Strangely enough, we just linked to the history of these Schlitz sponsored buildings a few days ago.
City officials want to assign landmark status to eight former Schlitz taverns that opened more than 100 years ago, a group of buildings that includes the popular Lakeview nightspot Schuba’s Tavern. Adorned with distinctive Schlitz globes, the structures are reminders of an era when beer makers like Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. owned and operated their own saloons, a foreign concept to barhoppers today.
Built in the late 19th and early 20th century in Queen Anne or Baroque style, so-called brewery-tied houses “convey important aspects of the ethnic, social and commercial life of the city’s neighborhoods,” a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Zoning & Land Use Planning writes in an e-mail. The city Commission on Chicago Landmarks will consider a preliminary recommendation to designate the properties as landmarks at a Thursday meeting. It’s the beginning of a process that could take a year, ending with a City Council vote on the proposal.
(click to continue reading Landmark status on tap for former Schlitz taverns | News | Crain’s Chicago Business.)
Good, I hope the city officials follow through with this initiative. I realize the past is not sacrosanct, but personally am of the opinion that some history of a city, especially a city as architecturally aware as Chicago, should be retained against the onslaught of developers seeking to raze all in their path.
