History in Streeterville

Ron Shimosawa is, or was, Ron of Japan.  In 1968, he imported his own brand of teppanyaki (or iron grill) cooking from Osaka, Japan, by opening a restaurant in Streeterville very much in the same style as one he continued to own and operate back home.  Unfortunately, Ron passed away just three years after he opened in Chicago.  Chieko Shito, a waitress with just the right personality, became the new president and has run the restaurant ever since.  Ron of Japan now has a third location in Northbrook.

Wilbur Wright once said of Octave Chanute, "If [he] had not lived, the entire history of progress in flying would have been other than it has been."  Chanute was a pioneer in railways and aviation.  In the early 1860's he designed the Chicago stockyards.  Later, he worked closely with the Wright brothers, helping them build and publicize their flying machine.  He authored Progress in Flying Machines in 1894, which became the definitive text for aviation experimenters.  Chanute lived at 224 East Huron.

From 1932 to 1960, the Chez Paree, located on the third floor of the building at the southwest corner of Ontario and Fairbanks, was at 610 North Fairbanks Court one of the premier supper clubs in the nation and played host to many of the world's best known entertainers, including Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Sammy Davis Jr., Sophie Tucker, Joe E. Lewis, Lena Horne, Jimmy Durante, and Tony Bennett.  The entertainers played multiple shows every night, and patrons could pay a cool $100 for a key that would admit them to the Gold Key Room, where they could drink and shmooze with the stars between sets.  Hugh Hefner, a regular at the Chez Paree, mimicked this concept when he opened his Playboy Clubs.  The very popular house dancers were known as “The Adorables.”  One such “adorable,” Marilyn Miglin, later became a world-renowned beauty authority and the wife of Lee Miglin, the famous Chicago real estate developer who became the third murder victim of Andrew Cunanan in 1997.