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The movie somewhere in time with superman 🦸♂️ himself guess ill be wonder woman this year 2022 from a train amtrek from provo utah to chicago..Chicago... me and you in 92 well, in 2022 guess its a mini moon utah ...love this and baby makes 3 Merry Christmas eve baby 👶 😘 💕
I just want to point out, as a former South Loop and now a Douglas resident, that a lot of the homes in this same style still exist up and down Martin Luther King Dr. in Bronzeville. A lot of the wealthy blacks who came up from the South during the Great Migration weren't allowed on Prairie Ave, built their homes down here instead, making the Black Metropolis, and they survived better. I think it was a case where the neighborhood being considered bad for the past 70 or so years worked in its favor. People didn't want to invest in new buildings with expensive amenities, so the existing mansions were just converted into multi-unit homes, but the good bones still existed. In the past few years, there's been a huge push to renovate them, deconverting them back into single family residences.
George Pulman and Potter Palmer mansions are definitely my favorite. This was a great video, it's interesting to see how quickly things changed within these big cities during the turn of the century.
I am so glad I live in Old Louisville! It is the largest collection of "Brick" Victorian homes in the US built largely between 1880 and 1905. It has 1400 structures over 17 blocks with the largest amount of residential stained glass in the US. A herculean effort to preserve the neighborhood from the urban renewal nightmare of the 1950's/1960's was fought and won!! People today continue to buy old homes and restore boarding houses of the depression back to single family Victorian houses they were when originally built in the 1880's and 90's. Thank God for folks with the vision and hard work to preserve the historic Old Louisville!!!
I really like CUDAHY and ROCKEFELLER McCORMACK'S MANSIONS. I thoroughly loved that Mrs. Rockeller McCormack studied astrology too. Thank you for sharing this real estate history to us. Well done!
Nitpick: You've got the wrong person at 3:32 - that's the 20th century diplomat John Clarence Cudahy, not the Gilded Age meat packer John Patrick Cudahy.
We have a pair of pocket doors out of the Potter Palmer mansion here at Heidelberg Hall in PA on display. They are over 13 1/2’ tall and 4” thick. Solid rosewood on one side and ebonized on the other. They flank a large stained glass window on either side of the landing at the top of the grand staircase.
Wow, that sounds so awesome. I saw one of the DuPont homes in Pa, they guy with all the gardens. We toured during the holidays, OMG, the elegance was unreal.
We have a pair of pocket doors from that mansion on display at Heidelberg hall. I can only imagine how grand the interiors must have been. Happy to have those as part of our current collection.
Chicagoan, Richard Nickel, an architectural photographer and historic preservationists, was instrumental in garnering mass public support to save Chicago's architectural history. His story is worthy of an episode.
I grew up in Chirown and I'm old. You did an amazing job on this video. Back when I was a kid, Chicago was a grand city. Going to Fields downtown was such an awesome memory. Thanks for the video. You do great work
I lived and worked in the city for two decades and would be on Prairie Ave daily for several years. It is sad to see how beautiful and unique the mansions were along that road, knowing that uninteresting cookie cutter red brick condos now line the strip where Pullman's house was. I had the unfortunate opportunity to go into one of them at the time and the insides were as dull and uninspired as the outsides. Really, throughout the whole city so many buildings with amazing character were demolished to make way for the red brick nightmares that were decaying within 5 years of being built. History gone forever.
I grew up in Roger’s Park but did see some of these mansions being torn down to make room for Cabrini Greens. The Potter Palmer house was one of the last to go. Edgewater Beach Hotel was torn down after my high school prom. It would rival Mar el Lago any day!
I grew up in lake forest Illinois30 miles north of Chicago. So many of these families also had estates in lake forest, And I went to school with so many of the grandchildren. Armour, Scweppes, Swift, McCormick, Field, Walgreen. I found some old maps At the local historical society and it's just amazing The scale of some of these old dimensions and the grounds that they covered in
Great video and nice to see a focus on my favorite time period in Chicago history. Sure wish I could time travel, but the video is definitely the next best thing!
My great grandfather had a house on Prairie Avenue. It wasn't a big mansion, but I've seen pictures, and it was still pretty sizable. He was a brewer, and his beer was served at the Columbian Exposition, something I'm very proud of. Unfortunately, prohibition put him out of business.
@@mikehughes4969 According to American Breweries II, the C. A. Mitchel & Son brewery, located on Wolfe Road in Mokena, operated from 1933 - 1937. Then, from 1937 - 1940, as the Mitchel Brewing Company.
These look like the homes in Hyde Park. They’re still there…. Hyde park is still expensive as shit and always has been even before it was heavily gentrified.
Appreciate learning about the grand mansions that once stood on Michigan and Prairie Ave or Millionaire's Row. Field's, Palmer, Cudahy and Rockefeller were my favorites. Love learning the history of Chicago.
Chicago to this day has some of the most amazing architectural houses I've ever seen! I go up there on business trips and I'm always in awe with how beautiful those old homes are! I'm a Dallas/Ft Worth native and we just don't have as much of our old history and architecture anymore! I really hate that! This has become a transplant area so things are constantly being torn down for bigger highways and roads
The last house shown is the John J Glessner House. It is currently open to the public as a House Museum. Later this month we are collaborating with the Glessner House to bring you a special, in depth video. Stay tuned, Cheers!
Thanks for the video! I would recommend finding "Lost Chicago" and "Chicago Interiors" by David Garrard Lowe, published in the mid-1970s by Houghton-Mifflin. Both volumes are a wealth of detailed information on the greatest lost homes of the windy city. Both books detail the events that lead to Prairie Avenue's rise to prominence and it's subsequent rapid demise, clearing up some common misconceptions and myths about the lost architecture of Chicago.
Thanks for this great post of the Lost Grandeur of Old Chicago! 🏆. We don't even have Marshall Fields anymore! Macy's is not even in the same league! Unfortunately so much has been lost 😞 to ?progress? Driving Lake Shore Drive is interesting to see two surviving mansions 🏰 🏰 surrounded by high rises. Thankfully the Palmer House still carries on tradition, even though it is a Hilton!
Thanks for the presentation, it was very insightful and well done. As you continue your historical research and presentation make sure you see some of the remaining homes and churches/synagogues on King Dr, Indiana and Michigan Ave in the Bronzeville community.
Toured the Glessner house this year and it was stunning. Several beautiful homes still stand on Prairie Ave including the Marshall Field Jr home but unfortunately the inside was completely gutted and redone in a modern, open style. It was listed for sale recently but the photos aren't for the faint of heart
While not mansions per say, but I got a chance to enter one of the larger houses along Garfield Blvd (55th Street) and was absolutely amazed, from in-floor tubs, to the tile, to the doors and the crown molding (the top, I’m not a carpenter). This was about 15-20 years ago…. Thanks for the video! Great stuff!!
The mansions, like Marshall Fields Estate, always looked funny to me and it just hit me…. They’re right on the street. Big houses in our time are usually built way back from the road and are gated with lots of land surrounding the home. That’s what was “off” to me. Beautiful homes!
I wonder if the streets were that close years ago haven't taken time to watch closely. I always loved these beautiful old homes. My friends thought I was crazy. Many of these houses in the South were almost free around 1973. Teenager, I was a kid who wanted to buy some but back then I was SCORNED to No end but I lived in one or two nice older homes! Everyone take CARE N PRAY FOR balance n decency in America❗❗Thx
I've heard that mansions in Mexico take up the entire property, having no lawns or yard. Then there are the "McMansions," which are supposedly built in the same manner.
its amazing to me some people can live in such opulence while majority of us will only dream of waking up in a home like that 1 morning.. :( when i ssee these homes in 2023, i can only imagine how magical they were back then. and how lucky some family / people were to call that home.
Thank you for doing more on Chicago! Don't sleep on Chicago people! We have some gorgeous old area like the Gold Coast and rising like the West Town/River West area esp with the new casino
Eu sempre me pergunto o quão vazias eram as almas desses grandes e poderosos homens e mulheres porque eles construiam grandes e imensos palácios suntuosos e depois os abandonavam para construir outros ou disputar suas grandes fortunas com excessos arquitetônicos. Sem dúvida a intenção não era morar mas sim apenas se exibir seu poderio financeiro.
I can barely believe the fortune spent on these beautiful houses only to have them torn down. I suppose maintenance and taxes were issues. Even if they were saved, how expensive would it be to keep a roof on it? I caught myself and drastically curbed my appetite when building my last home .
Glessner House is most appropriate for an urban setting since it focuses inward to the courtyard. I do miss Marshall Fields and having lunch in the Walnut Room. At least I can still get the Frango Mints through Macy's.
Another winner, Ken! I enjoyed the picture shown at :13. I recognize it from the dust jacket of the excellent 1948 historical fiction novel "Prairie Avenue" by Arthur Meeker. I don't have a favorite mansion but I'm partial to the Second Empire style and there were some excellent examples of that style in Chicago. If I could live in such a house I'd happily stay there year-round, no need for me to have a multiple houses. And during a Chicago winter I would not only stay in town I would stay indoors for days on end!
Some of these home are still here! I also know some people who still live in one of these homes! Omg the Architect is amazing but I didn’t notice the back stairs to these places which were very narrow and you know I guess the black cooks and servers were using these staircases! One of my girlfriends actually on a mansion on the west side it is a preservation home it’s three stories high absolutely beautiful they Restorator that it still has some of the brass trim on the roof which is now green!
Yesss! So excited that there will be a Glessner House video! My husband and I got married at the Women’s Park next door, and had our reception there. We stayed at the air bnb behind the Keith House and it was a Chicago history lovers dream. ❤
Heartbreaking to see brilliant craftsmanship destroyed, even if you are not a fan of 2nd Empire (I am not), but these impractical over-the-top behemoth houses were destined for destruction if they couldn't be converted to museums or apartments or cloisters or condos...
Two issues here. The Kimball mansion (paired with the now connected Coleman-Ames mansion) is the headquarters of the US Soccer Assn., not a private home. [While the 1st line of the wikipedia entry says "private residence," it then goes on to explain about the Soccer Assn's hq.] Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any photos of the interior of this mansion even in its own chapter in the book "Great Houses of Chicago 1871-1921." If you were standing on the side of this mansion in 1900, you would be looking across E 18th Street to the Pullman mansion, and standing in front of it and looking across S Prairie Ave, you are still looking at the Glessner house. The bigger issue is that both the Palmer castle and the McCormick mansion have the whole of downtown Chicago between them and Prairie Avenue and had nothing to do with that "Millionaires' Row" on the south side. In fact it was Potter Palmer's decision to build on the north side that led to the downfall of the Prairie Avenue area. The picture that you show to talk about the moves to the north side was the mansion of Edith Rockefeller McCormick's father-in-law Cyrus McCormick (inventor of the McCormick reaper). Her husband, Harold Fowler McCormick, was president of International Harvester; and her father liked him because "he was too rich to be interested in her for his (JDR's) money." Just off camera to the right of the photo of Marshall Field's mansion is the large Marshall Field, Jr. mansion that was totally derelict for years but is now 6 large condos. I must say that the Kimball mansion is truly magnificent to see. Hopefully you will do a video of the north side Nickerson mansion.
The original McCormick "family" home was located west of Michigan Boulevard, at 675 Rush Sreet, the vicinity of the Water Tower. The remains of the structure were integrated into the new building that most famously housed a Lawry's Steakhouse. The Palmer castle was located at Banks and Lakeshore Drive. Edith Rockefeller-McCormick's lost home was located a block north, just off " the drive."
@@paulmezhir8354 I always made it a point to go to Lawry's when I was in Chicago (including one great Thanksgiving). It was Cyrus's nephew L. Hamilton McCormick who built the original mansion. This was a part of Chicago called "McCormickville because of all the various family homes. Nathaniel Jones built the mansion that J. D. Rockefeller would eventually buy and give to Edith as a wedding present.
I had dream this morning around 4 AM . . . I was at an opera house 🏠 . . . Seated at a balcony . . . And looking down at the front row seats, depth was steep and out of reach.
The cause of the fire wasn't mentioned in your video? Mrs Olearys cow kicked over a lantern in the barn. When I was in grade school in the 60s The Great Chicago Fire was part of our history class. It should've been mentioned.....
I have to go with the castle. Times do change. Here in San Diego, many large Victorian homes built by the wealthy in the area east of Downtown had become run down slum buildings by the 1970s. Fortunately, the areas to the north (South Park, North Park, University Heights) were more sparsely settled and many of the Victorians there remain, with smaller homes of Craftsman, Spanish, and later styles surrounding them. Isn't photography a wonderful thing? :)
National City does have great Victorian mansions, unfortunately most need great effort to bring them back to glory and I don't see that happening anytime soon
Golden Hill still has some cool architecture :) It is very close to the downtown area which was cleaned up some in the 90's. Same situation- crime in the downtown area got pretty bad and crime rose. Most wealthy people today live near the ocean, not downtown!
@@katherinechase3674 There are a few large Victorian houses there, as well as in Chula Vista. Maybe not "mansions". The areas I was talking about in my first post are Sherman Heights and Grant Hill.
I know The PALMER house is still there. I've enjoyed it many times. But it is not the same as a Hilton. And Macy's doesn't even come close to MARSHALL FIELD
This is an excellent presentation, however you should also include the mansions that once stood on Ashland Avenue south of Madison Street. If I recall my Chicago history correctly, the first mansions of the new wealth were built there and later, when it became built up, the upper crust started to move to Prairie and Michigan Avenues. Sadly, I don't believe there are any more mansions on Ashland, it's mostly built up as a medical and hospital area now. I'm an ex-Chicagoan and have lived in Florida for 39 years now. and I miss the city as it used to be, not the shooting gallery it is now.
They weren’t mansions. Two men from Kentucky built fancy houses there before the Big Fire of Chicago. It was high end west suburb.The book doesn’t mention if they were to buy or to rent.
Cool video! Been doing research in my topic of interest and I wanna make similar type videos. When it comes to visuals, how do you know what pictures you can and cannot use because of copyright laws? That's one thing holding me back from releasing videos. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Millionaire Row houses. Isn’t it funny how no one wants to live in a row house now. They call the same thing, town houses now like more Acceptable but the same thing❤❤❤❤❤
"They were all torn down." This is false. A bunch of mansions still exist in Gold Coast, but not all. Some were torn down for high rises but it's still a neighborhood filled with these great examples. Some areas on the South Side still have the houses too on numerous streets but less in tact than Gold Coast. Also, there is a newer district that's popped up in the last 15 or so years of crazy large urban mansions in Lincoln Park not too far from Gold Coast. People hate them sometimes because they look older but in 30 years people will start talking about some of them more positively.
Can anyone tell me the streets of the houses at 7:21 and 7:27? I’ve been looking for a beautiful mansion that stood in a parking lot at least until 1989 near North Ave on Clark or Broadway. Sorry! I don’t know how to link time stamps.
Al Capone was the richest man in Chicago. He got a heavily armored Cadillac limousine that took him out to his home in Cicero. In world war 2 this car was used by FDR.
Property Developers continue to prove themselves least patriotic similar to yesterday's Monopolies and barons that could have cared less regarding historic Souls uniquely distinct to each individual community. Okay as a passionate lifetime Chicago historian and our cities Treestorian. I've learned that offense is the best defense which means immediately protecting history before Developers cash in.
George Pullman was so despised by his employees- that when he died, his family laid down a huge cement slab over his grave, so he would not be dug up and torn to bits.
I lived here my whole life I love it but I also hate it here. I hate the mean people everywhere, disrespect and ignorant people. And all the senseless crime. I have to carry a gun everywhere I go even while I'm relaxing at home I heard plenty of shootings outside my home.
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The movie somewhere in time with superman 🦸♂️ himself guess ill be wonder woman this year 2022 from a train amtrek from provo utah to chicago..Chicago... me and you in 92 well, in 2022 guess its a mini moon utah ...love this and baby makes 3
Merry Christmas eve baby 👶 😘 💕
I just want to point out, as a former South Loop and now a Douglas resident, that a lot of the homes in this same style still exist up and down Martin Luther King Dr. in Bronzeville. A lot of the wealthy blacks who came up from the South during the Great Migration weren't allowed on Prairie Ave, built their homes down here instead, making the Black Metropolis, and they survived better.
I think it was a case where the neighborhood being considered bad for the past 70 or so years worked in its favor. People didn't want to invest in new buildings with expensive amenities, so the existing mansions were just converted into multi-unit homes, but the good bones still existed. In the past few years, there's been a huge push to renovate them, deconverting them back into single family residences.
George Pulman and Potter Palmer mansions are definitely my favorite. This was a great video, it's interesting to see how quickly things changed within these big cities during the turn of the century.
I am so glad I live in Old Louisville! It is the largest collection of "Brick" Victorian homes in the US built largely between 1880 and 1905. It has 1400 structures over 17 blocks with the largest amount of residential stained glass in the US. A herculean effort to preserve the neighborhood from the urban renewal nightmare of the 1950's/1960's was fought and won!! People today continue to buy old homes and restore boarding houses of the depression back to single family Victorian houses they were when originally built in the 1880's and 90's. Thank God for folks with the vision and hard work to preserve the historic Old Louisville!!!
Pardon my ignorance, but do you mean Louisville, Kentucky or a different city? Given your description, I'd love to tour this city.
Louisville, KY
Naw garden city Kansas does
More than Pacific Grove?
That’s incredible
Nothing mentioned of the Wrigley Mansion.. bummer. Its my fav in Chicago
We actually have an entire video on Wrigley's Mansions! th-cam.com/video/shonIhuw-e0/w-d-xo.html
@@ThisHouse Thank you!!
Ck out the mansion in Lake Geneva.
I really like CUDAHY and ROCKEFELLER McCORMACK'S MANSIONS. I thoroughly loved that Mrs. Rockeller McCormack studied astrology too. Thank you for sharing this real estate history to us. Well done!
You mean McCormick?
Nitpick: You've got the wrong person at 3:32 - that's the 20th century diplomat John Clarence Cudahy, not the Gilded Age meat packer John Patrick Cudahy.
😁👍 thanks!
A three minute story told in nine minutes
A CLEAR WAIST OF MONEY......
I keep trying to turn off seeing this channel.
Never seems to work.
Rude & lack tech skills, silly-
Really you don’t know why Chicago doesn’t still have those homes you don’t have a clue really
We have a pair of pocket doors out of the Potter Palmer mansion here at Heidelberg Hall in PA on display. They are over 13 1/2’ tall and 4” thick. Solid rosewood on one side and ebonized on the other. They flank a large stained glass window on either side of the landing at the top of the grand staircase.
How amazing!
That's real cool
Wow, that sounds so awesome. I saw one of the DuPont homes in Pa, they guy with all the gardens. We toured during the holidays, OMG, the elegance was unreal.
Love seeing stuff on Palmer Castle…. I’m a descendant of Potter and Bertha Honore Palmer
We have a pair of pocket doors from that mansion on display at Heidelberg hall. I can only imagine how grand the interiors must have been. Happy to have those as part of our current collection.
Thank you for sharing!
Wow….. those doors must be amazing!
Is your family still wealthy?
Chicagoan, Richard Nickel, an architectural photographer and historic preservationists, was instrumental in garnering mass public support to save Chicago's architectural history. His story is worthy of an episode.
My husband and I just saw his exhibit that is located at the Richard Driehaus Museum. It was incredible.
I grew up in Chirown and I'm old. You did an amazing job on this video. Back when I was a kid, Chicago was a grand city. Going to Fields downtown was such an awesome memory. Thanks for the video. You do great work
Thank you for sharing your memories! Cheers!
My parents grew up in Morgan park in the 30sthru 50s it was beautiful then🥰
Great video! I grew up in the Logan square neighborhood in the 40ds and 50ds love Chicago!
Most overrated city ever
How old?
I lived and worked in the city for two decades and would be on Prairie Ave daily for several years. It is sad to see how beautiful and unique the mansions were along that road, knowing that uninteresting cookie cutter red brick condos now line the strip where Pullman's house was. I had the unfortunate opportunity to go into one of them at the time and the insides were as dull and uninspired as the outsides. Really, throughout the whole city so many buildings with amazing character were demolished to make way for the red brick nightmares that were decaying within 5 years of being built. History gone forever.
I grew up in Roger’s Park but did see some of these mansions being torn down to make room for Cabrini Greens. The Potter Palmer house was one of the last to go. Edgewater Beach Hotel was torn down after my high school prom. It would rival Mar el Lago any day!
I grew up in lake forest Illinois30 miles north of Chicago. So many of these families also had estates in lake forest, And I went to school with so many of the grandchildren. Armour, Scweppes, Swift, McCormick, Field, Walgreen. I found some old maps At the local historical society and it's just amazing The scale of some of these old dimensions and the grounds that they covered in
I think Schweppes is a soda pop corporation. Were most of the grandkids nice? I would love to visit Park Forest someday.
Lake Forest , River Forest , Forest Park , Park Forest. All in Chicagoland. 😊
Great video and nice to see a focus on my favorite time period in Chicago history. Sure wish I could time travel, but the video is definitely the next best thing!
My great grandfather had a house on Prairie Avenue. It wasn't a big mansion, but I've seen pictures, and it was still pretty sizable. He was a brewer, and his beer was served at the Columbian Exposition, something I'm very proud of. Unfortunately, prohibition put him out of business.
Interesting - what was his last name? Which brewery? I’ve studied the history of Chicago breweries.
@@libertyvilleguy2903 Mitchell. The brewery was in Mokena IL.
@@mikehughes4969 According to American Breweries II, the C. A. Mitchel & Son brewery, located on Wolfe Road in Mokena, operated from 1933 - 1937. Then, from 1937 - 1940, as the Mitchel Brewing Company.
@@libertyvilleguy2903 i live 15 mins from mokena lol in orland
@@libertyvilleguy2903under their name. There were many merges and name changes according to printed version of Chicago Encyclopedia.
The Glessner House, the Clarke House, and the Nickerson House (now the Driehaus Museum) are all beautiful to tour.
Absolutely.
These look like the homes in Hyde Park. They’re still there…. Hyde park is still expensive as shit and always has been even before it was heavily gentrified.
Appreciate learning about the grand mansions that once stood on Michigan and Prairie Ave or Millionaire's Row. Field's, Palmer, Cudahy and Rockefeller were my favorites. Love learning the history of Chicago.
Many of these buildings were made into apartments. Grew up in the '60s, and lived in one for about 8 years.
Marshall Field’s fur coat is everything! 😂😂😂
For those who remember a style and no tattoos.
You missed a picture of the Bundy Estate. Alfred Bundy was a Woman’s Shoes tycoon
As in AL and Peg Bundy?
To lose these beautiful architecturally accurate mansions is almost a crime against history
They were built via crimes in their own right. Make no mistake about it.
@@SouthernArawak hahahahhaaaa..... your probably correct. what was I thinking. cheers the robber barons, monopolist and banks.
@@windronner1 ....and one cow😀
Chicago to this day has some of the most amazing architectural houses I've ever seen! I go up there on business trips and I'm always in awe with how beautiful those old homes are! I'm a Dallas/Ft Worth native and we just don't have as much of our old history and architecture anymore! I really hate that! This has become a transplant area so things are constantly being torn down for bigger highways and roads
Isnt that last house still standing? It looks alot like the house owned by the Catholic Church by Lincoln Park.
The last house shown is the John J Glessner House. It is currently open to the public as a House Museum. Later this month we are collaborating with the Glessner House to bring you a special, in depth video. Stay tuned, Cheers!
@@ThisHouse I was talking about the house at 9:17
@@salty6pence672 unfortunately, the Palmer Castle was demolished for a residential tower
Thanks for the video! I would recommend finding "Lost Chicago" and "Chicago Interiors" by David Garrard Lowe, published in the mid-1970s by Houghton-Mifflin. Both volumes are a wealth of detailed information on the greatest lost homes of the windy city. Both books detail the events that lead to Prairie Avenue's rise to prominence and it's subsequent rapid demise, clearing up some common misconceptions and myths about the lost architecture of Chicago.
Love both.
Thanks for this great post of the Lost Grandeur of Old Chicago! 🏆. We don't even have Marshall Fields anymore! Macy's is not even in the same league! Unfortunately so much has been lost 😞 to ?progress? Driving Lake Shore Drive is interesting to see two surviving mansions 🏰 🏰 surrounded by high rises. Thankfully the Palmer House still carries on tradition, even though it is a Hilton!
There are a bunch of mansions from this period surviving if you go literally 1 block east of Michigan Ave. Gold Coast is still full of mansions.
Palmer house is a hotel. Palmer mansion on Gold Coast was erased in 1950.
VERY INTERESTING....IM FROM CHICAGO AN LOVE THE HISTORY 🌲🍁🍂🌾🌻🌧☔️☃️❄️
I’m gonna have to say Cudahy mansion! Fairytale castle, bad money management, starvation diets for the next grand party? It’s me!
Bang bang
Thanks for the presentation, it was very insightful and well done. As you continue your historical research and presentation make sure you see some of the remaining homes and churches/synagogues on King Dr, Indiana and Michigan Ave in the Bronzeville community.
Toured the Glessner house this year and it was stunning. Several beautiful homes still stand on Prairie Ave including the Marshall Field Jr home but unfortunately the inside was completely gutted and redone in a modern, open style. It was listed for sale recently but the photos aren't for the faint of heart
While not mansions per say, but I got a chance to enter one of the larger houses along Garfield Blvd (55th Street) and was absolutely amazed, from in-floor tubs, to the tile, to the doors and the crown molding (the top, I’m not a carpenter). This was about 15-20 years ago….
Thanks for the video! Great stuff!!
I love these old Chicago stories ❤
The mansions, like Marshall Fields Estate, always looked funny to me and it just hit me…. They’re right on the street. Big houses in our time are usually built way back from the road and are gated with lots of land surrounding the home. That’s what was “off” to me. Beautiful homes!
Fifth Avenue in NYC was the same way. The large suburban-style lots were a phenomenon of later cities like Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit.
I wonder if the streets were that close years ago haven't taken time to watch closely. I always loved these beautiful old homes. My friends thought I was crazy. Many of these houses in the South were almost free around 1973. Teenager, I was a kid who wanted to buy some but back then I was SCORNED to No end but I lived in one or two nice older homes! Everyone take CARE N PRAY FOR balance n decency in America❗❗Thx
I've heard that mansions in Mexico take up the entire property, having no lawns or yard. Then there are the "McMansions," which are supposedly built in the same manner.
@@paulmezhir8354 buffalo has a pretty cool millionaires row though
Do a video on the former Excalibur night club building, it’s a historical building.
its amazing to me some people can live in such opulence while majority of us will only dream of waking up in a home like that 1 morning.. :(
when i ssee these homes in 2023, i can only imagine how magical they were back then.
and how lucky some family / people were to call that home.
Thank you for doing more on Chicago! Don't sleep on Chicago people! We have some gorgeous old area like the Gold Coast and rising like the West Town/River West area esp with the new casino
Eu sempre me pergunto o quão vazias eram as almas desses grandes e poderosos homens e mulheres porque eles construiam grandes e imensos palácios suntuosos e depois os abandonavam para construir outros ou disputar suas grandes fortunas com excessos arquitetônicos. Sem dúvida a intenção não era morar mas sim apenas se exibir seu poderio financeiro.
I can barely believe the fortune spent on these beautiful houses only to have them torn down. I suppose maintenance and taxes were issues. Even if they were saved, how expensive would it be to keep a roof on it?
I caught myself and drastically curbed my appetite when building my last home .
Another city in decline, like much of the once great American cities. What happened?
Those buildings were there before you Europeans raided this land, look that up!!!
Glessner House is most appropriate for an urban setting since it focuses inward to the courtyard. I do miss Marshall Fields and having lunch in the Walnut Room. At least I can still get the Frango Mints through Macy's.
Another winner, Ken! I enjoyed the picture shown at :13. I recognize it from the dust jacket of the excellent 1948 historical fiction novel "Prairie Avenue" by Arthur Meeker.
I don't have a favorite mansion but I'm partial to the Second Empire style and there were some excellent examples of that style in Chicago. If I could live in such a house I'd happily stay there year-round, no need for me to have a multiple houses. And during a Chicago winter I would not only stay in town I would stay indoors for days on end!
Great video except for the sell out Babble commercial.. Incredible mansions of extreme beauty gone Forever.
Damn. It sucks that those houses were all demolished. Those houses were so beautiful. Far more aesthetic than anything built since.
Beautiful Victorian homes😊
Pls do millionaire row of Milwaukee Wisconsin
Some of these home are still here! I also know some people who still live in one of these homes! Omg the Architect is amazing but I didn’t notice the back stairs to these places which were very narrow and you know I guess the black cooks and servers were using these staircases! One of my girlfriends actually on a mansion on the west side it is a preservation home it’s three stories high absolutely beautiful they Restorator that it still has some of the brass trim on the roof which is now green!
Yesss! So excited that there will be a Glessner House video! My husband and I got married at the Women’s Park next door, and had our reception there. We stayed at the air bnb behind the Keith House and it was a Chicago history lovers dream. ❤
Heartbreaking to see brilliant craftsmanship destroyed, even if you are not a fan of 2nd Empire (I am not), but these impractical over-the-top behemoth houses were destined for destruction if they couldn't be converted to museums or apartments or cloisters or condos...
Thank you for sharing my city here..
I stay on the north side of the city where the lake front is only a few blocks from me. It is a and has been a beautiful city to live in.
Wealthy people can't live in these giant houses without servants. As the servant class disappeared, so did the desire to live in such a huge place.
Plenty of servants immigrants today. They still hire 4-5 people every day. There’s a housekeeper, baby sitter, a cook and a driver.
What a waste.
Two issues here. The Kimball mansion (paired with the now connected Coleman-Ames mansion) is the headquarters of the US Soccer Assn., not a private home. [While the 1st line of the wikipedia entry says "private residence," it then goes on to explain about the Soccer Assn's hq.] Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any photos of the interior of this mansion even in its own chapter in the book "Great Houses of Chicago 1871-1921." If you were standing on the side of this mansion in 1900, you would be looking across E 18th Street to the Pullman mansion, and standing in front of it and looking across S Prairie Ave, you are still looking at the Glessner house.
The bigger issue is that both the Palmer castle and the McCormick mansion have the whole of downtown Chicago between them and Prairie Avenue and had nothing to do with that "Millionaires' Row" on the south side. In fact it was Potter Palmer's decision to build on the north side that led to the downfall of the Prairie Avenue area.
The picture that you show to talk about the moves to the north side was the mansion of Edith Rockefeller McCormick's father-in-law Cyrus McCormick (inventor of the McCormick reaper). Her husband, Harold Fowler McCormick, was president of International Harvester; and her father liked him because "he was too rich to be interested in her for his (JDR's) money." Just off camera to the right of the photo of Marshall Field's mansion is the large Marshall Field, Jr. mansion that was totally derelict for years but is now 6 large condos. I must say that the Kimball mansion is truly magnificent to see. Hopefully you will do a video of the north side Nickerson mansion.
The original McCormick "family" home was located west of Michigan Boulevard, at 675 Rush Sreet, the vicinity of the Water Tower. The remains of the structure were integrated into the new building that most famously housed a Lawry's Steakhouse. The Palmer castle was located at Banks and Lakeshore Drive. Edith Rockefeller-McCormick's lost home was located a block north, just off " the drive."
@@paulmezhir8354 I always made it a point to go to Lawry's when I was in Chicago (including one great Thanksgiving). It was Cyrus's nephew L. Hamilton McCormick who built the original mansion. This was a part of Chicago called "McCormickville because of all the various family homes. Nathaniel Jones built the mansion that J. D. Rockefeller would eventually buy and give to Edith as a wedding present.
Wonderful video as usual! I truly enjoyed touring the unique Glessner house in person. Looking forward to your video on it. 🎉
Oh-the Glessner house is my favorite
I had dream this morning around 4 AM . . . I was at an opera house 🏠 . . . Seated at a balcony . . . And looking down at the front row seats, depth was steep and out of reach.
The cause of the fire wasn't mentioned in your video?
Mrs Olearys cow kicked over a lantern in the barn. When I was in grade school in the 60s The Great Chicago Fire was part of our history class. It should've been mentioned.....
Wow! A cow, unreal-
I think the OLearys cow thing has been questioned as the start of the Chicago Fire. Stop badmouthing cows. :)
@@jivefive99 EAT MORE CHICKEN!!!
I heard some drunk guys hanging around the barn started the fire by accident and they blamed it on miss O'Leary's cow @@jivefive99
Incredible video! I can only imagine the amount of research, time, and energy that goes into each of these fascinating pieces! Thank you so much 🙏
I have to go with the castle. Times do change. Here in San Diego, many large Victorian homes built by the wealthy in the area east of Downtown had become run down slum buildings by the 1970s. Fortunately, the areas to the north (South Park, North Park, University Heights) were more sparsely settled and many of the Victorians there remain, with smaller homes of Craftsman, Spanish, and later styles surrounding them. Isn't photography a wonderful thing? :)
National City does have great Victorian mansions, unfortunately most need great effort to bring them back to glory and I don't see that happening anytime soon
Golden Hill still has some cool architecture :) It is very close to the downtown area which was cleaned up some in the 90's. Same situation- crime in the downtown area got pretty bad and crime rose. Most wealthy people today live near the ocean, not downtown!
@@Norsean National city? I think of cars for sale there, not mansions? I grew up in San Diego- & now live in north county-
@@katherinechase3674 There are a few large Victorian houses there, as well as in Chula Vista. Maybe not "mansions". The areas I was talking about in my first post are Sherman Heights and Grant Hill.
@@katherinechase3674 Maybe take a short drive around the place next time you visit, one place I recommend is Brick Row
I voted for Cudahy because I found his story interesting.
I know The PALMER house is still there. I've enjoyed it many times. But it is not the same as a Hilton. And Macy's doesn't even come close to MARSHALL FIELD
This is an excellent presentation, however you should also include the mansions that once stood on Ashland Avenue south of Madison Street. If I recall my Chicago history correctly, the first mansions of the new wealth were built there and later, when it became built up, the upper crust started to move to Prairie and Michigan Avenues. Sadly, I don't believe there are any more mansions on Ashland, it's mostly built up as a medical and hospital area now. I'm an ex-Chicagoan and have lived in Florida for 39 years now. and I miss the city as it used to be, not the shooting gallery it is now.
They weren’t mansions. Two men from Kentucky built fancy houses there before the Big Fire of Chicago. It was high end west suburb.The book doesn’t mention if they were to buy or to rent.
Beautiful
Anyone interested in old Chicago architecture should read "Lost Chicago" by David Garrard Lowe.
They all moved north to the county north of the City. Lake County. Lake Forrest Lake Bluff Highland Park Winnetka Deerfield
Cool video! Been doing research in my topic of interest and I wanna make similar type videos. When it comes to visuals, how do you know what pictures you can and cannot use because of copyright laws? That's one thing holding me back from releasing videos. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Luv your channel! Please do Grey Gardens! Edie's 105th Birthday is November 7th!❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸
Detroit Michigan LEAVING 1967 riot lost 50% of white people i was there
🕊🌎🕊🕊
Millionaire Row houses. Isn’t it funny how no one wants to live in a row house now. They call the same thing, town houses now like more Acceptable but the same thing❤❤❤❤❤
"They were all torn down." This is false. A bunch of mansions still exist in Gold Coast, but not all. Some were torn down for high rises but it's still a neighborhood filled with these great examples. Some areas on the South Side still have the houses too on numerous streets but less in tact than Gold Coast.
Also, there is a newer district that's popped up in the last 15 or so years of crazy large urban mansions in Lincoln Park not too far from Gold Coast. People hate them sometimes because they look older but in 30 years people will start talking about some of them more positively.
Can anyone tell me the streets of the houses at 7:21 and 7:27?
I’ve been looking for a beautiful mansion that stood in a parking lot at least until 1989 near North Ave on Clark or Broadway.
Sorry! I don’t know how to link time stamps.
Great video! Marshall Fields' mansion is my pick. The solarium has a beautiful shape & intricate details 💙
Al Capone was the richest man in Chicago. He got a heavily armored Cadillac limousine that took him out to his home in Cicero. In world war 2 this car was used by FDR.
Property Developers continue to prove themselves least patriotic similar to yesterday's Monopolies and barons that could have cared less regarding historic Souls uniquely distinct to each individual community.
Okay as a passionate lifetime Chicago historian and our cities Treestorian. I've learned that offense is the best defense which means immediately protecting history before Developers cash in.
This makes NO sense. Those mansions were already there
Tartarian:)
George Pullman was so despised by his employees- that when he died, his family laid down a huge cement slab over his grave, so he would not be dug up and torn to bits.
Most prestige after Prairie Ave is Astor Street on Gold Coast it has beautiful mansions , some converted to condos.
Must be nice having all that mula,I'm happy just having a good mattress and a roof over my head that doesn't leak..
I was working in broockfield zoo.love chicago.,!!!!❤
I lived here my whole life I love it but I also hate it here. I hate the mean people everywhere, disrespect and ignorant people. And all the senseless crime. I have to carry a gun everywhere I go even while I'm relaxing at home I heard plenty of shootings outside my home.
I lived in Oak Park as a small child. I loved it there. We moved to San Diego in 1976. Curious about the city.
Al capone would be proud.
Standing or not, I can't imagine why it would not occur to you to list the addresses of these former architectural treasures?!
I havent watched the video yet but I want to put out a guess first and see how close I am.....(The democrats turned it into a slum)
So, with 2 exceptions all the great houses on the second most luxurious street in the US were torn down. Wow, the same story all over the country.
Might i suggest a video on Louis Comfort Tiffanys mansion in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Laurelton Hall aka Tiffany mansion.
Trying to understand how you could forget the french word for check >> cheque....
I am first so astonished and amazed at the houses …..then I start to cry when I know they are gone
Great video..
There are just a few of those manisons left & are a great visit
The archdiocese house on north Astor Street where the cardinal lives
A fire in the late 1800s surely not! 🤣 🤣
The Palmer Castle is my favorite of all I've ever seen in your videos.
Demoncrats is what happened.
MY VERY GOOD FRIEND IS FROM CHICAGO ILLINOIS ❤️
I liked the Palmer House.
Nice drone shot in the beginning