in the large central spaces. In the winter it was closed. In January 1898 the Inter-Ocean also claimed that it was haunted. A shadowy figure with a stein flickered past the windows, laughter and the clink of glasses echoed along the north wall, and, eeriest of all, a huntsman’s horn, horses’ hooves, and baying hounds would occasionally float in the winter wind.
By 1899, another kind of ghost haunted the German Building. An old man with a Grand Army of the Republic pin would sit on the benches along Lake Shore Drive. If someone came along who didn’t know what it was, he’d conduct them around the park describing the vanished buildings, waxing eloquent about the wonders of the Fair. He’d lament how so little was preserved, how the South Park Commissioners had covered over the frescoes and didn’t care, how they were scraping away the hills that were part of the Fair landscaping. And then he’d sink back down on his bench in grief.
The South Park Commission was a taxing organization outside city control that controlled a lot of parks and boulevards. They didn’t always make good decisions. Over time, they stopped maintaining the beaches on the south side. The sand washed away so it was a constant effort, though thousands sweltered without air conditioning and longed for a dip in the lake. Under pressure from businessmen, civic groups, and the University, they agreed to recreate a 300-foot beach in front of the German Building, which they turned into the beach house.
Even after World War I, advertisements used the German Building to show that their luxury hotels were near the many facilities in Jackson Park. Here’s the Sisson Hotel, ignoring actual perspective, to signal that their guests could enjoy the lawn tennis, beach, boating, and golf course that were (sort of) nearby.
Then in 1925, a fire damaged some of the interior just as a committee formed to discuss the building, basically the same group of people who had organized a battle to save the old 1893 Fine Arts/Field Columbian building. Lorado Taft, who was an eloquent speaker with a huge following, the very organized Federation of Illinois Women’s Clubs, and Julius Rosenwald put pressure on the commission. The original German architect, Paul F. P. Mueller, declared the building sound. Rosenwald vowed to put up the bulk of the $300,000 for a complete restoration of the fire damage and the commission’s years of neglect.
A heated series of letters appeared in the Tribune, some of which were virulently anti-German. The majority however agreed with the one who wrote “Why not preserve it now in memory of the most wonderful exposition the world has ever known?” The Tribune itself was for preservation. The South Park Commission was not. What would it be used for? When the people fighting for it suggested that it once more be a concert venue and beach house, the commission didn’t like the answer. They tore it down. Luckily, Taft and the Illinois Federation of Women’s Clubs held the South Park Commission at bay long enough for Rosenwald to get interested in financing an industrial arts museum. We still have the Palace of Fine Arts in Jackson Park to give us a glimpse of the 1893 fair.