Sheridan Plaza Hotel

Planned and constructed from 1919 to 1921, Sheridan Plaza became the first high-rise building in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. The building was an outgrowth of the former Lake View Township, a popular gathering spot for wealthy Chicagoans who left the crowded city to enjoy their summers in a rural location along Lake Michigan. By the 1910s, any semblance of this area's rural past had disappeared and the area had become a suburban neighborhood. In the years following World War I, Chicago and much of the nation experienced a robust economic and real estate boom. Chicago's Uptown neighborhood enjoyed substantial growth, and Sheridan Plaza was the first of numerous small high-rise buildings constructed during the "Roaring '20s." 

The Uptown neighborhood once stood outside the Chicago city limits, originally part of Lake View Township, which was incorporated in 1857. The township's name was related to Lake View House, which opened on July 4, 1854, and was a popular hotel near the Lake Michigan shoreline. The hotel operated as a gathering spot for wealthy and prominent Chicagoans who spent their summers there. For instance, U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas, known well for his debates with Abraham Lincoln, spent the summer of 1856 at the Lake View House. 

The area around the hotel remained predominantly rural until the 1870s, when transportation lines connected Lake View to Chicago. Before long, wealthy Chicagoans moved northward away from the city center and constructed ornate homes in the Lake View area along Sheridan Road adjacent to Lake Michigan, replacing the small cottages and homes built by German and Swedish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1889, Chicago annexed Lake View Township; the area rapidly grew into a bustling, urban neighborhood. By the early 1920s when Sheridan Plaza opened, few remnants of the area's once-rural character remained.

During the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s, Chicago's Uptown neighborhood enjoyed vigorous development, which included the arrival of restaurants, theatres, nightclubs, retail, offices, apartments, and hotels, including the Sheridan Plaza. The Sheridan was the first of several high-rise buildings, most of which were eight to twelve stories. Property values increased dramatically. The land where the hotel opened climbed from $2,500 per foot in 1921 to $6,000 per foot by 1925. Co-owner Walter W. Ahlschlager designed the Sheridan, a twelve-story high-rise hotel supporting 400 rooms. Together with his business partners, he played a pivotal role in the Uptown neighborhood's commercial development, including organizing the Up-Town (sic ) Business and Development Association. The Sheridan also served the neighborhood as a hub for social events and routinely served as the seasonal home for Chicago Cubs players and their opponents. 

Commission on Chicago Landmarks. "Landmark Designation Report: Uptown Square District." Chicago Department of Planning and Development. October 6, 2016. https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Uptown_Square_District.pdf.

Rodkin, Dennis. "An Uptown Gem, Restored and For Rent: Ninety years after it opened as one Chicago’s most lavish apartment hotels, the Sheridan Plaza, at Sheridan Road and Wilson Avenue, is getting back its Jazz Age luster." Chicago Magazine. chicagomag.com. July 7, 2010. https://www.chicagomag.com/real-estate/july-2010/an-uptown-gem-restored-and-for-rent/.

Tangora, Martin C. "Nomination Form: Sheridan Plaza Hotel." National Register of Historic Places. archives.gov. 1980. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892246.