Jonathan Cohen's photos

The Oriental Theatre is located at 24 West Randolph Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. Opened in 1926 as a deluxe movie palace, today the Oriental is operated by Broadway In Chicago, a subsidiary of the Nederlander Organization. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as New Masonic Building and Oriental Theater. The Oriental opened in 1926 as one of many ornate movie palaces built in Chicago during the 1920s by the firm Rapp and Rapp. It was built on the same location as the former Iroquois Theatre (later the Colonial Theatre) site of a disastrous 1903 fire that claimed over 600 lives. Although the façade looks identical, the Oriental retained nothing from the building that once stood on the same site. The Oriental continued to be a vital part of Chicago's theater district into the 1960s, but patronage declined in the 1970s along with the fortunes of the Chicago Loop in general. Late in the decade, the theater survived by showing exploitation films. It closed in 1981 and was vacant for more than a decade. The Oriental is one of several houses now operating in Chicago's revitalized Loop Theater District. According to Richard Christiansen, the opening of the Oriental spurred on the restoration of other theaters in The Loop.

Chicago’s "MDA Building" is one of those downtown buildings few have heard of but that has its own interesting history. Designed by Daniel Burnham, Jr. and completed in 1927, it’s 24 floors, 290-feet high. Originally known as the Medical and Dental Arts Building, it was home to both the Chicago Dental Society and the Chicago Medical Society, as well as a larger roster of doctors and dentists. In October of 1939, it was the site of the first meeting of the Chicago chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. Their 1940 New Year’s Eve party was noted as featuring a "large assortment of sobered up piano players." The Chicago Literary Club, founded in 1874, moved to the 22nd floor as a cheaper alternative to their previous lodgings in the Fine Arts Building, and the same floor was the site of 10 cent lectures sponsored by the Marxist publication The New Masses in the 1930’s. In 1929, the Tribune reported that Mrs. Benjamin Baskin gave birth to a baby boy in one of the elevators. Hopefully, the building’s large population of doctors included least one obstetrician. Over time, the structure evolved into a more traditional office building, and was known for the rather ugly paint job on its top floor facades. In 2003, the building, renamed MDA City Apartments, underwent a $45 million upgrade by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture that saw the offices converted to 190 luxury rental units, with an outlet of the Elephant and Castle restaurant chain on the first floor of the limestone clad base, which also includes an Artisan Pastoral Cheese Shop.

The Chicago L is now 125 years old. This network of elevated trains and subways is how Chicagoans get around. But it’s also an iconic symbol of the city. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many American cities used elevated trains to transport their residents. In most cities, those elevated systems were eventually replaced by subways. While Chicago has two subway lines, the majority of its trains are either elevated or at grade (at ground level). Today, Chicago is the only city in the U.S. that still has elevated trains in its downtown area.

The curved building in the left foreground is the Trump International Hotel and Tower.