This Used To Be Chicago

Warning: with This Used to Be Chicago as your guide, you may never look at

Chicago the same again. Every building has a past—author Joni Hirsch Blackman

finds the stories behind more than 90 Chicago buildings that used to be

something else: the liquor store that used to be a speakeasy during

Prohibition; the yacht club that used to be a ferry boat; the countless

condominiums that used to be cracker, shoe, postcard or piano factories and,

perhaps the most incongruous, the circus school that used to be a church.

Imagine what your favorite buildings will house in another 100 years—that’s

this book backwards! Explore your own neighborhood with a new eye, find places

you remember from your youth, appreciate a new part of town you’ve considered

only as it is now.