From old bars and historic movie theaters to iconic industrial buildings, when a Chicago mainstay closes or is demolished it plucks at the heartstrings knowing we’ve lost a key component of the city’s fabric.
You need only look at the new 400 Theaters or the Blommer Chocolate factory’s recent closure for a reminder of that.
Luckily Chicago is a city that strives to protect its history and identity and in recent years we’ve seen the likes of the Ramova Theatre and the Morton Salt complex reborn as exciting new establishments.
Non-profit organizations are consistently fighting for historic preservation by spotlighting those buildings most under threat and now Landmarks Illinois, the state’s leading voice for historic preservation, has released its 2024 list of the Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois.
Every year the list highlights 10 culturally and architecturally significant sites across the state that are in urgent need of protection and preservation and this year 3 Chicago-area buildings were named on the list all facing growing threats of disinvestment and demolition.
The Portage Theatre in Portage Park and the Sears Administration Building in North Lawndale made Landmarks Illinois’ 2024 list along with the Libby, McNeill, and Libby factory in Blue Island.
The first of these, the Portage Theater, is over 100 years old having opened in 1920 near Portage Park’s popular “Six Corners” area but with financing struggles since its closure in 2018, its future now hangs in the balance.
Read more about the Portage Theatre at Landmarks Illinois.The second, meanwhile, is part of the sprawling National Historic Landmark-designated Sears campus and was constructed in two phases in 1905 and 1914. It was the headquarters of Sears, Roebuck, and Co. which went on to become one of America’s leading retailers and the largest in the world by 1960.
While other buildings on the Sears campus have been repurposed, the former Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Administration Building has been vacant since it was listed for sale a year ago.
According to Landmarks Illinois, the building is currently vacant and is “beginning to decay due to a lack of reuse and proper maintenance.”
Read more about the Sears Administration Building at Landmarks Illinois.The third Chicago-area building in the list is the Libby, McNeill, and Libby factory in Blue Island. Built in 1918, the building was used as a canning and bottling factory and w as an economic engine for the community employing hundreds of local residents and migrant workers for decades.
Despite serving what was once the second-largest producer of canned foods in the United States for many years, the factory closed in 1968. It was then briefly used as an incubator for startup businesses in the 1990s and was donated to the nonprofit, Affordable Recovery Housing in 2018 but has been largely vacant for several years now and is also reportedly decaying.
Read more about the Libby, McNeill, and Libby factory at Landmarks Illinois.
View Landmarks Illinois’s full list of the 2024 Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois.