Courthouse Place
- Architect
- Otto H. Matz
- Year
- 1893
- Style
- Richardsonian Romanesque
- City
- Chicago, IL
Courthouse Place at 54 West Hubbard Street was built in 1892 or 1893 by architect Otto H. Matz as the Cook County Criminal Court Building, replacing an 1874 courthouse on the same site and reusing some of its material. For 35 years it hosted the county's criminal trials before later becoming a commercial office building; it's a Chicago Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
the building
Site of famous trials. The courthouse heard many of Chicago's most notorious cases, including the Adolph Luetgert trial, Leopold and Loeb, and the Black Sox Scandal, along with jazz-age trials that later formed the basis of the play and musical Chicago.
The earlier courthouse and jail. The building replaced the 1874 criminal courthouse on this site, the location of the trial and hangings tied to the Haymarket Affair, and stood alongside the Cook County Jail's cell blocks and gallows; by the 1920s the attached jail held nearly double its intended 1,200-inmate capacity.
the style
Matz designed the building in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, the heavy-arched, masonry idiom that dominated serious civic buildings of the early 1890s.
More on Richardsonian Romanesquesignificance
Designated a Chicago Landmark on June 9, 1993, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Courthouse Place is also remembered as the setting that inspired the 1928 play The Front Page.
nearby
- Boyce Building
- Marina City
- Reid, Murdoch and Company Building
- 330 North Wabash
- IBM Building
- Trump International Hotel and Tower