Merchandise Mart
The Merchandise Mart ( Merch Mart for short ) is a department store in Chicago . When it opened in 1930, it was the largest building in the world . The building was erected on the site of the 1911 abandoned Wells Street Station of the Chicago and North Western Railway .
The Mart bundled Chicago's wholesalers under one roof.
The Chicago architecture firm Graham, Anderson, Probst and White designed the Merchandise Mart as a “city within a city”. The merchandise mart is so big that it had its own zip code until 2008 (60654).
It was owned by the descendants of Marshall Field and then the Kennedy family for over 50 years . In 1998 Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. MMPI was taken over by the Vornado Realty Trust . In early 2007, the building was valued at $ 917 million.
In 2007 the building was awarded the LEED in silver for old buildings.
architectural art
In 1953 Joseph P. Kennedy commissioned eight bronze busts to "immortalize outstanding American dealers", the "Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame":
- Frank Winfield Woolworth ,
- Marshall Field ,
- Aaron Montgomery Ward
- Julius Rosenwald
- Robert Elkington Wood
- John Wanamaker
- Edward Albert Filene and
- George Huntington Hartford
Outdoor lighting
It is a tradition of the house to illuminate the facade and the windows of the outer towers with lights pointing upwards. Colored light is used on certain days: on St. Patrick's Day in Irish green, in autumn on Halloween and Thanksgiving in orange. Other colors are used, for example, in Cancer Prevention Week and on other occasions.
For Art Chicago in 2008, the American artist Jenny Holzer illuminated the facade of the Merchandise Mart with a poem by the Polish Nobel Prize winner for literature Wisława Szymborska .
At night, the outside lighting is coordinated with the colors of the antenna tower of the Willis Tower , the John Hancock Center and the upper floors of the Aon Center .
Public transport
The Mart has its own train station in the Chicago Transit Authority 's 'L' system .
literature
- Chappell, Sally A. Kitt: Architecture and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1912–1936: Transforming Tradition . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL 1992.
Web links
- Merchandise Mart in the Chicago Tribune
- Site of the building
- Video Merchandise Mart Properties Tenant Profiles
- The Merchandise Mart Buyers Guide
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Marchitecture . merchandisemart.com. Archived from the original on February 5, 2007. Retrieved July 10, 2007.
- ↑ a b The Merchandise Mart: History . merchandisemart.com. Archived from the original on April 4, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- ↑ a b Merchandise Mart, Chicago . emporis.com. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
- ↑ Karla Zimmerman, Lisa Dunford, Nate Cavalieri: Chicago: city guide
- ↑ Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. . Archived from the original on May 4, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- ↑ Merchandise Mart's value soars in 9 years . Crain's Chicago Business. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 9, 2007.
- ↑ The Merchandise Mart Chicago Receives LEED Silver Certification greenprogress.com.
Coordinates: 41 ° 53 '18.8 " N , 87 ° 38' 7.9" W.