Chicago Bee Building
- Architect
- Z. Erol Smith
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- chicago deco
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The Chicago Bee Building on Chicago's South Side originally housed the Chicago Bee, a newspaper serving the city's African American community that entrepreneur Anthony Overton founded in 1926. Z. Erol Smith designed the three-story building in the Art Deco style as Overton's affirmation of confidence in the State Street commercial district. It now houses the Chicago Bee Branch of the Chicago Public Library.
the building
Overton's business block. Overton built the Bee Building to house his newspaper alongside the Douglass National Bank and his Overton Hygienic Company cosmetics firm, plus upper-floor apartments. The newspaper closed in the early 1940s, but the cosmetics firm stayed until the early 1980s.
Art Deco facade. Smith's Art Deco design of the 1920s made the building one of the most picturesque in the State Street corridor, within what is now the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District.
the style
Smith's design put the Chicago Bee Building in the Art Deco idiom of the 1920s, a style choice that made it one of the most picturesque buildings in its district.
More on Art Decosignificance
The building was designated a Chicago Landmark on September 9, 1998, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places within the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District.
nearby
- Wabash Avenue YMCA
- John W. Griffiths Mansion
- South Side Community Art Center
- Crown Hall
- Martin Roche–John Tait House
- Ida B. Wells-Barnett House