The Chicago Beach Hotel was located in the Indian Village neighborhood of the Kenwood community area of Chicago, Illinois, on the property that currently houses Regents Park. The Hotel was built at East Hyde Park Boulevard (51st Street) and Cornell Avenue in 1890. It was one of many speculative hotels built to accommodate the Columbian Exposition of 1893. In 1912 a huge 12 story addition was constructed.
The building extended to Lake Michigan. The building resembled the Hyde Park Hotel and probably shared architects. The building was rebuilt as a 12 story resort. Many Chicagoans of high social standing became residents and members. The building had private access to the beach until 1915 when the city created an adjacent bathhouse. During World War II it was commandeered by the military and served as Gardiner General Hospital. After the war the building served as the 5th Army Headquarters. It was demolished following the war. Now, the Regents Park apartments are located on the property.
A second, unrelated Chicago Beach Hotel, built in 1929, still stands a block away at 5100-5110 South Cornell Avenue. Currently used as an apartment building, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 14, 1986.
Famous quotes containing the words chicago, beach and/or hotel:
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,”
—Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)