Where Loop Living for Singles Began

   In Mr. Pullman’s Bachelor Flats

 

Today the Pullman Building would be across from the Art Institute

 

 

 

 

By Megan McKinney

 

Long gone is the Romanesque-style Pullman Building, built in 1883 on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street. Designed by George Pullman’s favorite architect, Solon S. Beman, the structure preceded the present home of the Art Institute across the Avenue by a decade.  

George  Pullman

Owner Pullman’s elegant private office suite was on the ground floor, with the expected usual offices occupying the rest of the building up to the top three floors, where apartment living reigned. These floors were famous around town in their day; there were 75 luxurious apartmentsmost with fireplaces and all with views of Lake Michigan. Although they ranged in size some large enough to house a family it was the two room bachelor flats that captured the most attention.

These units were occupied by such notable figures  as future utilities magnate  Samuel Insull

Samuel Insull

the young newspaper co-editor Robert R. McCormick—before he became The Colonel

Robert R. McCormick

and Flo Ziegfeld of Follies fame.

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

Pullman’s units were the city’s first apartments to be connected by intercom to a main reception area. While intended primarily for Pullman employees, any available apartment could be rented by those not affiliated with the company.  The residential floors were accessed through a lobby off Michigan Avenue that also provided the use of two elevators.

The top floor also housed a venerable—and popular—Chicago gathering spot, about which author Arthur Meeker reminisced, “In my youth my favourite place was the Tip-Top Inn atop the Pullman Building.”

It wasn’t to last. In 1916, the apartment floors were converted to offices and the Tip-Top became the Tip-Top-Tap and moved to the Allerton Hotel.

Chicagoans and visitors to the city saw a Tip-Top reminder on Michigan Avenue.

Out of towners tuned to ABC radio and heard from it weekday mornings on Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club.

Those who grew up listenng to the Breakfast Club before school every morning, raise your hands. Remember the segment Fiction and Fact From Sam’s Almanac? Wonder which one of the above men was Sam Cowling. How would we have known?  We never saw him. It was radio.

We do know which was Fran Allison as Aunt Fanny before her television days on Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

 

Author Photo: Robert F. Carl