History in Streeterville

This 25-story hotel opened in 1924 and was designated a landmark on May 29, 1998.  During the 40s and 50s, a swanky club called the "Tip Top Tap" was located on its top floor, but it closed in 1961.  The hotel underwent a $60 million renovation from August 1998 to May 1999.  The top floor now houses the Renaissance Ballroom.  a lounge called "Taps on Two" is on the second floor.

This lighthouse was built for the 1893 Columbian Exposition and moved to its current location in 1919.  It is 66 feet tall and was designated a landmark on April 9, 2003.

Actor and comedian Chris Farley was found dead on December 18, 1997, in the doorway of his apartment on the 60th floor of the John Hancock Center at 875 North Michigan Avenue. His next-door neighbor was Jerry Springer. Farley, age 33, died from opiate and cocaine intoxication. Farley, a native of Madison, Wisconsin, had worked with Chicago's Second City Theater and NBC's Saturday Night Live, and he also starred in a number of Hollywood films. Farley battled obesity and drug addiction until the very end. On August 26, 2005, he was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hugh Hefner moved the Playboy offices from his apartment to 11 E. Superior Street in River North in 1954.  A short time later he moved the offices to this building in Streeterville at 232 E. Ohio Street.  In 1965, Playboy took up a 25-year residence at 919 North Michigan Avenue also in Streeterville.

The first televised presidential debate, between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy, was held in the CBS television studio at 630 North McClurg Court on September 26, 1960.  An estimated 70 million Americans watched on TV and several million more listened on the radio.  The general consensus among those watching television was that Kennedy won the debate, while those listening on radio generally believed that Nixon performed better.  The building was demolished in 2009 after CBS moved to its current location at 22 West Washington Street in the Loop.

From 1992 to 2009, Jerry Springer, the one-time Mayor of Cincinnati, taped his perpetually controversial and famously low-brow, trash-talk television show at NBC Tower, at 455 north cityfront plaza drive.  The show typically opened with Springer interviewing a guest who indulges in, or has been personally affected by, some sort of sexually-perverse behavior or who is otherwise mired in the throes of a disturbing personal or family problem.  All major perversions were covered and exploited, including incest, pedophilia, fetishism, transvestitism, and zoophilia.  After the initial guest provided the requisite background and exposition, an antagonist was trotted out to the stage, and a confrontation typically ensued, with fisticuffs and violence that satiated the bloodthirst of the reliably agitated audience.  At the end of the segment, audience members posed questions and made observations, typically accompanied by venomous insults hurled at the guests.