revealing connections between objects excavated at two separate downtown chicago digs

in synchronistic fashion, a rather interesting connection was recently discovered between artifacts that had separately been excavated from two chicago demolition sites. initially seeming like a simple curiosity, a detailed 7.5" tall spelter coin bank representing the first national bank of chicago was unearthed from a downtown excavation. the small but hefty architectural model struck me as an especially comical find: beneath a demolished structure or empty lot, a miniature building. it gives new meaning to the field of urban archaeology.

this unusual vintage collectible dates to the early 1970's, and was manufactured by banthrico, inc., a company begun in 1931 by aronson and joseph eisendrath. banthrico made over 900 different metal banks, mostly sold to financial institutions. like the one dug downtown, the majority of the coin bank souvenirs were made of "white metal" consisting of 95% zinc, 5% aluminum and traces of copper, brass, and lead. production required a highly skilled workforce including a sculptor, mold maker, engraver, chemist, and metallurgist, and moreover, was done by hand. the caster poured the molten metal into each mold separately. later, imperfections and burrs were removed with a belt sander and buffing wheel. banks were then colored through an electroplating process and a clear lacquer was applied. over the years banthrico made incursions into other product lines including lamp parts, trophies, bookends, figurines, and machine parts. all production of the approximately 75 employee company happened in a chicago manufacturing facility.

the first chicago bank traces its roots back to 1863, when banker edmund aiken and his partners invested $100,000 to found a new federally chartered bank that could take advantage of the national banking act of 1863, allowing banks to exist along with state-chartered institutions for the first time. the first chicago bank received the national bank charter no. 8 and grew steadily in the 1860's with the war bonds business, financing the american civil war. interestingly enough, the original site of first national bank was at state & washington, where the edward j. burling designed 4-story structure partially survived the great fire of 1871 only to be torn down in the late 1880's to make way for burnham & root's reliance building. at the turn of the century the bank merged with union national bank and two years later (1902), with the metropolitan national bank. first national bank survived well into the twentieth century, even through the great depression, and in 1969 was reorganized as the primary subsidiary of the new first chicago corporation. that year they moved into a newly built 60 story skyscraper in the loop at 10 south dearborn. this structure is the one represented by the buried coin bank, an 850 foot tall building that serves as the eleventh tallest building in chicago. today chase bank is headquartered in the building (as is exelon), and it has thus been renamed chase tower since 2005. the building and plaza occupy the entire block bounded by clark, dearborn, madison, and monroe streets. design architects for the construction of chase tower were c.f. murphy associates, stanislaw gladych, and perkins and will, and the tower is known for both its distinctive curving shape and its use of public space.

before chase tower was constructed, the lot was home to the morrison hotel, a high rise in the loop designed by marshall and fox and completed in 1925. standing 526 feet high, the morrison hotel was the first building outside of new york city to have more than 40 floors. at the time of its razing it was the tallest building to have ever been demolished anywhere in the world. incidentally, many months ago, at a west chicago excavation site, a small cast brass oyster-shaped key ring was dug from the ground bearing an image of the morrison hotel building on one side, and the words "morrison hotel and boston oyster house chicago" on the other. the nicely patinated metal piece has a hole punched near the top for attachment to a key fob. the first morrison hotel building, at 71-89 w. madison, was eight stories high with one basement, and was replaced in 1914 by the second morrison hotel. the boston oyster house, at the corner of clark and madison streets, offered no fewer than 42 oyster selections. founded in 1875, "the boston" served as the training ground for charles rector, who went on not only to sell record amounts of fresh shellfish in his own restaurant, but also opened a branch in new york city that became equally celebrated. the restaurant survived several changes of ownership and location until it foundered during the depression. the rebuilt version of the morrison hotel was a 22- story building with a depth of 190 feet. a 1940 chicago tribune notes that the 1,760 room hotel was constructed in four separate sections, built at different times and on four separately owned parcels of land. the first section of 21 stories was erected in 1911, the second a few years later, at the southeast corner of madison and clark, and followed in 1925 by the third or tower section of 42 stories with 860 rooms. the fourth and final section contained 450 rooms at 67 west madison, built in 1930 and 1951. in 1937, the last section at 67 west madison had been sliced off the building to become the hotel chicagoan, all opening between this and the adjoining units being bricked up.

the narrative of a given object is always something that must be fleshed out, but it is especially gratifying to find an interconnection like this one. having dug items rendering both the morrison hotel and chase tower demonstrates an uncanny intersection between the destruction of old buildings. the first national bank was replaced by the reliance building, and the morrison hotel was eventually replaced by the first national bank. each building was noteworthy in its own right, and survived only insofar as the business was able to outlast new development or morph into new iterations. moreover, the key fob and coin bank in tandem paint an ironic picture of a literal city beneath the city-- where images of non-extant buildings and former structures are waiting to be unearthed in all their forms.

update as of 5-17-2018:

Hi Eric.

Here's a thing I originally wrote as a comment on your blog post about the First National Bank building the other day, but it bounced back because it was too long.

But it's not too long to send as an email.
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In 2005, I was the Showroom Manager for Kimball Office's Chicago showroom, right across the street from the east door of the Merchandise Mart. We had just introduced a new desk system, and we were trying to get the word out to as many designers as possible, so we were inviting all the big design firms to come and check it out, and to induce them to come, we included a fancy-schmancy dinner along with the showroom tour.

The Kimball Office sales rep in charge of the event had the great ice-breaker idea of asking everybody at the table to tell everybody else about how they got their start in architecture, and of course, she started herself, and then it was my turn.

Well, naturally, I told them that I had worked at the Auditorium Building for over a decade, as their official Historian. I figured that since every architect knows Louis Sullivan's name, that would impress at least a few of them.

So then the head guy started talking, and he told us he had begun at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, at the same time in the mid-1960's that S-O-M was first working on the First National Bank Building. Its innovative shape -- wide at the ground floor, and narrowing as it rises -- was specifically designed that way to accommodate vast numbers of physical customers at a time before there were ATMs on every corner, or branch banks everywhere, because Illinois had some weird law at the time that dis-allowed a branch bank that was too nearby, so there was a minimum distance mandated for a branch bank to be from the main bank.

Well, when it came time to test curtains-- to find out which fabric had the strongest weave, because the First National Bank's lobby's windows were to be six stories tall -- and someone said that it made it really hard to test them out, since nobody else had windows that tall.

Well, the mid-sixties was also the period when Mrs. Spachner was trying to raise interest in -- and money for -- the Auditorium's restoration, so, every week, she was in at least one of the local Chicago papers.

So, someone on S-O-M's planning committee suggested approaching Mrs. Spachner, since she had made sure every article mentioned how tall our stage was. So they all got together and wrote her a letter, saying that they wanted to know if she would allow them to use the Auditorium's stage to audition the different curtain fabrics. Well, Mrs. Spachner answered back, saying she would prefer to have them come over in person, to talk about it. They figured they would use their combined persuasive powers on her, and say how it could be a wonderful opportunity to get additional publicity for her project, saying that everyone in Chicago was behind their project.

What they weren't counting on was Mrs. Spachner's business savvy, because as she sat making notes as she listened to SOM's head designer guy (not our dinner guest at our Showroom Dinner, who, as youngest member on the S.O.M. delegation, could only listen & observe) making his pitch to her, with her fingers steepled, she leaned over her desk and pushed the button on her intercom and asked her assistant to come into the room.

She just said to her "Will you please bring me the S.O.M. file?"

When her assistant came back into the room, she lay the folder down on her desk, and returned to her own office. Mrs. Spachner patted the manila folder with her fingertips and said in a confidential tone-of-voice, "I always keep a written copy of everything, because otherwise, I'm apt to forget."

The S-O-M folder held two sub-folders: one folder was clearly marked "Requests". As she paged through page after page, one-at-a-time, she added, in a voice tinged with exasperation, "Sometimes, I think it's just as hard to raise a hundred dollars, as it is to raise a hundred thousand dollars!!."

Then she picked up second folder, which was marked in big letters "Responses." Then she opened it up, and, feigning shock, she exclaimed as she demonstrated with her hands slowly spreading, "Why...it's empty!!! There must be a mistake, a . . . terrible. . . mistake!"

She called her assistant back into the room. "Marie, are you sure you didn't forget to note S-O-M's  contribution?" And Marie, as coached ahead of time, said "Why n-o-o,  Mrs. Spachner, every contribution is entered right after I open the envelope, so if there's no check . . . I can only assume they . . . didn't send one."

Whereupon Mrs. Spachner, said, looking the head guy directly in the eye, and gesturing with her hands, and speaking in a suddenly much more sorrowful voice "Ohhh, gentlemen . . . I don't know. . . w-h-a-t. . . . to say...but...well, I thank you for coming"  as she stood up, and briskly held out her hand. The meeting was clearly over.

She had made her point, and a few hours later, a handsome check from S-O-M was messengered over to the Auditorium Restoration Fund. A few days later, the curtains got hung and tested. Beatrice Spachner was quite a woman.

***

Richard Christianson, who was the long-time drama critic at the Chicago Tribune, once said "Bea Spachner played the role of an elegant, refined little lady, but that was all an act. Bea Spachner was a shark!  She could s-m-e-l-l  money!"

c