First Leiter Building
- Architect
- William Le Baron Jenney
- Year
- 1879
- City
- Chicago, IL
William Le Baron Jenney designed this Loop department store in 1879 for merchant Levi Z. Leiter, and it became one of the pivotal buildings in skyscraper history: it was the first to combine great height, an iron skeletal frame, terra cotta fireproofing on its structural members, and passenger elevators in a single building. It stood at Washington and Wells Streets until it was demolished in 1972.
the building
An iron frame, half-tested. City building rules still forced Jenney to build one exterior wall as old-fashioned load-bearing masonry, and the floors were heavy timber, but the rest of the structure relied on an iron skeleton fireproofed in terra cotta—a genuinely new way of holding a building up.
Built to grow. The building opened at five stories in 1879 and was later expanded to seven, then renovated again in 1888, before it was ultimately demolished in 1972.
the architect
William Le Baron Jenney designed First Leiter in 1879, work that helped establish him as a pioneer of modern skyscraper construction.
significance
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it did not survive: after a renovation and extension in 1888, it was demolished in 1972.
nearby
- 181 West Madison Street
- New York Life Insurance Building, Chicago
- 300 West Adams Street Office Building
- 19 South LaSalle Street
- Roanoke Building and Tower
- Chicago Stock Exchange Building