South State Street Skid Row (ca. 1929-2008)
Chicago’s Loop was once surrounded on the Near North, Near West, and Near South Sides by seedy neighborhoods populated by concentrations of transients, dive bars, burlesque houses, homeless shelters, and rooming houses. The South Loop version stretched along State Street from Congress Parkway to south of Polk Street, and remained entrenched from the 1930s through the turn of the 21st Century.
The four train stations in the South Loop were an arrival point for men and women looking for a better life in the Midwestern Metropolis. Newcomers arriving on trains found inexpensive hotels, settlement houses, missions, and a plethora of temptations to greet them upon their arrival in the South Loop. The YMCA Hotel at 826 S. Wabash, the YWCA Hotel at 830 S. Michigan, the Pacific Garden Mission at 650 S. State Street offered shelter and services to new arrivals. Churches such as St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church at 901 S. Wabash offered spiritual assistance. But as neighborhood fortunes declined with the onset of the Great Depression, scores of idle men and women in the anonymous big city turned to panhandling, alcohol, vice, and other means of survival.
The 1928-29 Chicago address directory showed no less than 28 small hotels and settlement houses on State Street in the six blocks from Van Buren to 11th Street:
South of Van Buren
Hotel Munro, 406 S. State Street
Arcade Hotel, 436 S. State Street
Century Hotel, 438 S. State Street
Moose Hotel, 452 S. State Street
South of Congress
New Central Hotel, 500 S. State Street
Eagle Hotel, 516 S. State Street
Lake Park Hotel, 519 S. State Street
Hotel Tampa, 528 S. State Street
Paris Hotel, 538 S. State Street
Western European Hotel, 544 S. State Street
Hill's Lunch Room and Hotel, 545-47 S. State Street
New State Hotel, 553 S. State Street
South of Harrison
Alpine Hotel, 624 S. State Street
Elk Hotel #2, 632-36 S. State Street
Davenport Hotel, 648 S. State Street
Pacific Garden Mission, 650 S. State Street
Loyal Men's Hotel, 652 S. State Street
Belvedere Hotel, 659 S. State Street
Dearborn Hotel, 666 S. State Street
Salvation Army Reliance Hotel, 669 S. State Street
South of 7th
Hotel Tivoli, 703 S. State Street
Eureka Hotel, 733 S. State Street
Grand Hotel, 745 S. State Street
South of Polk/8th
Keystone Hotel, 805 S. State Street
State House, 809 S. State Street
Acme Hotel, 811 S. State Street
South of 9th
Railroad Hotel, 914 S. State Street
Illinois Hotel, 1007 S. State Street
Several other small transient hotels were on side streets just around the corner from State Street, such as the Meyer Hotel (9 W. Harrison), Aplin Hotel (27 E. Harrison), Harvey Hotel (12 E. 7th Street), and Iowa House (12-14 E. 8th Street).
Above: A transient man stands in front of 536 S. State Street in July 1941. This location is now the site of the Library Towers apartments.
Many once tidy and functional small hotels such as the Carter Hotel (Balbo and State), the Roosevelt Hotel (Wabash and Roosevelt), and the Avenue Motel (north west corner of Michigan and Roosevelt) eventually became long-term, single room occupancy transient dwellings. Businesses catering to the down-and-out sprouted up around the neighborhood. Once elegant and historic theaters began showing titillation or exploitation films. The aging and emptying train stations attracted vagrants and panhandlers. And the moral and physical decline of the neighborhood chased legitimate businesses elsewhere.
Many of these seedy businesses were demolished in the name of neighborhood improvement in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. In 1956, the main intercity bus station at 12th and Wabash was closed as Greyhound and Trailways built facilities near Randolph Street.
After the shock of losses of some of Chicago’s most historic buildings in the 1960s, a culture of preservation took hold in the city, and some were spared demolition. Most of the buildings that survived into the 1990s were spared the wrecking ball and retrofitted into useful elements of the community that convey neighborhood history, permanence and pride.
Fine examples of these saved treasures include the Roosevelt Hotel (now an affordable rental building), the YMCA Hotel (gutted and re-made into loft apartments in the mid-1980s), and the former Standard Oil Headquarters (now luxury condos). Former industrial buildings have been retrofitted into restaurants, residences, retail, and educational institutions. The healthy mix of historic buildings adapted to modern uses and new construction is one of the factors that makes the South Loop an extremely desirable neighborhood today.
Sources: Polk's Chicago Numerical Street and Avenue Directory, 1928-29
Photos: Library of Congress
