ORAL HISTORY OF CHARLES F. MURPHY
Interviewed by Carter H. Manny
Compiled under the auspices of the Chicago Architects Oral History Project The Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings Department of Architecture The Art Institute of Chicago Copyright © 1995 Revised Edition © 2003 The Art Institute of Chicago This manuscript is hereby made available to the public for research purposes only. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publication, are reserved to the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries of The Art Institute of Chicago. No part of this manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of The Art Institute of Chicago.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword iv
Preface v
Outline of Topics viii
Oral History 1
Selected References 57
Curriculum Vitæ 59
Index of Names and Buildings 61
iii FOREWORD
The Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to include this document, an interview of Charles F. Murphy by Carter Manny, in our collection of oral histories of Chicago architects. Carter Manny, a close associate of Murphy's, deserves our lasting thanks for his perception in recognizing the historical significance of Murphy's so often casually told stories and for his efforts to given them permanent form.
It is an important addition to our collection because it brings to light many aspects of the practice of architecture in Chicago in the early years that only a privileged few could address. We share Carter's regret that we could not have had more of Murphy's recollections, but are indeed appreciative for what is here.
This oral history text is available for study in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago, as well as in a complete electronic version on the Chicago Architects Oral History Project's section of The Art Institute of Chicago website, www.artic.edu/aic
Our sincere thanks to Carter for offering this interview to the Art Institute and to TapeWriter, who helped shape its final form.
Betty J. Blum Director, CAOHP 1995
iv PREFACE
Any future historian of Chicago architecture who is concerned with work of the twentieth century will sooner or later encounter the names: Shaw, Naess and Murphy; Naess and Murphy; C.F. Murphy Associates and Murphy/Jahn. The Murphy in this succession of firm names is Charles Francis Murphy (1890-1985). His seventy-year career in architecture, which started with Daniel Burnham in 1911 and drew to a close with Helmut Jahn during the early 1980s, was one of the longest in the history of the city.
My thirty-year-plus association with Mr. Murphy began in 1948, when, just out of architecture school, I was hired by the firm then known as Naess and Murphy. I served a lengthy apprenticeship carrying out a variety of low-level assignments. Then during the mid-1950s I began to shoulder greater responsibility thanks largely to Mr. Murphy's son, Charles Jr., who came into the firm around 1954. In 1955 Mr. Murphy invited me to be a trustee of what later became the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, which he was beginning to organize as the executor of Ernest Graham's will. In 1957 I joined him and Sigurd Naess as one of four new junior partners in the firm.
During the years that followed, I had many opportunities to hear stories that Mr. Murphy loved to tell about his experiences in architecture. As he neared the end of this life, I suggested that he jot down these stories or record them using a tape recorder. I didn't have much success with my suggestion, but after some prodding he agreed to let me come to his apartment for two recording sessions in June 1981. He was ninety-one years old and his mind was still very clear. He seemed to enjoy talking to me; Mrs. Murphy occasionally would join us when she overheard something from another room that she thought needed correcting or embellishing.
Mr. Murphy was a congenial man who made friends easily and was well-liked by everyone he met. As he recounts on these tapes, he began as a specifications typist in the office of D.H. Burnham and Company in 1911. His big chance came a year or two later when he became the private secretary to Ernest Graham, who became head of the firm after Burnham died suddenly on a trip to Europe in 1912. Under Graham, the firm continued its national prominence, first as Graham Burnham and Company and then after 1917 as Graham, Anderson, Probst and White.
v Mr. Murphy had no prior schooling in architecture, but at Graham's side he learned the ins and outs of maintaining a large architectural practice and eventually satisfied state requirements to become a licensed architect. He never practiced as an architectural designer, but, like Graham, devoted himself to the business side of the practice: to land the jobs and orchestrate the skills of others, to see that projects were successfully executed and that clients were kept satisfied.
He grew to be more than Graham's secretary: he became his trusted confidant and executor of his will. But, as Murphy tells, Graham unfortunately remarked to friends that he knew more about his business than his partners, a remark that got back to the partners and so provoked their resentment that they fired Murphy and two other young Graham favorites within days of Graham's death in 1936. The others, Alfred Shaw and Sigurd Naess, joined Murphy in forming a new firm, the first of the succession of firms that bore the Murphy name. These firms were to be responsible for some major Chicago works of their time, beginning with the Prudential Building, in 1954, the first major building in the city following the depression and World War II, and continuing with such works as O'Hare International Airport, the Continental Insurance Building, Daley Center, the First National Bank and the Xerox Center.
Regrettably, I had no experience or training taking oral histories but only wanted to preserve some of Mr. Murphy's stories in some chronological sequence. I realize now how much I missed that he could have told. There is little mention, for instance, of Mr. Murphy's role in organizing the Graham Foundation. This is a sad omission, since his efforts in this regard may have been his most lasting contribution to architecture. The serious reader can learn something of this story from a brief history of the foundation which I prepared for the trustees shortly before I retired as director in 1993. As part of my wind-up activities at the foundation, I also thought it might be a good idea to leave a transcript of the tapes in a file devoted to Mr. Murphy. During the fall of 1993, I asked Carolyn Kelly of the foundation staff to see what she could do. It proved to be a daunting task. The tapes were often garbled and thus I felt obliged to make some clarifying additions and corrections. Unfortunately, Mr. Murphy had no chance to check my editing, which occurred eight years after his death and twelve years after the taping sessions. Some of my editing reflects later events and
vi afterthoughts, but I believe it does not distort the essence of this man's story that is told with candor about how architecture was practiced years ago in the city of Chicago.
Researchers can find most of the working drawings of the various Murphy firms from 1937- 1973 at the Chicago Historical Society where they were given by Helmut Jahn in about 1990. Mr. Murphy would be pleased, I believe, that the C.F. Murphy Architectural Study Center at the Chicago Historical Society bears his name, the result of a grant from the Graham Foundation in 1989. There are also a few design drawings for some projects at the Ernest R. Graham Center for the Study of Architectural Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The collection at the Chicago Historical Society also includes a list of the many people who worked in the later Murphy organizations. There is also material which describes the roles of key individuals on various projects. In many cases one can determine the hand on unsigned drawings by comparing the initials on the drawing with names on the employment list. I am pleased that the transcript of these tapes, made informally and limited as they are, have been included in the oral history collection of Chicago architects in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Carter H. Manny June 1994
The above preface remains unchanged since it was written. However the intervening years have brought change. Electronic communication has vastly increased in importance as a method by which information is transmitted. We are grateful to the Barker Trust for support to scan, reformat, and make this entire text available on the Art Institute of Chicago's website, www.artic.edu. We are grateful for this opportunity to make Charles Murphy's oral history accessible for research worldwide. Annemarie van Roessel deserves our thanks for her skillful handling of the process.
Betty J. Blum Director, CAOHP November 2003
vii OUTLINE OF TOPICS
Working for Thurber Art Galleries 1 D.H. Burnham and Company 3 Secretary to Ernest Graham 5 Burnham's Death and Reorganization of Firm 6 Graham, Anderson, Probst and White 7 Zoning and the Equitable Building 8 Insurance Exchange Building 10 D.H. Burnham and Ernest Graham 13 Alfred Shaw 16 Civic Opera House 18 Field Building 20 Shaw, Naess and Murphy 22 Ernest Graham 23 William "Billy" Leffingwell Graham 27 Ernest Graham's Will and Ruby 28 Merchandise Mart and Other Buildings 33 Century of Progress International Exposition 40 Prudential Building and Air Rights 41 Central District Filtration Plant 46 First National Bank 48 About the Builders Building 51 Chris Paschen 53
viii Charles F. Murphy
Manny: Today is June 1, 1981, and I am speaking with Charles F. Murphy at his apartment on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Mr. Murphy is 91 years old. Mr. Murphy, do you want to start with something current or should we go back to the beginning? You've been interested in architecture now for over seventy years and I know I've been with you for not even half of that time, so you go way back. I know you came to the office in about 1910.
Murphy: 1911, April 4, 1911.
Manny: And was it then Graham Burnham or was it Burnham Graham?
Murphy: D.H. Burnham and Company.
Manny: When did Graham get his name on the masthead?
Murphy: After Burnham died. My first job was from the old De La Salle Institute. That was a business school. You learned bookkeeping and shorthand. Then after a three-year term, they got you a job. They got me a job with the Santa Fe Railroad. Then it was in the Railway Exchange Building.
Manny: Oh, really. Was that your first experience in that building?
Murphy: Yes, to be a stenographer. Well, it was a high-speed place and I lasted about two weeks and I got fired. Then they got me another job. The second one was in the building, too, but there as nothing to do except maybe one letter a day and it just bored me to death, so I started out on my own. Jobs were plentiful in those days. The next job that I stayed with was with the Thurber Art
1 Galleries on Wabash Avenue near Adams on the east side of the street. And I was there three years as a bookkeeper, and, well, I was a handyman, assistant bookkeeper, you know. And I learned a little bit about art. I hobnobbed with the salesmen. They had four or five salesmen, and they—the Thurber Galleries and M. O'Brien and Son—were the two leading art galleries in Chicago. They were right next to each other almost. Well, after about two years they—oh, Thurber was a cripple. He had locomotor ataxia and he was in a wheelchair. He was a fine, distinguished looking gentleman. He had a nephew named Seymour who was the star salesman. He always dressed in a cutaway suit. and the other salesmen wore afternoon suits, but short ones. They didn't wear the Prince Albert. Well, after about three years I found out I wasn't getting enough money on fifteen dollars a week. Robert Doran was the general manager, and I told him I had another job. Right away they said they would raise me to eighteen dollars, which was what I said I was getting in the other job. So I said it was too late now, so I left. But, before that happened, they moved over to the Fine Arts Building, next to the Chicago Club. There is a building there right between the old Fine Arts and the Chicago Club that was part of the Fine Arts, but it was a separate building about five or six floors high, and the Thurber Galleries took the top floor and the architect for fixing it up was Frank Lloyd Wright. He was a fairly young man then, and Charles B. Johnson and Son were the builders. I knew those people in later years. I knew the son, and Doran was always raising Cain with them for being so slow. They said, "We can't go any faster. We can't get the plans out of this architect." So, Doran got hold of Frank Lloyd Wright and said, "Come on now. You got to get these plans." He was absolutely furious that anybody would approach him on that basis. So, he got so mad he took his plans and rolled them under his arm and got out and said, "I won't do this anymore." Thurber felt badly about it, and he said, "Now you've hurt a man that is very sensitive and I think you shouldn't have done that." He said, "Never mind, he'll be back." Well, a couple of days later he came back with the drawings under his arm and the needed drawings, too. So Doran said, "All right, get going now, get moving." And what he did there was rather attractive for showing prints and etchings and so on. They also had paintings, and it was shortly after that I left the place because I felt I was
2 being way underpaid. There was a woman over at the Underwood Typewriter Company who was in the employment department, and I got to know her. She was very friendly with me. I went in one day, and she said, "Now, I have a place for you that I'm sure you'll like, and stay there." It was D.H. Burnham and Company. I went over and I was hired right away. Burnham had not a woman in the firm in any capacity. All the stenographers, as they called them, were all men. I was maybe seventeen or eighteen, and these fellows might have been thirty. They were fat and sloppy looking people. But, they were pretty hard characters, too. The main job we did was write specifications and type them, and there were—I think there were five of us altogether. We were in a room right across the hail from Graham's office and from Burnham's office. I don't know why they gave such good space to the stenography department, but they did. After I was there a few months, I got on to all the ruckus. Fred Tipburner, one of the fellows I liked a little bit, was a fatty, typical little Dutch boy, German. It was coming up to Memorial Day holiday, and he said, "What do you say we work all night?" We got paid time and a quarter. You never could get finished, there was so much specifications. They had a hell of a lot of work, tremendous amount of work. So I said okay, we'd do it. So we were banging away there. It was about eleven o'clock at night, and Graham came and he cocked his head and he said, "Hey." He didn't know my name. He said, "Come out with me." And we went around out by the elevators. At that time they had these wooden cages.
Manny: They were in use even into my time.
Murphy: Yep, that's right. Sure, we put the new ones in.
Manny: The first automatic elevators?
Murphy: That's right. Where he led me was to McNulty Brothers office. [McNulty Brothers is a plastering contractor.]
Manny: Were they in the same building?
3 Murphy: They had a downtown office, a business office. They had it for the reason to be close to Burnham's office. That's where they got their business. Another man who was right next door to the office was the Alabama Marble Company. Reynolds was the Chicago representative, and he kept them right there where they could get the business. There was a long-lasting dispute between the plumbers and the steamfitters—they were mad—so these fellows were all gathered in McNulty's office from the head of the building trades, Simon O'Donnell. McNulty was there. R.J. Powers was a plumber. He was a great fellow to try to settle things, get things settled. He'd bring the troubles over to Graham, and they'd use Graham's office to deliberate. The contractors should have been doing that themselves, but they weren't organized. Graham was doing it to keep his jobs going. So, there was a lot of acrimonious language between these two, the steamfitters and the plumbers. I was supposed to be taking down the notes. It was about 2:30 in the morning when they decided to adjourn, and they asked me to go and write up the notes. I think about eight lines was all they had written. Every word that was said would be contested, so Graham said, "All right. We'll meet again after the holiday and start in again and talk about it." So the following Saturday, which was the day after or the second day after, at Pat O'Malley's saloon on State Street across from Marshall Field's, there was a gathering of these birds and a shooting. One man, a business agent, was killed; two others were hurt—shot. The following Monday, the whole tribe of these leaders—Simon O'Donnell, Skinny Madden, Shaughnessy of the bricklayers, Mike Boyle—they all came back about ten o'clock in the morning to resume negotiations. Graham met them at the front door, and he said, "No, boys. I won't talk, not while you're doing that sort of thing." And he shut them out. It was seven or eight years after that before these fellows, the contractors, got enough sense to get organized and get down to cases with them. You never hear of anything like that anymore, but it was bad. That one shooting was only one of many.
Manny: Is that so? Jurisdictional things like that between the steamfitters and the plumbers over who's going to do the work?
4 Murphy: Yes. In the end they merged the two and they called them the pipefitters. They both worked with pipes, and they finally settled it and became harmonious. That's the last I saw of Graham until about a year or two later. James Fortiker, who was his secretary, was leaving. He was going into the automobile and truck business. The automobiles were pretty new in those days, trucks especially. There was a man named E.B. Joslyn who was connected with the building game, and he was also dabbling. He was well-to- do. He was dabbling with trucks, and he got an agency and he convinced Fortiker to come with him. So then they started a search for a successor. Well, they advertised, because I didn't know much about what they were doing. I was still in this pool of stenographers. Well, they said, Fortiker told me afterwards, he said, "We had a stack of applicants about two inches high from all over the country, from all over the East, at least. It's hard to make up our mind. Mr. Graham doesn't even want to look at those things. They are too much of a bother." He told me afterward, "I finally went to Mr. Graham and said, 'Why, we've got the right man here in the office. Why do we have to look elsewhere? I'm surprised we didn't do it before. The man is Murphy." So that's how I got the job, and that department faded after that. All these other fellows, of course, didn't like that idea because they were ten or twelve years older than I was. Well, that's how I got started with Graham. But, in that short period when we had that pool of stenos, Burnham came to the doorway one day and he said, "Who's Murphy?" And I said, "Here I am, sir." And he said, "Come in." He had the big office right on the southeast corner of the building on the 14th floor that Graham had later. It was a big office—as big as this whole area here. Burnham was a very heavy man. He weighed 250 anyway, and he was probably six feet tall or close to it. The other man was the president of the United States.
Manny: Really? Taft was there in the office?
Murphy: He was a 300-pounder.
Manny: Yes, I know.
5 Murphy: About that time, apparently the government was giving Burnham the job to build the Philippine Islands summer capital, a place called Baguio. It was up in the hills where they could stand the heat in the summers, so they moved from Manila up to the new quarters. I think Peirce Anderson went over there, and they got the thing started. Well, anyway it was built for this summer capital. But what he called me for was between the two of them, they wanted to write a little memorandum. I don't remember what the contents were. I think it related something to that big job. It wasn't such a big job in money, but it was a big job in prestige. I used to see Burnham now and then around the office. One time he was talking to his son, Dan. He must have been trying to explain an engineering matter. He put his foot there, and he said to Dan, 'Put your foot against mine and use some pressure against it," telling him how certain stresses worked. Dan wasn't too smart, but he was nervy. Well, the following year Burnham went to Europe for a long stay. As I say, he was very overweight. Back in those days, these men thought the more you ate, the more healthy you were. The head steel man, the head of the structure department was Giaver, Joachim Giaver. He was a great big powerful man, a big fat man, I'd say. And Reynolds, the art and marble man, was another big man. Well, Burnham got sick over in Europe. It was about the middle of the year, June or so. He got desperately ill and he had to be treated in Heidelberg, Germany, and that's where he died. He died on the 30th of June, 1912. So, from April of the previous year, I had been there about a year and three months. Well, right after that came the row between Graham and the Burnham boys. Oh, it was a vicious battle! Wilson and McIlvane represented Mr. Graham, and Mayer, Meyer, Rosetree and Platt represented the Burnhams. I used to be in taking the notes, and I want to tell you, there were really no holds barred. But they finally settled it in this way, that the firm name would be Graham Burnham and Company for a period of five years. Hubert Burnham had been taken into the office. He wasn't really working hard there. He dropped in now and then. He was educated over at the Beaux- Arts and had just come back from there.
Manny: Was that Graham Burnham or Burnham Graham?
6 Murphy: Graham Burnham for five years, up to 1917, from 1912 to 1917. And then Graham busted it up and changed it to Graham, Anderson, Probst and White. I told him years later when I got a little more influential, I said, "You made a mistake." He said, "You know, Murphy, my partners never bring a job into the office." I said, "You're such a powerful business getter, there's no room for them." That was true, though.
Manny: I'm sure it was.
Murphy: But, they were getting Probst and White. Poor Peirce Anderson died when he was fifty-four or so. He had cancer. He was a fine gentleman, a big, big man, but he was only about fifty-four when he died. He came from up in New England somewhere.
Manny: Was he a Beaux-Arts man, too?
Murphy: Yes, but he studied at Harvard to become an electrical engineer, and after he finished, he decided he wanted to be an architect and he started to study architecture when he was thirty-one or thirty-two years old. Then he went over to Paris, so he wasn't around very long.
Manny: What was Probst?
Murphy: Oh, he was the head of the drafting room. White was the man like Severns was. [Clifford Severns was head of the field superintendents and contracts administration for Mr. Murphy's firm.]
Manny: Kind of the administrator or field man?
Murphy: No, he closed up the subcontracts.
Manny: I see.
7 Murphy: If they didn't have a general contractor, they had maybe twenty or thirty subs—mason contractor and so on. This way it was more advantageous for the owner. But in the end, they were generally with the general contractor. The Thompson Starrett Company or the Fuller Company. They were all powerful outfits then.
Manny: Doesn't the Equitable Building in New York date from about that time?
Murphy: That was 1915.
Manny: It was a very important building. Somebody was here a year or two ago lecturing at the Bright New City program, and they were talking about that building. It was so massive and so big that that's what stimulated the 1916 zoning law in New York City. Now, was that a Peirce Anderson building?
Murphy: Yes.
Manny: It was? Was Graham the one who got that job?
Murphy: Yes. He spent a lot of time in New York making connections and friends, and he got to know General du Pont, who had previously been chairman of the board of the du Pont Company, but he didn't want to be bothered with that. He was a mining engineer, I guess, by profession, but a money man. He was a very outgoing guy, and he loved the ladies around, so I guess he and Graham hit it off pretty good.
Manny: That must have been where Graham got introduced to some of his lady friends.
Murphy: I think so. I always felt that he [General du Pont] wished off Ruby [Ruby Leffingwell, Graham's second wife] on Graham. But, the story was that Equitable wanted new quarters and du Pont decided to build them for them. He got that land and then there was a big furor when the bankers knew that this giant building was going to be built. The big bankers of New York shut
8 the funds off, and with all the money du Pont had, he still needed more to swing the deal. Graham said to him, he told me, "I'm going to go over to Philadelphia to see John G. Johnson, the chairman of the board of Land Title and Trust Company. We've done their work over there, and they are pretty responsible people." And he went over and he got the last two million dollars that enabled the job to go ahead.
Manny: Why were the New York bankers so against it?
Murphy: They didn't want that big building there. When it was being built, the steel was way up to the top nearly. A sling of steel was being raised, and those streets down there, a little narrow street, Broadway.
Manny: Did it shut off all the light from around there?
Murphy: They were almost like an enlarged alley all around the building. But this steel got out of the sling and down it came, and I think it was on a Saturday when things were shut down. They were working, but there were no crowds on the street. Otherwise, it might have killed twenty or thirty people, and that would have made a furor with the New York bankers. Then from that time on, they changed the zoning. That's when they had this thing of all these little setbacks.
Manny: I remember that famous drawing of 1916 that Hugh Ferriss did showing all those little setbacks.
Murphy: They came all the way up to the time of the Seagram Building.
Manny: I think that the next change came after Seagram. It's fairly recent. I think in the 1950s there was a zoning change which allowed height credits for plazas.
Murphy: That's right. And SOM did Lever House. That was the first building I think that came out of the...
9 Manny: The new zoning?
Murphy: Yes. Well, the Equitable Building was very successful financially and Graham told me the story that du Pont said to Graham that he had given Louis Horowitz $100,000 in stock in the building. He said, "I want to give you the same thing, Eddie." He called him Eddie instead of Ernest, and Graham said to him, "You're paying my fee. That's all you have to pay." "But I want to do it." "No, I'll tell you want you do, General. We'll go over to the Waldorf"—this was the old Waldorf—"you can buy me a drink." That ended that. Graham wouldn't take it. I think du Pont was doing it because Graham got the last money over in Philadelphia.
Manny: He earned more than his fee.
Murphy: Sure. But then that building was really a success from the time it was opened.
Manny: Is that what encouraged Graham then later to participate in the Insurance Exchange Building? Didn't he take out part of his fee in stock in the Insurance Exchange Building?
Murphy: No. In 1912, that's when they built the first section of it. They decided to build an insurance building or rather they were approached by a man named Napoleon Piccard, who was a promoter. Insurance offices were scattered around in all the old buildings along Wells Street and some on LaSalle Street. Piccard was working on a deal of getting them in one building, so he came to E.R. Graham and Graham got interested and talked to Max Pam, who he knew socially. They were both buddies with Insull in the opera. Max Pam was a bachelor, a very prominent lawyer, Pam and Herd, a big law firm. Max Pam was credited with having put together the corporate structure of the United States Steel Corporation when the Morgan interests in New York decided to get all the steel companies and wrap them up together. He did the job.
Manny: Is that the firm that Sidney Shiff was later in?
10 Murphy: Yes, that's the same firm. I thought maybe Sidney might have been related to Pam, but he wasn't. His people came from Milwaukee, but he was a brilliant guy, so brilliant that he was an odd character. Phil Fry told me, "You and I are about the only two people that Sidney Shiff calls his friends." And one of his partners said to me one day, "I can't figure out that partner of mine, Shiff. He'll walk by me in the morning right after we've arrived at the office, and he won't talk to me." He was an odd bird.
Manny: I had exposure to him once when we were all out West when we had a Graham Foundation meeting. He had us over to his house one evening.
Murphy: I remember that, too. I'll tell you another fellow that was there—the man who was in charge of the parking meters in Chicago. He was there and we went to his house, too.
Manny: Gee, I'd forgotten that.
Murphy: Yes. The thing I remember they gave us an appetizer—raw hamburger meat. Well, that was too much for me.
Manny: Oh, steak tartar.
Murphy: Sidney at heart was a pretty nice guy. He was a hell of a lawyer. He said, "I'd like to put the small telephone companies of the country into one big combination." But he said, "Hell, life's too short. I don't think I'll be bothered." He wasn't in very good health. He was then beginning to decline. He married a woman from the East who originally came from the South. She was a character. Her first husband was a man named Charles F. Murphy, whose father was of the same name, the head of Tammany Hall. That was the big political outfit in New York for years. He was the boss of it. Well, it was his son who had been married to this gal from Alabama. They had separated and divorced, and Sidney, who was a bachelor, married her and life began to move at a real fast pace after that because she was a fast worker.
11 Manny: Well, going back to the Insurance Exchange, when Pam put it together, how did Graham happen to take an interest in it? Was that done intentionally?
Murphy: Well, I think the two of them decided to do it together.
Manny: I see. So Graham was really one of the developers?
Murphy: Absolutely. In fact, he took a more active part than Pam. He knew more about doing that than Pam. They engaged Napoleon Piccard and paid him for getting these tenants together. And you'd be amazed at the price of the rental in those days—$1 .25 a foot, $1.35, $1.50.
Manny: Didn't that in the end become the biggest asset in the Graham Foundation?
Murphy: Absolutely. Well, then that was 1912. They were going along pretty good until the depression hit.
Manny: This is Graham, Anderson, Probst and White?
Murphy: Yes.
Manny: How many people were in the office in those days?
Murphy: In the early days, about 250.
Manny: It must have been on more than one floor then.
Murphy: Yes. They had most of the fourteenth floor and on the third floor on the alley side they had a big sub-office. Oh, Graham brought in more damn work.
Manny: How did he make all those connections? I know he started back as a field man. Wasn't he with Burnham back at the World's Columbian Exposition? Did you ever hear of any of those stories?
12 Murphy: Yes. Graham came over from Grand Rapids as a kid. I guess he was eighteen or nineteen. I think he was quite young when he started to work for Burnham. That was the beginning of the fair in 1893. He was so aggressive and such a pusher that Burnham made him chief of the works, I think they called it. He was the outside superintendent, you might say, of the fair. He told one story about the Fine Arts Building. Those two big pieces of structure on either side of the entrance—I don't know what you call them—holding up the entrance at the ends, and it was all stuccoed. The exterior was a smooth stucco. They called it some other name.
Manny: But it did have a steel frame, didn't it? It was one of the few buildings that had a steel frame.
Murphy: Yes, it had a steel frame. John Griffiths was doing the work. Graham told him about it. These things I speak of were brick. It was supposed to be filled up with a big series of brick piers, and then for just seventy or eighty feet, that was the main entrance to the building. He said he came along and Griffiths was dumping a carload of brick into the thing and pouring mortar in and calling it a job of bricklaying. He said, "All right, John," he told Griffiths, who was many years older than he, "you're going to have to give me something else someplace around here. You can't get by with that. You're going to have to pay for it someplace." He became such an aggressive pusher, Burnham took him in as an employee and later made him a partner.
Manny: I heard Larry Perkins tell about when Burnham started the fair, when he was the director of it, Perkins's father, Dwight Perkins, was kind of the head guy in Burnham's office. Larry said that after Root died, Graham went up in favor and his father tapered off to the point where Burnham finally said to Dwight, "I think it's now time for you to go off and start on your own." Then Graham really stepped in.
Murphy: Well, Graham was a pusher, there's no doubt about that.
13 Manny: How did he get all these friends? The famous things that he did.
Murphy: He was a mixer.
Manny: He did things in Philadelphia, the Selfridge store in London. He did Marshall Field's work. How did he get the job in Cleveland, the big Cleveland Union Terminal, and the one in Philadelphia, Wanamaker's?
Murphy: Well, Burnham did that one. That was earlier, about 1910. I remember at the time while Burnham was alive, the building was finished and Burnham was throwing a big party. He invited about twenty or twenty-five Chicago businessmen down for the grand opening of the store. They engaged a special train on the Pennsylvania, and he called me in—that was the second time he noticed who I was—and asked me to come in to type these invitations on little note paper that they had, and he wanted the right-hand column to be just the same as the left hand. Well, they didn't have typewriters then that worked that way, but by fudging it and making a few extra spaces in between here and there, we could work it out. So I had worked on a model for a while, and finally I got it and said, "This will work all right." He had me write those invitations out and his secretary, old man Spots, said, "Say, I think they're going to ask you to go down as the train secretary." I thought, my, that'll be great to go down with that crowd of men. But I wasn't asked. The railroad sent word, they're having a train secretary available on the train.
Manny: When did you finally move in? You mentioned before, I thought, that when this man left to head his merchandising outfit, he recommended you eventually after they had answers to these ads. Is that the point where you really...
Murphy: I was his right-hand man then, that's right.
Manny: So that happened really very early.
14 Murphy: It happened in 1912 or 1913. He went into the motor truck business and after that the department of men stenographers disintegrated. Mrs. Graham got a woman to come in after Mr. Burnham died. She was an operator over at Marshall Field's.
Manny: Was that Ann Horrigan by any chance? I knew her.
Murphy: Yes. She was there for years.
Manny: She was put there by Mrs. Graham?
Murphy: Yes. It was said by the underground gossip that she was to listen to Graham's telephone. Maybe she did—she was up to it, all right. It didn't faze him any. What was the other question you were asking?
Manny: I was going to ask you about those two wonderful books about the firm that I know you arranged for. You went to London, I believe, a couple of times, once on your honeymoon, didn't you, to arrange for their printing?
Murphy: Yes. Graham was intensely interested in having his name established. He got the idea of a couple of volumes with all the works of the office and someone recommended the B.T. Batsford Company. He said he would have dealt with—what's the big printer here?
Manny: R.R. Donnelley?
Murphy: Yes. In fact, he knew the Donnelley people well, but they weren't equipped to do it. He said Ted Donnelley told him afterward that they could have done the books then, but they weren't able to do them before, because they were prestige books. Graham spared no money on it. The bindings were full-levant morocco. The paper was linen rag paper. So they got underway over in England, and I used to oversee first the photographs. We engaged an outfit that was highly recommended from New York as the number one architectural photographer, Tebbs and Knell. Tebbs came into Chicago and
15 I'd escort him around the city to take the pictures of the various buildings, even out to the parks. It kept them busy for a long time before the book was ordered in London just to get this series of pictures. We probably took three times as many photographs as were used and discarded the rest. I remember one hot summer day during Prohibition. Oh, it was a hot day, and we'd worked our way from South Side parks and got over near Clinton and Jefferson, southwest of the Loop, and I said, "How'd you like a drink of beer?" He said, "There's Prohibition but," he said, "I'd love it." Well, Tom Dooley's father had some property over there and there was a saloon in one of them. The old man had some houses around over there. They were pretty decrepit old things, but there was a speakeasy because everything was out. We pulled up and parked a little ways away from the saloon, and we walked over and here was a man lying on the curb and his head was bleeding. He was lying there, and he apparently had been shot. We went in and had our beer. I don't think we enjoyed it too much, and Tebbs turned scared. He was absolutely white as a ghost. He said, "My God, I heard about these terrible things in Chicago and Capone running the show." When we got outside, there were detectives there all over the place and they grabbed us. We said we were just in there having drinks, you know. They said okay then. I guess the fellow did die. He was shot. That was a little incident in the course of getting all those photographs. And then Al Shaw worked on the thing, too. Naess, Shaw and I did quite a lot of work on those books.
Manny: How did you three gravitate to the top of the organization? Were you the young and aggressive ones?
Murphy: Well, we were encouraged by Graham a lot. He gave Shaw tremendous opportunity. I think the first thing Shaw did was the Pittsfield Building. In fact, that was at the time when Graham was being married in 1925. He went over to England. He got married in the church at Stoke Poges where Gray wrote his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. He had Will Thompson and his wife and Clarence W. Barron of Barron's Weekly who was also the head of the Wall Street Journal at the time. He was an enormous man. I don't suppose he lived very many years. He was an enormous fellow. Will Thompson told
16 me when he got back, he was laughing about Barron being so heavy that at this little church that Barron couldn't get in the small pews. The entrance was too narrow, so two ushers had to come and lift him over the gate to get him seated.
Manny: Why was Graham so interested in being married there? I believe his family came from England.
Murphy: Oh, I don't know why, but maybe it was Ruby's idea. She had kind of a literary streak. It didn't amount to much. But that's where he wanted to get married. I was saying about the opportunities that he gave Shaw. Well, while he was over there, John G. Shedd called me up and said, "I want to come over and see you about the building, about the Pittsfield Building"
Manny: Did he build it? Did Shedd build it?
Murphy: Marshall Field built it.
Manny: I didn't realize that.
Murphy: Field was dead then, and the number one man was John G. Shedd. He and Graham had been talking about it, and then Graham went off to get married and Shedd wanted to move on it. He came over, and we talked about it and he said, "I want to get the financial prospectus." I did it following Graham's method. He could do it so quickly, so many feet and so much a foot. I presented it to Shedd, and he said, "I think we can go right ahead." Well, Graham was away, so when he came back, I said, "We're going ahead with the Pittsfield Building." Shaw had a great opportunity there. He threw that together in no time. He designed it like greased lightning. Then Graham had him design the Merchandise Mart, which didn't faze him one bit. He just went ahead and did it. But the guy had a screw loose, so after a few years when we were on our own, things became unbearable. In 1946, Shaw, Naess and Murphy established their own partnership. We were doing a lot of war work. We were doing a job down in Bermuda and then we started a big job in
17 New Jersey and when we were back in the office Naess was showing terrible strain. He said it was the association with Shaw. I said, "Say, Sigurd, do you want to be alive in five years?" He said, "I do." I said, "You won't be if you're still working with Shaw." He said, "I'm at the end of the rope." I said, "All right, we are going to set a date now. We're going to talk with him. We're going to break it up. You are going to do the talking. I want to make so damn sure that you mean what you say that you, not I—I won't have a word to say in the meeting. You tell him."
Manny: What was Shaw, just the impractical designer?
Murphy: Oh, he'd cross you up on everything. I don't know, sometimes I thought he wasn't all there.
Manny: Is that so?
Murphy: And he had a terrific opportunity, you know, if he stabilized.
Manny: Didn't he also do the Civic Opera House? Wasn't that really one of his ideas?
Murphy: Yes, he did that, sure.
Mrs. Murphy: I just have to listen to this. It's getting more interesting. Sure, Mr. Graham opened the Opera House, and we went to the opening of it with John Evers. [John Evers was secretary to Samuel Insull head of Commonwealth Edison Company.]
Murphy: John and I used to say that he and I together built it. We looked after the finances. He'd call me up—I only knew him over the phone—and every month he'd get the figures, the payments to the contractors, which I would get from the superintendent. Then he'd have to arrange for the money, but it was touch and go even in those days. They were on the verge of collapse.
Manny: This was the whole Insull empire?
18 Murphy: Yes, that happened shortly later.
Mrs. Murphy: Didn't John go over to Europe and tell Marjorie [Evers's wife] to buy anything she wanted? He said, "You're a wealthy woman." And she looked up and down the avenues, and John said, "Buy a big diamond. That's a good investment." And she said, "I don't like diamonds." Well, anyhow, she didn't buy a thing, and while they were still over there it went.
Manny: The collapse came?
Murphy: Well, he got back here before.
Mrs. Murphy: No, no, on his way back, they knew about it. He said, "If you'd only bought...
Manny: ...that big diamond.
Murphy: Mike McDermott and his wife were over there and they stayed, I guess, and when John got back, he got a cable from Mike McDermott, "John, please look after our interests." John said to me, "His interests are gone. He was washed out."
Manny: Was the Opera House finished before the crash?
Murphy: The crash happened toward the end of the construction of the building.
Manny: I've heard people like Ray Berry, the elevator contractor who did the stage rigging for the scenery at the Opera House, whom you knew very well...
Murphy: Oh, yes. I knew Ray very well. He was on the board of the Builders Building with me for years.
19 Manny: Ray told me that he went to Europe and looked at all of the opera houses because nobody here knew how to do rigging. He learned how to do rigging as a result of that job.
Murphy: He was a solid fellow.
Manny: I think so, too.
Murphy: Really a great fellow.
Mrs. Murphy: He had a lovely wife.
Manny: Tell me about the Field Building. That came about the same time.
Murphy: That was after the Civic Opera House. It came in 1934 right in the depression. They were both close together. The Field Building—I was in New York. Graham asked me to go to the Guaranty Trust Company and meet Marshall Field, who was the grandfather of the present Marshall Field. There was some document that he had to sign, and I was sent to have him do it. Field said to me, "You know, things look so bad I think I'm going to stop that job." They were already underway with the foundation. Henry Ericsson was putting in the foundations and when I got back to Chicago I told E.R. Graham. Graham said, "Marshall Field told me that you urged him to stop." I said, "He turned it around. He's the one that wants to stop. He is getting cold feet." So Graham had Howard White call in all the subcontractors. The contracts were practically all let. He asked them how much they wanted to cancel their contracts. He learned it would cost more to cancel the contract than to go ahead with the building, so they went ahead and they were glad they did.
Manny: Do you have any idea what that building cost in those days?
Murphy: Eleven million. We [Naess and Murphy] put in the air conditioning about ten years later. The air-conditioning cost as much as the building.
20 Manny: I remember, because that's when Bob Salinger came here from Houston to do the air conditioning. That was his first job in the office.
Murphy: He was a good guy.
Manny: Yes. He was in just last week.
Murphy: How did he look?
Manny: Fine. He is enjoying retirement.
Mrs. Murphy: Is he living in Florida someplace?
Murphy: He never made up his mind about where to go.
Manny: No, he went looking, but he found that things were a little bit too expensive where he wanted to be. His wife wanted either seacoast, but when they found things that she liked, they agreed that they couldn't afford them. So they came back here.
Murphy: He was undecided between Florida and California. He looked around a lot, both of them did. I remember when he came up from Florida, I think that Nat Kendall put Naess on to him. When he came up to Chicago and we had a halfway commitment, he said, "I don't know whether you have any objection to the fact that I'm Jewish." I said, "Why, certainly not. Why, you shouldn't even bring it up." On the building code, the building commissioner asked me to act on a committee of three to pass on new methods and new materials. Well, I did for a little while, a few months, and then I thought, well, what the hell. This is a technical job. I don't need to spend time over there anyway. I put Salinger in there and he stayed on that job for seven years or so. He did a good job. In fact, the building commissioner told me afterwards, he said, "He did a tremendous job. He relieved me of a lot. I didn't know all about those things, either"
21 Manny: Could you tell a little bit about the start of the Shaw, Naess and Murphy firm in 1937? I know Graham died in November 1936. I've always heard the story about how the next day the doors were locked, and you couldn't get in.
Murphy: Shaw, Naess and I were talking already a little bit about the future being uncertain and that we might tie up together. So, right after Graham's burial, I said to Shaw...
Mrs. Murphy: Excuse me, Charles. Didn't Mrs. Graham call you during the night and tell you? And you called Naess and you called Shaw and told them?
Murphy: I mean after the funeral. I said to the two of them off in a corner somewhere, "Tomorrow morning the three of us are going to be fired, maybe the day after, but at the latest, the day after tomorrow. I say tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning in White's office." I was called in by Probst and White. I was the first one. I was fired. They said, "You know, you are going to have so much work to do on the Insurance Exchange looking after that situation over there, you'll have your hands full." That's the way I got bounced out. I don't know what they said to Shaw or to Naess. They locked the front door, so I waited a day or so and then went in to White. I said, "You can't lock that door on me. I have documents of Ernest Graham in that safe in there, and I am the trustee of his estate, and I have to have access to it."
Mrs. Murphy: Weren't Stanley Field and James Simpson also trustees? [Stanley Field was Marshall Field's nephew. James Simpson was president of Marshall Field and Co.]
Murphy: Yes, but I was doing all the work.
Manny: They were the other two administrators?
Murphy: Trustees. Well, Simpson got very busy on other matters. He attended one meeting of the board of directors of the Railway Exchange Building
22 [Graham's estate had a substantial interest in the Railway Exchange Building] and he called me up afterwards. He was a cold fish, that Simpson. Oh, he was ice cold. "Murphy," he said, "I went to that meeting and I found out that those directors were all paying themselves salary of about $3,500 or $2,500 a year, and I gave them hell. I stirred up a hornet's nest." One of them was the chairman of the board of the Santa Fe Railroad, and also there was Aldis Brown. Things weren't going so well for the building, and Simpson got them to cut out the salaries altogether.
Manny: This was on the Railway Exchange?
Murphy: On the Railway Exchange, yes.
Manny: When you three opened your own office, I know you started out with the Museum of Science and Industry. You really took that job over or was it already in the office and it came with you?
Murphy: Yes. We took it over. Colonel [J. Palmer] Boggs came to us. We were doing the work out in the field.
Manny: He was Julius Rosenwald's man?
Murphy: Yes. He was a West Point man, an engineer, and he was watching after the matter for Rosenwald. He went to White and Probst and said, "I want to take this away." And he gave it to us. It was kind of a lift, a little financial lift.
Mrs. Murphy: Well, you had several jobs go with you when Mr. Graham died.
Murphy: We still got Marshall Field's work, such as it was, around the store.
Manny: Didn't you do all the escalators in that building?
Murphy: Oh, yes. That was before, but we did other housekeeping items over there. White never went out looking for a job because Graham was too much for
23 him. Apparently he went over one day shortly after Mr. Graham was buried. It was already December. Graham died on the 22nd of November, and White must have gone around the first of December to Fred Corey, the chairman of the board of Marshall Field's. Well, Corey had a reputation of having a long lunch and a few martinis, and when White came to see him, I guess he—I heard he didn't savor White much—he just ripped into him and gave him a little hell. And then White left and walked back to the office and he collapsed at Madison and Wabash in the street. He was taken to a hospital, and they amputated his leg and in ten days he died.
Manny: So he only lived a month after Graham?
Murphy: Not even a full month. He died about the middle of December.
Manny: Was he the main one that pushed you out?
Murphy: Well, both of them. Probst had a little more warmth in him. White was a cold fish. He heard a lot of things, especially about me. One time Graham was down at the Cafe Louisiana at Twelfth and Michigan and probably had a few drinks. It was a mixed party, men and women, and he said, "My man Murphy knows more about my business than my partners do." There was a woman there who knew the White family, and she must have told him. Oh, he could have cut my throat. All the little secret things that had to be done in a political way, Graham couldn't be telling everyone, so he would tell me, and I was the one who knew about them.
Manny: Was Graham a pretty soft touch?
Murphy: Oh, yes. There was a bum who looked fairly decent. He was always clean. He'd meet Graham at the Michigan Avenue entrance every day for a buck or two.
Mrs. Murphy: You never met Mr. Graham, did you?
24 Manny: No, he was gone before I was around. He must not have been too soft a touch, for you told of a time Frank Lloyd Wright came to the office. I believe he wanted to sell an oriental rug.
Murphy: He didn't come to the office. He was in New York, and he went to the big rug dealers down there, Kent Kostican and Company, and he picked out a very expensive rug. I think it was to be $3,500 or something like that, a lot of money in those days for a rug. He said when they asked him about the finances, he said, "My friend Ernest Graham in Chicago, the architect, I am sure will underwrite the charge." Kent Kostican got in touch with Graham, either wrote him a letter or called him up, and he was furious about it. He hated Wright anyway. He didn't even like his architecture. So Wright showed up about a week later, and he encountered a big crowd of people, subcontractors and so on, out in the front office, and he didn't like being bustled around, and Graham kept him waiting for an hour or an hour and a half. I finally went to him and said, "You can't keep that man out there any longer. What do you want to do?" He said, "Will you and Shaw get rid of him? Take a bottle of whiskey out there to the library." It was just off the elevator where the books were stored in an office across the way. We went out there. We got the bottle and smuggled it in, and we sat and visited with him and we had a very nice discourse. He pointed at the books. "Trash, trash," he said. A little while later after he had a couple of drinks, he said, "Would you men get Ernest Graham to give me these books for my place at Taliesin?" But Graham wouldn't give him anything. So, a week later, the story I got, he was visiting some architects...
Mrs. Murphy: So how did you get rid of him that day?
Murphy: Well, we told him Graham was tied up in a big conference and couldn't talk to him. When Wright was up visiting a group of some big Harvard architects, and he said, "Why, Ernest Graham kept me sitting in his office for an hour and a half and wouldn't meet me, wouldn't talk to me." Of course, those fellows all thought he was a pretty neat guy. Well, most people did.
25 Manny: That collection of books was really pretty fantastic, and yet those copies of paintings he had done, those were really terrible. I wondered how one man could do one thing so well and then another so badly. Was it just because he had good advice in one area and bad advice in another?
Murphy: Graham had a woman that he might have had an affair with many years before that. Her name was Agnes Burrell Nation. She was a widow. She traveled between the U.S. and Europe. Her only activity, it seemed, over there was getting copies. She would go around to the big museums and if she had any funds of her own, she'd get someone to make a copy of a painting. She made that a career. She must have had 125 of those things. She came to Graham and sold him a bill of goods that he could use the paintings at his proposed school. They were stored in New York for many years. Finally we brought them to Chicago and I didn't think they were any great shakes, nothing like the library.
Manny: No. The library was first-rate.
Mrs. Murphy: Then at one time we were all together. Charlie, maybe you and we talked to the man in charge at the Art Institute. I forget has name. [John Maxon] He died suddenly one time. [Maxon choked to death while dining at the Tavern Club.] We asked him for an opinion about them. He sat there and said, "You'd do a good deed for art if you destroyed them." So then we gave them away.
Manny: Yes, there are still a few of them left over in the boiler room at the Graham Foundation. [These, too, were later given away.]
Murphy: Well, that was enough for us to get rid of them.
Manny: But the books, this young man [William McGuire, a graduate student from the University of Chicago was engaged by the Graham Foundation to inventory the collection. The books were later sold to the Canadian Center for Architecture] who was up there looking at them last year found a lot of the
26 correspondence. I believe he came to talk to you last summer. They were really fine. Was Graham really that much interested in them?
Murphy: Well, he had in mind that those paintings and the books would be part of his school. He had, up to the time he died really, he had in mind that he was going to found a school. At one time he thought he'd do it in Washington, a school of fine arts and then some friends said, "Well, make it in Chicago. That's where you had your career. That's where you should do it." Well, he didn't have enough money for that. When he died, the bulk of his money was tied up in the Insurance Exchange and the Railway Exchange.
Manny: And then didn't Mrs. Graham try to break the will?
Murphy: Oh, sure she did. The first thing she did was to get them to give Billy about a million dollars.
Mrs. Murphy: She had Billy call him Daddy.
Murphy: He didn't savor Billy calling him Daddy. I remember him coming to the office one time when someone was there—Will Thompson was there, Graham's cousin. He was a former law partner of Clarence Darrow, the famous criminal lawyer years ago. Will Thompson was a brilliant man. He went to New York and was the head of the American Cotton Oil Company, and he was in that job until he retired and he came to Chicago then. He was a first cousin of E.R. Graham, and he used to come up for lunch nearly every day when Graham was in his descendency, getting a little older and doing less and less. One day Billy came in to report about something. Graham gave him hell about a couple of dogs he had up at the house in the basement. They were a nuisance and he had told him more than once to get them out of there, and he said, "Father, I will carry out your wishes for sure now." And with that he left, and as he got just out the door, Graham turned to Thompson and said, "Will, there goes nothing." He despised him. If the kid had any backbone or any moral strength, he never would have changed his name. His name was Leffingwell. He was nineteen years old when he changed his
27 name. That's why Robert Graham told you what he did. [Robert Graham was a nephew whom Graham sent to college. He founded the Foundation for the Advancement of Man.]
Manny: I know that side of the family had no use for William.
Murphy: They say, "He's not one of us."
Manny: No, he was not at all.
Murphy: Well, Ruby shook down Graham for everything she could. I have a letter, I'd like you to read it. She wrote a letter to Mrs. Wilbur Post, Dr. Post's wife.
Mrs. Murphy: Is that the one I saved?
Murphy: I have the copy. I don't know who saved it. Did you save it?
Mrs. Murphy: Yes. I've had it for years and finally I gave it to you a few years ago or so.
Murphy: This letter was written by Mrs. Graham to Mrs. Post. Let me explain about this letter. Dr. Post and Mrs. Post—Dr. was a first cousin of E.R. Graham. They had no use for Ruby, but she thought they were her friends. That's why she wrote this letter when she was in great distress.
Mrs. Murphy: Were they good friends of yours?
Manny: I remember Dr. Post well.
Murphy: I only knew him because of Ernest Graham.
Manny: [reading letter] "Dear Louise: You recall I phoned you last year about the care of Ernest and Carlotta's grave. Dr. Post was on a hunting or fishing trip at the time. For the past twenty-three years, I had spring planting of flowers and in the fall the graves covered with cedar. After Ernest's severe hemorrhages and
28 suffering with his leg, his mind was too impaired to draw up the will I know he would have drawn if he were able. His final will was drawn in December 1935, eleven months before he died. His breakfast was served always at eight o'clock. The tray had hardly been sent downstairs when he would say to me, 'Aren't we going to have breakfast?' I would reply, 'You just had orange juice, bacon and eggs, toast and coffee not more than fifteen minutes ago.' He would smile and say, 'I don't remember eating.' Isn't that strange? One morning when William Lufty was straightening up Ernest's room, he asked William for pen and paper. He said to me, 'My will isn't right.' What Ernest wrote I was unable to read. When John P. Wilson came, I told him what Ernest had said and handed him the paper. Mr. Wilson said, "It is too late now for the will to be changed.' What I've gone through since Ernest passed away, only God and I know. I had $100,000 in securities from which I had income. Ernest asked me for $75,000, which he put in with Insull. All is lost. I think you and Doctor lost, too. The rest, $25,000, we put in an apartment at 1242 Lake Shore Drive as a wedding present to Billy when he and Jane Lee were married. Some years after I was getting $325 per month rent for the apartment, Mr. Murphy phoned and said the mortgage on the building was being foreclosed. For one month's rent, whomever was taking over the building would give me the amount of $325, but the $25,000 that had bought the apartment was lost. Mr. Murphy now lives in that building." Right where we are right now?
Murphy: It's the same apartment.
Mrs. Murphy: She thinks that we got it.
Manny: [reading letter] "Knowing Ernest as you and Doctor and I know him, if he could only walk back into his office and be here at home to find that Myrtis died in a county institution and you and Doctor left only a pittance. This home with taxes and upkeep, with income tax taking a big slice, is a terrific burden as I keep only one colored maid. Couldn't you hear him thunder? John P. Wilson and Ernest had to say of Ernest's will. Louise, you and Doctor both know how I nursed him day and night before his leg got so bad Doctor
29 insisted a registered nurse must take charge. To know Ernest was to love his great spirit, his kindness, and nothing in the way of wealth could take his place. I was so distraught I never thought of anything but our great loss. As he loved Doctor and you as his only blood family, he seemed to have little in common with Herbert and Frank. I have to say, even about the house, as it belongs to the foundation. Then Murphy took the stand against the heirs and we lost our suit, as you know. What injustice! What we should have done, the heirs, contest the will. Well, the water is over the dam, but I am trying to right the wrong in a small way. I am up in years now, much older than precious Ernest when he died. Ernest had a drawing made, must have been done at the suggestion of Henry Harren. It was a marble piece, as I recall. Ernest didn't like it. It seems to me it was a settee. When I am gone, Ernest's grave will grow into grass and weeds, for there is no care for the grave. It would seem to me, Doctor, as you are on of the trustees of the foundation, couldn't you suggest some way to the trustees to go into court and legally have the graves cared for? It is unbelievable that Ernest has been so neglected. Mrs. Glen Frank is one of my closest friends. She said, 'For the dignity of Ernest's home and memory something should be done when he is not here to do it himself. I want you to go with me and see Adlai Stevenson. He was a friend of Glen's, and I'm sure he could do something to increase your income so that Ernest's widow could run the home as should be.' She felt as long as this house goes to the foundation, the estate should keep up the repairs, but nothing was accomplished. This is the last appeal I can make for Ernest. Hope something will be done. Why wasn't someone in the office on the alert and had the airstrip, the last thing Ernest thought about and planned, called the Graham field, not Meigs? Ernest gave his all to this city, but has not had even a street named for him. It was nice talking with you over the phone, Louise. It brought back memories. With every good wish to you and Doctor for continued good health, as ever, Ruby." This was dated August 18, 1960.
Murphy: Well, there was no love lost between her and the Posts.
30 Manny: Is that so? You know, I noticed the other day there is a Graham Place just a couple of blocks away from here.
Murphy: It's an alley.
Manny: She did that after his death. And there's also a room in the Field Museum that is the Ernest R. Graham Hall.
Murphy: Yes. He did that when he was alive. He gave quite a lot of money for it. Stanley Field asked him to do that.
Manny: Well, when she died, were they buried together?
Murphy: No, she was buried in another place. He's at Graceland, and she's at Rosehill. [William (Billy) Graham was also buried at Rosehill when he died in 1982.]
Manny: I remember you telling that when she tried to break the will her lawyer came to you and…
Murphy: What was that lawyer's name? He was a friend of Charlie Scott. Head of a big law firm. He used to go down to the Notre Dame football games. Well, he called me on the phone and said, "Charles, you wouldn't mind if we were able to change that will?" I said no. I called him by his first name. I knew the guy pretty well. "No, but I could tell you who would." He said, "Who's that?" Graham was dead nine years. I said, "Ernest Graham."
Manny: Would be against changing the will?
Murphy: Why, sure. Graham wanted to go ahead with this school. The lawyer said thank you and hung up and that was the end of that. I went to Matt Concannon, the lawyer. Whenever I got into any kind of a tough legal thing, I'd go and see him. He was the attorney for the Title and Trust Company. He wasn't much to look at, but he was a hell of a lawyer.
31 Manny: Was he the one that was with Dillon? Was that Concannon, Dillon and Snook?
Murphy: Concannon and Dillon. Dick Dillon's father. Well, his firm could also do outside work as well as for the Title and Trust Company, and I went over on a couple of occasions to talk to him. But about the will, he said, "That is ironclad. Nobody can change that will." Well, that was enough for me. When the Max Pam heirs needed money, they were going to sell their interest in the Insurance Exchange. They were going to go public and Sidney Shiff handled the thing. There were six members of the board of directors, three of the Graham interest, three of their interest. I went over to see Matt Concannon, and I said, "Now, when that goes public, the Max Pam holding, that stock will be scattered all over in small pieces." I said, "How do we control it?" He said, "Buy one hundred shares for the estate, and you're in control." I said, "What do I do next?" He said, "The first move you make, change the makeup of the board of directors from six to five—three to you and two to the other side." Well, I talked to Sidney Shiff about it, and, oh, they were so damn mad, but they calmed down and I said, "We didn't sell the building. Your people sold the building." So, they were in second place now.
Manny: By buying one hundred shares on the market, you were able to get control for the foundation?
Murphy: Yes. But we had it anyway. We didn't need that.
Manny: Well, you had people like Mattie Thompson [Mr. Murphy's secretary] and Tom Mulig [a Naess and Murphy partner] and several others I know who had an interest in the building.
Murphy: Oh, sure. Well, I had a couple of hundred shares, maybe a thousand shares of the stock, too.
Manny: We talked a little bit about things in the 1920s. You mentioned how the Pittsfield Building got done. Could you also mention some of the other
32 buildings of the 1920s, the U.S. Post Office, the Merchandise Mart, the stories of those and how they came into the office? Then maybe end up with the Field Building or go into the Prudential, which was twenty years later. Or did you have something else in mind?
Murphy: No. Which shall we take first?
Manny: Well, which one came first? The Pittsfield Building, that must have been, when, the early 1920s, mid-1920s? You mentioned that it came about while Graham was away. You and Shaw worked up the contract and really got a lot done.
Murphy: That's in there, is it?
Manny: That's in there, yes. And I thought there might be a similar kind of story with the Merchandise Mart and with the Post Office. Those are two big ones I can think of. And then, of course, the Field Building was kind of the end of it before the depression, was it not? Or just right in the depression. You mentioned that the Field Building was almost stopped.
Murphy: The Merchandise Mart had been under contemplation for a considerable period. Mr. Graham and James Simpson, all those Scotsmen, they were very close, very friendly. As a matter of fact, Mr. Graham was authorized to accumulate property at the southwest portion of the business district. That took a considerable period, a year or a year and a half. He had all but one key piece. James Simpson called Mr. Graham and said, "I'm not satisfied with that location. I think it should be further north, closer to the retail." That changed the picture right away. So Mr. Graham hit upon a new site. It was partially over railroad tracks, maybe a fifth of it, and that created an air rights situation. Mr. Graham was quite familiar with the air rights construction in New York. All the buildings on Park Avenue were built on air rights. And Graham was involved with the necessary legislation some years before and, as a matter of fact, he was associate architect on the Biltmore Hotel. Warren Whitmore was the architect, and for some reason they made Graham an
33 associate architect. Then it came to a matter of dealing with the big law firm, Schuyler and Ettelson, that was under [Mayor William Hale] Thompson's regime. It took a lot of hanky-panky, but they did it and created the possible use of air rights in the Chicago area. Then the Merchandise Mart went ahead full swing.
Manny: Was the old Marshall Field Wholesale Warehouse still standing at that point? Did they keep that in existence?
Murphy: That wasn't at that location.
Manny: I know, but did they keep that going? That would have served the same purpose.
Murphy: Yes. That was kept going. The plans were made full speed. It took a lot of doing. Alfred Shaw did the preliminary study of the building. In fact, he did the whole thing.
Manny: Did he do most of the designs in the 1920s? Was there anybody else?
Murphy: There were others. Mario Schiavoni is the man that designed the Shedd Aquarium. Charlie Beersman designed the Wrigley Building, the first building. And he designed the Foreman Bank Building. I can't remember any others that Schiavoni designed.
Manny: Who did the Straus Building?
Murphy: I don't remember if Peirce Anderson was alive then or not. I know Mr. Graham designed the top feature.
Manny: Oh, the beehive?
Murphy: Yes, the beehive. He cribbed that from the Bankers Trust Company in New York City.
34 Manny: That's interesting.
Murphy: Whether Peirce Anderson was alive, I'm not sure now. But I can't remember anyone else working on it. Straus wanted something stuck on top of the pyramid. I forget what the feature was, but it portrayed activity. That was their little model. The figure is still up there.
Manny: I never noticed the figure; I just noticed the beehive.
Murphy: Maybe they've taken the figure out.
Manny: I don't know. The present management has made quite a feature of the beehive. They've put a blue light in it that's now quite important on the skyline. It's very nice. In the last year or two, Cushman and Wakefield became managers. I'm sure it was their idea and they've used it in their advertising.
Murphy: Well, getting back to the Mart. It was a huge building and Mr. Graham pushed it. They did a lot of new things in the construction. They bought the building materials up the river—bulk materials, sand and concrete—that were brought in by shipload right alongside the dock. The electric wiring, they used a suction system throughout the building where they sucked the wires through the conduits.
Manny: I've never heard of that.
Murphy: I never heard of it afterwards, but they used it there.
Manny: Of course, this was in the days before Material Service and the big ready-mix trucks. All the concrete was mixed out on the site, I suppose.
Murphy: Yes, it was. Well, the building went along fast. John Griffiths and Sons Company were the builders, and they had an unusual man heading it up.
35 This was prior to Arthur Wells's time. His name was John Ruettinger, and was very, very efficient. He would write letters and show a sketch of a detail of some matter being considered. He was a regular working drawings man. So then all you needed to do was okay the letter and tell them to go ahead. If the change came up in the field, he'd pull out the letter. Well, is it all right to mention how things had to be done in those days?
Manny: I think it would be rather interesting.
Murphy: Well, before the river rights were passed, E.R. Graham came to me one day and said, "I want you to go to New York and see W.C. Potter, the chairman of the board of the Bankers Trust Company. He'll be expecting you, and you are to get some money there." And I found out what the purpose was. I said, "Why don't you deal with the Chicago bankers and save chasing to New York?" He said, "What the Chicago bankers don't know won't bother them." So I went down there. I saw Mr. Potter. He was waiting for me, and he had quite a bit of money and he said, "You have to have a guard or two with you." I said I didn't think so. I took my shoe off and put the money in there. In $10,000 bills, $250,000. And he still wanted to have a couple of guards accompany me back to the hotel, the Biltmore. I said, "Just let me go out the front door and get lost in the crowd. I'll get a cab, and I'll be at the hotel in no time." So I got to the hotel and locked the door. That's before air travel, and the 20th Century was right there below. I waited until the time it took off, and I had a compartment. I locked the door. I guess I opened it to let my meal in, and I got off at Englewood. My wife was meeting me there with a car, but I called Mr. Graham at the office and said, 'Tm here and I'll be down." He said, "Oh, thank God, thank God." That was a lot of money in those days.
Manny: It's a lot of money even now.
Murphy: That money was used to take care of the air rights, to Schuyler's office in the state legislature. There was one $10,000 bill left over. Graham kept that in a little iron box in the safe in the office. One day he asked me to go over to the Straus Bank and get it cashed. So I went over and I had my hand on it, and I
36 said to the teller, "I'd like to get this in smaller bills," and he pulled out ten $100 bills, and I said, "Have you looked at this?" He looked at it and said, "I'll have to call the vice-president." He okayed it, so I got ten $1,000 bills. When the contract was settled with Griffiths, it was $21 million—something. Mr. Graham said to Griffiths, "I want you to add $250,000 to take care of that matter." Griffiths said, "I think I can do it, but you'll have to give me time to figure out how much more I'd have to add to pay for the increased income tax on that amount." Graham looked at him cockeyed and said, "I thought you would." So that was done and the building went along swimmingly. It went fast. I suppose you would call the design a touch of Gothic?
Manny: I don't know. I never looked at it that critically. Shaw seemed adept with several styles. It's funny, because later in his life his designs were all the same. Once he did the Field Building, I don't think he ever had another solution. He never varied from that vertical limestone pattern. And his son, Patrick, is going the same way today.
Murphy: Shaw designed the Hibbard Spencer warehouse near the Tribune Building. Anderson was alive then, but I don't think he was in such good health. He came over and looked at Shaw's work. He didn't say anything and walked away. The turrets around it had a Gothic touch, and Anderson couldn't go for that. He was strictly classical. Well, that's about all we can say about the mart.
Manny: It's interesting, you mentioned $21 million. Didn't the Kennedys later buy it for $6 million or $7 million? It was a song.
Murphy: Marshall Field had a note for $15 million. That's all he paid, $15 million. It didn't cost him anything. And he turned right around and got the same. It never should have been sold. It seems at that time that James Simpson was ailing. He was playing tennis with his secretary, Earl Kribben. Simpson had built a little tennis court along the river near the Merchandise Mart and he used to go over there and play tennis. He wasn't young then, either. He was playing—there must have been four on the court, and he was playing near the net and Kribben was playing on the opposite side. Kribben wanged the
37 ball and hit Simpson in the eye, and he got cancer of the eye. He went to England and had an operation and he was in the hands of the doctors from that time on. I think that's what killed him. Although he traveled around a lot after that. He went to the Himalayas and he was chairman of the Edison Company. The bankers put him in, but he was only there for a short while.
Manny: Well, it seems to me there was a James Simpson over there at Marshall Field's into my time. It must have been a son.
Murphy: Yes, Jimmy. He was a member of Congress. He was a playboy type of guy, and there was Bill Simpson, who was with A.M. Castle and Company. They were in the steel business. James Simpson the elder, his brother Bill Simpson was the head of A.M. Castle and Company, and they furnished all of the reinforcing steel for the Merchandise Mart and they also furnished all the ductwork. Bill Kuechenberg's firm did all the ductwork and air conditioning in the building. They bought all their ductwork in sheets from A.M. Castle and Company.
Manny: Simpson then really ran Marshall Field's. Was not the Field heir active in the business?
Murphy: No. He never was. Stanley Field, who was a nephew of the original Marshall Field, was in there for a short while just as a figurehead type of thing, but he didn't want to work much. They made him chairman of the building committee. I think he was chairman of the building committee on the Merchandise Mart and on the Shedd Aquarium and maybe another one or two. Jimmy Simpson used to check with Graham about Stanley Field's ineptness of the business way. Well, about that time—really, just after Simpson died—they brought in a business research firm, McKinsey and Company, and after a study which didn't take them too long, they made one major recommendation: Get rid of the wholesale division completely. Get rid of your cotton goods stuff down in the Carolinas, the lace factory in Zion, Illinois, and do it completely. Well, the directors were amazed at that. The chairman of the board of Field's at that time was John McKinley. He was of
38 Scotch descent. He said, "I know every man in that wholesale department." There were two thousand of them. "And I'm going to fire them all?" He said, "I'll resign first myself," and he quit. But McKinsey went ahead and later on they made him chairman of the board. It was Simpson's judgment building the mart, and ten years later they get rid of the whole thing. So they didn't follow very safe lines of operation.
Manny: That's incredible. I suppose the tremendous success of the Kennedys had nothing to do with being in that wholesale business. It's just been a great exhibition center.
Murphy: Well, they just fell into it. I think that's their principal asset.
Manny: I think it is, too.
Murphy: The old man Joe was certainly a shrewd guy, believe me.
Manny: Who were the other people in the office that were designers?
Murphy: There were Shaw, Beersman and Schiavoni. There might have been a fourth man, but I don't recall, but as time went on, Charlie Beersman was doing fairly important work. He did the Wrigley Building, which was an instantaneous success with the people of Chicago, particularly when they put those lights on. I said to him one day, "Charlie, what style of architecture is that?" He said, "Francis I, French Renaissance.
Manny: It's always been thought of as being copied from Giralda Tower in Seville.
Murphy: He said it was copied from those castles that Francis I built around the Champagne area in France. Anyway, that's what he said. He was an agile fellow, very clever. But Shaw was always pushing these fellows—"Out of my way." And as the years went by, they dropped off. Beersman invented something, a continuous electrical strip where you could plug in anywhere. He got a patent on it. I don't know whether it amounted to anything or not.
39 But he left the firm and poor Mario Schiavoni. He was a very gentle soul, and he just stepped out. Shaw was the only one then.
Manny: So things like the Opera House and the Field Building, when they came along, he was the only one around?
Murphy: Yes, that's right. He could do what Graham wanted done and do it quickly.
Manny: Was Simpson also the driving force on the Field Building?
Murphy: No, that was Tate.
Manny: Who was running that?
Murphy: For the owner?
Manny: Yes.
Murphy: George Richardson. He was the trustee of the estate.
Manny: Was it Graham's connection with Simpson that got the job?
Murphy: No, the job was with the Field estate.
Manny: It seems to me like the climactic building of the firm.
Murphy: I think so.
Manny: I've often wondered why if Graham was so important in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition he didn't have more to do with the 1933 Century of Progress. In the Graham Foundation library, I once saw a beautiful Moroccan volume about the 1933 Century of Progress that had been presented to Graham, so he must have had some connection with the committee or something.
40 Murphy: The firm only did one thing, and that was a building for Armour and Company. They had nothing to do with the overall planning. That was all Nat Owings. This lady at DePaul [Sally Chappell] mentioned Peirce Anderson in connection with it. I don't think he could have had much of anything to do with it.
Manny: I thought he was dead by then. When did he die?
Murphy: I think it was 1924 when he died.
Manny: What was the general feeling around town among the architectural community when that planning for the fair was going on. I know there's a similar movement underway here right now to mark the 100th anniversary of the World's Columbian Exposition. I don't know if it's ever going to come to anything.
Murphy: Nat Owings was the driving force of that whole thing, I think.
Manny: He had to be a very young man at that time.
Murphy: Oh, he was young, and he was a pusher. They had big committees. I think the head of one of the banks that is no longer in existence—I can't think of his name now. He was related to Owings, and that's how he landed in there. The Graham firm only did that one thing for Armour and Company, because Billy Graham was married to the daughter of the chairman of Armour and Company. That was his first marriage.
Manny: I see, and that's the connection to that building.
Murphy: And he got that little building out of it. He lived here in this building. They didn't get along, and there was a breakup. And then we were in the depression, and these buildings along here [Lake Shore Drive] were giving space away to pay the rent.
41 Manny: Well, we're up to after the war. That's about the period I came into the office, just after Shaw left and the firm was Naess and Murphy. I remember all the secret goings on that I wasn't a part of in connection with the Prudential—what later turned out to be the Prudential—but you were doing all of this in a little secret room someplace.
Murphy: Oh, yes. Over in the Insurance Exchange Building. Jim Brennan was the lawyer for the Prudential Company and they had their own lawyers, too, three or four lawyers. Going back, Prudential came to Leo Sheridan and said they were thinking about the possibility of a location on the Near North Side exactly on the site of the Water Tower Place. And then another place out in Skokie. But when Leo proposed the air rights, they were most interested in that, but they said, "It's a knotty problem. We don't want to be connected with a failure. We don't want the name Prudential connected with something that falls through." And so the thing was done in secret for a year and a half. Leo was dealing with the Illinois Central with Wayne Johnston. He was chairman. He was a big gruff fellow with a big tummy.
Manny: I remember him.
Murphy: Leo said to me, "I want you to go with me every other Saturday morning. We'll call on Wayne Johnston." I said, "Leo, I'm not in the real estate business." He said, "I want you to come with me anyway." So we'd go and visit him, and the first trip we made to him down on Twelfth Street, after a pleasant visit, he said, "Well, gentlemen, you have a ten percent chance of success here." We got out on the street, and I said, "Leo, I'm a little confused. Isn't that the man who is trying to sell the air rights?" He said, "Don't pay any attention." And we went back every two weeks. So, six months later, we went in and he said, "Well, now I think you have about a fifty-fifty chance." That was my experience in real estate. The old rascal didn't tell us one thing—the key thing—which was the Illinois Central didn't own that land. It was owned by the Michigan Central, which was the New York Central. A man named Gustav Netzman was the chairman of the New York Central, and he's the
42 man they had to deal with, and before the Illinois Central could move on anything, they had to rework all their agreements with the Michigan Central for the trackage north there. Most of it's still owned by the Michigan, I think, and the station at Twelfth Street on long ninety-nine-year leases. And why he kept that quiet—I guess he didn't want to have it discovered.
Manny: He probably was stalling for time so he could get his own ducks in a row.
Murphy: Maybe so. They kept after Netzman, and I think they used to cuss him out, but they finally got it wrapped up and that was June 19--… Oh, I had a little thing out here. Maybe I've shown it to you before.
Manny: I saw Fred Schoy [employee in the Murphy firm] this afternoon, and he mentioned a book of newspaper clippings, but this is something else. [Tape 2]
Murphy: I was taking a telephone message that I wrote down quickly, "Arrange a luncheon June 26th at the Chicago Club, for the mayor, Martin Kennelly; Carroll Shanks, the president of Prudential; Howell, who was one of the top vice-presidents; and C.R. Smith, Jim Brennan, Leo Sheridan, Lyndon Lesch, Naess and myself. Twelve-thirty." They scratched it out and said make it 12:14, and I wrote my name on it and I kept that.
Manny: That goes back to 1950. That's interesting. Nice idea to keep it.
Murphy: And we worked at our own risk all that time for a year and a half. And they told us, W.C. Potter, the vice-president of Prudential, said, "You are doing this at your own risk." We had $65,000 in it. We weren't flush on money. But the minute it was a reality, he said, "Send your bill in," and he paid it. We've been friendly ever since. I think we still make tenant changes for them.
Manny: Yes, we do. I remember in the office that Gerrit Germeraad prepared the document, the land and air rights sale, which was the longest record ever recorded in the county. He did all the lettering, and I remember Lorrie
43 Johanson worked out the geometry and then Gerrit did all the lettering, and it was on a roll fifty-feet long.
Murphy: I think they really overdid the thing. It didn't have to be as complicated as all that.
Manny: It's the only thing I've known where they describe these actual little parcels for the caissons that are going down to bedrock.
Murphy: Take a column—caisson lot—and then if there'd be a brace at the top of the column, that became a lot. There were hundreds of the damn things.
Manny: It was a field day for Brennan and the lawyers.
Murphy: Yes. They had a great time. And they kept that office door locked with no name on the door of the glass outside, and it was high secret all right. But I guess they were told we don't want the name connected with it.
Manny: Who would you credit with the design for that? Was it Naess?
Murphy: Carl Landefeld.
Manny: But didn't he come in very much later?
Murphy: No, he came in at the start.
Manny: I thought he just came in to put a facade on it.
Murphy: Maybe that's what he did, but he was working with us all the time. Yes. He was a strange lad. He'd been with some big outfits in New York, McKim, Mead and White and one or two others. He came from someplace, some little town on Lake Erie. He was a heavy drinker.
44 Manny: Yes, I know he used to go downstairs to that little bar almost every morning to get his hand steady.
Murphy: There was another one in the earlier years. He worked under Peirce Anderson, Frederick Dinkelberg. I don't remember what he designed [Dinkelberg designed several buildings for D.H. Burnham and Company—Flatiron Building in New York, Wanamaker's in Philadelphia and Marshall Field Annex and the Railway Exchange in Chicago], but at four every afternoon he'd go downstairs, or they used to say every hour on the hour.
Manny: I believe that was more Landefeld's schedule.
Murphy: And Dinkelberg and Giaver [Joachim G. Giaver was a structural engineer for GAPW] stepped out and formed a partnership. They did the Jewelers Building. Later on it became the Pure Oil Building. That's the only building they did. That design is Dinkelberg's.
Manny: Is that so?
Murphy: Yes. Turrets and towers and all that on four corners. I don't think they did very well, because that's the only building they ever did. Giaver was getting up in years. [Giaver died early in the project and Thielbar and Fugard became associated on the project.] He was a big powerful Norwegian. Oh, he was a powerful man. He and a fellow named R.V. Reynolds, who was the Chicago agent for the Alabama Marble Company. They were selling a lot of marble in those days, you know, like the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. He had an office right next to the main office of the Graham firm. He was a powerful man. He had an arm on him. They'd go to the Stratford bar and they'd play an old game they called...
Manny: Indian wrestle?
Murphy: Yes. For the drinks. Well, what building did we stop at?
45 Manny: Why don't we cover getting into the time when Mayor Daley came to power and the first thing he asked you to do was the filtration plant, the Central District Filtration Plant. There'd been this lawsuit, as I recall, where the taxpayers were trying to block the whole development that we can look out and see right now. It seems to me, I remember that Mayor Daley came to you and asked you to try to make the design into something which the lakefront property owners would accept and withdraw their lawsuit.
Murphy: There was a lot of opposition by the citizens. One of the persons who was opposed to it was John Root. He came out publicly as against it. Then we put it in a park-like setting there.
Manny: I remember it was right after the foundation got started, and, as I recall, you had some dealings with Pietro Belluschi. It seemed to me that you asked him for some advice and they recommended a young fellow who turned out later to be quite famous—Sasaki, Hideo Sasaki, who was teaching at Harvard at the time. And he came back with this scheme with mounded earth where the building was mostly buried. It would come out like a fortress in a couple of places, and that was presented to the water people, as I recall, and they turned it down because they were afraid of the waterproofing problems—the water seeping down in through the earth pile on top.
Murphy: Who did the landscape work?
Manny: Well, later, when we finally did the building, it was Dan Kiley that we brought in from Vermont, Stan Gladych's friend whom he got to know on the Air Force Academy job when he worked for SOM. A lot of people thought you got the job because you went to school with the mayor, but I believe that's incorrect. Weren't you a generation apart?
Murphy: He was ten years younger than me. We went to the same business school. I used to have a photograph—I may still have it in there—a big photograph of the dinner that Prudential gave at the Palmer House to formally announce
46 the new building. I'm standing describing the building and everybody connected with it. Leo Sheridan, Lyndon Lesch, Sigurd Naess and myself, we were right next to the governor, the mayor and the other notables. Daley was sitting out in front. He was nobody at that time. He had a pretty fair job, but he didn't have any power. So he probably spotted me there and said, well, I never heard of a man coming from De La Salle in the architectural profession.
Manny: So when he needed an architect, he remembered that. Also, I remember, I wasn't privy to when he told you, but I remember when the O'Hare thing started, the first O'Hare job. We thought we were going to be in some kind of a venture with the Ralph Burke organization and they would do the civil engineering work, and I think he let you know that that wasn't what he had in mind.
Murphy: He didn't have any regard for Burke. Burke was a friend of [former Chicago Mayor Edward] Kelly's. Daley didn't want the Burke firm. He just went through a phase before getting rid of them. Bounced him out. He had made some drawings, layouts for the airport. They had one called—what was the name of it?
Manny: The tangential scheme. The first segment of it was actually built.
Murphy: The airlines didn't like it.
Manny: Well, it was totally unworkable.
Murphy: Yes. That's what I mean.
Manny: And the interesting thing is that SOM did that first building out there for Burke. The building later became the international building. It's before the present regime, but I remember that Bill Priestley was involved and so was Ambrose Richardson. They were in the SOM firm at the time they did that partial building, which still stands. [The building was removed in 1985 for the new United Airlines Terminal by Helmut Jahn.]
47 Murphy: I think I told you this before. I think it was a meeting at the Irish Fellowship Club, a dinner jacket stag meeting at the Palmer House. This was before the dinner session, the cocktail hour, and the mayor was there. He tugged my sleeve and said, "Charlie, I'd like to say a word to you." I stepped aside from the group where we were standing, and he said, "How would you like to see your firm's name out there at O'Hare Field as the architects in charge?" I said, "Mr. Mayor, that would just be great." He said, "That's the way it's going to be." And that was it.
Manny: That was nice.
Murphy: No request for money. Never was. And then later on when the First National Bank was looking for architects from New York and from the West Coast. One West Coast firm, big firm—I forget the name—shipped some models. One of the bank people told me they filled a room. One day I got a big urge of an idea. I called up and made a date to go see the mayor. I said, "Mr. Mayor, would you do a favor for me, a big one?" He said, "Why, sure, if I can." "Would you telephone Homer Livingston. They are about to select their architect, and the competition is from the East Coast out to the West Coast." I said, "It ought to be a Chicago firm." And he said, "Sure, I will." He had a lot of power with Livingston then. Of course, they all wanted to be friendly with the mayor. In two days we were called over there, but then there was kind of a shade put on it when Perkins and Will were included, too.
Manny: Tell that little story about Larry Perkins calling you up after the meeting when the bankers gave us the job with Perkins and Will.
Murphy: During the meeting, Chris Wilson [Christopher Wilson, executive vice- president of the bank who was in charge of the new building project] told us that Perkins and Will had been selected for its great design ability and Murphy was selected because we knew how to put a building together.
48 Manny: Yes, and, of course, that didn't sit well with us. But the bankers liked Perkins and Will's U.S. Gypsum Building even though it has never found much favor among architects.
Murphy: Well, we could say nothing during the meeting, but afterwards Larry telephoned me and asked that his firm be given the design lead. He said, "After all, your firm already has a reputation for designing big buildings…" I interrupted him, saying, "Yes, and that's just why you shouldn't have the design lead." But we agreed to share design responsibility with them. [Design was governed by a committee composed of Larry Perkins and Bill Brubaker for Perkins and Will and Charles Rummel and Carter Manny for C.F. Murphy Associates. James Ferris, later Stanislav Gladych, both of the Murphy firm, headed the design team under the committee. Murphy had 55 percent of the joint venture, and Perkins and Will had 45 percent in recognition that Murphy furnished most of the engineering staff, including heads of structural design, Sherwin Asrow; air-conditioning, Tak Kanazawa; and electrical, Bodan Nackonechny. Perkins and Will had plumbing and heating, David Grumman. Albin Kisielius of Perkins and Will single- handedly compiled the space program.]
Manny: You mentioned Art Wells earlier. I remember his tragic end with the Grant Park Underground Garage. I've read a little about the old Griffiths Company, which he headed. That was really an important company in the history of building in Chicago and it certainly ended in a sad way. Were there other important contractors beside Griffiths? George A. Fuller came out of the Griffiths Company, did he not?
Murphy: No, Fuller was established many years before Griffiths. I'd known John Griffiths. He lived to be about 90, I think. He was a powerful Scotch Canadian. Well, Ruettinger, whom I mentioned before, was the head man after Griffiths, and when he became ill and died and passed out of the picture, Art Wells took over. Art Wells took some big contracts, and he didn't seem to know what was going on. A contractor—I can't think of his name now, said, "Do you notice anything about Wells? I've noticed for fifteen or
49 twenty years that the man has lapses." Well, we had the DePaul Alumni Hall project and Griffiths was the builder.
Manny: Yes, and didn't the bonding company have to finish it?
Murphy: There was no bonding company. At the time the contract was let, Leo Sheridan sat in our office with the agent for the DePaul people, their lawyer. I forget his name now, but he was a pretty vigorous guy. Leo said, "Why, this good old firm, we don't need a surety bond from them." But they needed one all right. Who was that fellow over at the—Ray Berry? [Ray Berry was head of Gallaher and Speck, a hydraulic elevator contractor which did other specialty work like scenery rigging.] He had many contracts with Griffiths. Ray Berry was on the Alumni Hall project, also on the Grant Park Underground Garage, and he lost big when Griffiths went under. I think he lost about $180,000. He could take it. He had the money, and he just wouldn't move against his old friend, Art Wells.
Mrs. Murphy: Charlie, Arthur Wells wasn't so nutty that he didn't leave everything to his wife.
Murphy: Well, I don't think he had much of anything. He was mentally off. Jake Paschen told a story. He was walking through the First National Bank, and he passed Anderson [Robert Anderson, a vice president of the bank in charge of construction lending], who was talking with Henry Crown, and they called Jake over and said, "How'd you like to take over a fine old construction company?" He said, "What do you mean?" They said, "Griffiths." They were speaking about it being a wonderful company. And he said, "There's nothing wrong with our company. We've got a fine name, too. We don't need it." They were trying to build them up. The First National Bank at the first smell of trouble—and they kept their indebtedness down from about $800,000 to about $400,000, and then let the contractors go. And Berry said, "I was on the verge and could've taken action against the First National Bank, but Father so-and-so, whoever was the head man at DePaul at the time, could have been
50 fired or been demoted by his superiors, so I took my medicine and just forgot about it." He lost some money all right.
Manny: Well, that was the kind of man that Ray Berry was. I liked him a lot.
Murphy: He was on the board of the Builders Building for years and years. I was on seventeen years. We finally sold the building.
Manny: I know. Somebody told me that just recently. Frank Zimmerman [Westinghouse Elevator representative in Chicago] put me on the board of the Chicago Building Congress, and they meet over there every month. And last time somebody was telling me about Tom Cook [retired Chicago architect], asking you to come back from Florida for a Builders Building board meeting. But it was inconvenient, so you did the whole thing over the telephone.
Mrs. Murphy: They wanted you to come back, Charlie. And Wells said, "Well, wait and see if I can't get in touch with these people. You had your ticket and didn't feel like coming home, and Charles called and said that he had talked to Ray and to hold everything and that was the end of it. You didn't have to come back.
Manny: It was kind of told to me like this was the first time a transaction like that was accomplished by telephone.
Mrs. Murphy: They said it couldn't be done on the telephone when they first talked to Charlie. Don't you remember that, Charlie?
Murphy: Yes, I remember it.
Manny: What did that have to do with the sale of the Builders Building?
Murphy: Well, it was kind of a funny sale. Who was the fellow who went to jail with Harris Sullivan?
51 Mrs. Murphy: When you get down to the jailbirds, I forget.
Murphy: Well, his son had a savings and loan on the North Side somewhere, and he owned an apartment building, one of those tall apartments on the North Shore. Henry Crown owned the apartment building. It was up in the area where he was conducting business near the savings and loan. I can't think of that fellow's name. He and Harris Sullivan went to jail because of candy or gum or something.
Mrs. Murphy: Oh, yes. Candy rings a bell.
Murphy: Well, I'll go ahead without his name. But his son put a down payment on the Builders Building and he was given time, so many months, to come up with the rest of the money. In the meantime, he got together with Henry Crown, and Crown and his lawyers figured out a tax dodge. This fellow told him about the apartment building he had there. He said, "I'll give you the apartment building, and I'll take the Builders Building." And that's what happened. Henry Crown owns the building today. Pretty sharp stuff, huh?
Manny: And it was all done for some kind of a tax dodge. It's incredible how some of these things are done.
Murphy: I only had a small amount of the stock, but I had it for years and years. I made about $25,000 off of it.
Manny: Was that a Graham building?
Murphy: Yes, sure.
Manny: Is that how you happened to get involved on the board?
Murphy: That's it. Mr. Graham owned stock. He owned preferred and he owned common stock.
52 Mrs. Murphy: Leo Sheridan had a bunch of it.
Murphy: Leo was always buying, and they were in the best position to buy because they were the agents of the building. I had a certain amount, but I never could add to it or anything. I had 230 shares or something like that. So when I sold it, I made some money on it.
Manny: Speaking about jailbirds, you've told stories about Chris Paschen taking a rap for one of the higher-ups when he was building commissioner.
Murphy: Well, I was over to see him. Chris used to send word out to the architectural profession and the builders when there was a primary of any kind coming up or an election. E.R. Graham was an easy touch, so I took, I think it was $4,000 over there one day to the building commissioner, and he'd call, "Come over here, you big SOB." That was a term of endearment with him. I gave him the money, and he pulled out a drawer at the table, and it was full of money. There must have been $100,000 or more in it. He just swept it in there. He said, "You see this? By five o'clock tonight this will all be up on the fifth floor." That was the mayor's office. So when I got out to the street, I said to myself, "That's a lot of nonsense." That was the truth. Well, Chris was away for two years down in Alabama or someplace, in jail. Charlie, Jr. was going to school at Notre Dame, and during summer vacation, he was a laborer for Paschen Contractors. Jo [Mrs. Murphy] was away with Bob, and Charles and I were home together. One of Louis Hanson's [a draftsman for Graham's office and later in the Murphy firm] relatives had died, and I said to Charles, "Well, let's go up to the funeral parlor." We went up and paid our respects. It was on the North Side somewhere, around Wilson Avenue. On the way back, we were passing Clybourn Avenue. I said, "Slow up. This is where Chris Paschen lives." We stopped and Chris stuck his head out the window and proceeded to cuss, and he said, "Come on up." He opened the moat and I went in and went upstairs.
Mrs. Murphy: The gates had to be opened. Is that what you mean?
53 Murphy: Yes, and Chris had married again. She was a farm woman. Well, she was undressing, and he got her up anyway, and there was a small table. Chris was sitting acrossway from Charles, Jr. and he decided to talk about his being in jail, and he said, "Do you know I was sitting as close as I am to you from two government men, and all I had to do was give them two names and I would walk out a free man? Do you know who those two names were?" And Charles, who was about eighteen years old or so, said, "No, I don't, Mr. Paschen." He said, "Well, I'll tell you." He didn't direct his talk to me at all. He was talking to Charles. It was William Hale Thompson and Homer Galpin. So we got down in the car, and on our way back, Charles said to me, "Say, Dad, what was Mr. Paschen? Was he a gangster?" I said, "No, just a politician." And that's true. If he had given those names to whom that money really went to, he could've avoided jail. When William Hale Thompson died, his safe deposit box was loaded with old cold bills. I don't know how much, maybe a half a million or more.
Mrs. Murphy: I talked to you and Charles that night, and I said to Charles, "What did you do?" And he said, "We went of the see some of father's jail friends."
Murphy: Well, Chris wouldn't tell who the guys were. Homer Galpin was the head of the Republican party in Cook County, and William Hale Thompson was the mayor. They were getting the dough. When Chris Paschen said, "This will be up at the fifth floor by five o'clock," he was probably right. He might have picked off a little for himself, but the bulk of it went upstairs. They had money floating around in those days real good.
Mrs. Murphy: Did you ever know that young Chris Paschen was married to Jimmy Costan's daughter the first time? You knew Jimmy Costan, didn't you?
Manny: Well, I knew that he was one of the people that lived up at Eagle River in the summer. I don't think I ever met him, but the name rings a bell. I went out to the Paschen place on Clybourn Avenue one time. I can't think whether it was with you or Charlie Rummel. I don't know why I went out there, but I remember going to that place where there was a big work yard and a cyclone
54 fence around it and this big gate and these great big dogs. He lived upstairs. He was kind of an interesting guy.
Murphy: That wasn't Chris, was it? The construction company was separate from him. He wasn't in that at all.
Manny: What was that building and maintenance company that young Chris then took over? [Chris Paschen Maintenance Company]
Murphy: That was a tuckpointing outfit. That was on Clybourn Avenue. The brothers, Jake and Henry and then later on Bud. They were on Clybourn Avenue, but further out.
Manny: No, it wasn't the same. I didn't realize they were all brothers, Henry and Chris and Jake and Frank were all brothers?
Murphy: Yes. Frank was Bud's father. Bud's name was Frank also. His father founded the company. He died when he was only thirty-nine years old. But the Paschens were hustlers all right and tougher than hell. They were before the Italians came into prominence and started the mob. The Paschens were a tough outfit. And they were moneymakers on top of it.
Mrs. Murphy: And as close as that to each other.
Murphy: The construction company put up a lot of money to keep Chris out of jail. They paid over a couple hundred thousand dollars but it didn't keep him out of jail. But I think the only clown in the bunch was young Chris.
Manny: He's no longer living, is he?
Mrs. Murphy: No.
Murphy: Well, are we going to have that drink you were talking about?
55 Mrs. Murphy: Sure.
Murphy: We'll go in and relax in the other room.
56 SELECTED REFERENCES
Abercrombie, Stanley. "IBM: With New Energy-Saving Sophistication, This Glassy Chicago Tower Suggests That Less is More Than Ever." Architecture Plus 2 (September/October 1974):62-69. "Airports." Architectural Record 152 (October 1972):127-142. Allen, J. Linn. "Prudential Face Lift Drawn Some Frowns." Chicago Tribune (21 December 1996):1, 14. "Arena a Kansas City." Domus, n. 557 (April 1976):21-24. Bach, Ira J. "Chicago Designs a New Government Center." Arts and Architecture 77 (July 1960);12-13, 30-32. Bey, Lee. "Prudential Losing Its Original Features." Chicago Sun-Times (22 December 1996). Chappell, Sally A. Kitt.. Architecture and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White, 1912-1936: Transforming Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. "Chicago's Prudential Building…" Architectural Forum 97 (August 1952): 90-99. "Concrete, Cantilevers, Art and Harmony: the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building." Inland Architect 13 (December 1969):14-17. Feshbach, Riva. "C.F. Murphy Archive at Chicago Historical Society." Inland Architect 35 (March/April 1991):69-72. "Honor Awards: Six New Buildings, Four Recyclings, and Mies." American Institute of Architects Journal 65 (April 1976):36-57. "In Indiana Ginnastica: Athletic Facility in Notre Dame." Domus, n. 581 (April 1978):24-26. Kent, Cheryl. "Aviation Evolution." Progressive Architecture 74 (June 1993):96, 158. "Low Rent Projects: Chatham Park Project." Pencil Points 21 (March 1940):88. Miller, Nory. "Can We Save O'Hare Field From Itself?" Inland Architect 17 (August 1973):18- 22. _____. "Chicago Awards 1976: Five More Than We Needed?" Inland Architect 20 (November 1976):8-13. Nairn, Janet. "College Buildings." Architectural Record 162 (November 1977):109-124. Newman, M.W. "The Colossus of 23rd Street and What May Come Next." Inland Architect 14 (November 1970):12-17. _____. "Water Tower Place: Symbol of the Two Downtowns." Inland Architect 20 (October 1976):6-13. "Public Buildings." Architectural Forum 135 (November 1971):36-57.
57 Schmertz, Mildred F. "Design in the Miesian Tradition: The Current Work of C.F. Murphy Associates." Architectural Record 149 (May 1971):95-106. Slesin, Suzanne. "Hospitals and Medical Facilities." Interior Design 46 (October 1975):132-155. "Sun-Times Building, Chicago, Illinois." Progressive Architecture 40(September 1959):168-171. The Architectural Work of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, Chicago, and Their Predecessors, D. H. Burnham & Co., and Graham, Burnham & Co. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1933. "Three Office Buildings." Architectural Record 148 (July 1970):119-132. Weese, Harry. "The Chicago Civic Center as Public Architecture." American Institute of Architects Journal 52 (September 1969):88-92. Winter, John. "Follow Mies." Architectural Review 154 (July 1973):42-52. Zukowsky, John, editor. Chicago Architecture and Design 1923-1993. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1993.
58 CHARLES FRANCIS MURPHY
Born: 9 February 1890, Jersey City, New Jersey Died: 22 May 1985, Chicago, Illinois
Education: De La Salle Institute Business School, Chicago, Illinois
Professional Experience: Thurber Art Galleries, 1907-1910 D.H. Burnham and Co., 1911 Graham, Burnham and Company, 1912-1917 Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1917-1936 Shaw, Naess and Murphy, 1937-1946 Naess and Murphy, 1947-1960 C.F. Murphy Associates, 1960-1980
Government Service: Chicago Civil Defense
Civic Service: Founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Vice-President, Builders Building Chairman, Insurance Exchange Building Corporation Chairman, Red Cross Drive, Chicago, 1954 Advisory Council, College of Liberal Arts, University of Notre Dame, 1954- 1955 Member, Advanced Gifts Division, Crusade of Mercy, 1959-1962 Director, Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry Board Member, Chicago Central Area Committee Director, Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry Board Member, Chicago Central Area Committee
Honors: Fellow, College of Fellows, American Institute of Architects, 1964 Damen Award, Loyola University, 1962 St. Xavier College, honorary doctorate degree, 1960 Loyola University, Damen Award, 1962 Charles F. Murphy Architecture Study Center, Chicago Historical Society
Awards: Chicago Civic Center (now Richard J. Daley Center) Chicago Federal Center First National Bank of Chicago Continental Center Blue Cross Blue Shield Building (now Ryan Insurance)
59 McCormick Place II Kemper Area, Kansas City, Missouri
60 INDEX OF NAMES AND BUILDINGS
Anderson, Peirce 6-8, 34-35, 37, 41, 45 Equitable Life Insurance Building, New Anderson, Robert 50 York City, New York 8, 10 Asrow, Sherwin 49 Ericsson, Henry 20 Evers, John 18, 19 Bankers Trust Company, New York Evers, Marjorie 19 City, New York 34, 36 Barron, Clarence W. 16-17 Ferris, James (Jim) 49 Beersman, Charles (Charlie) 34, 39, 40 Ferriss, Hugh 9 Belluschi, Pietro 46 Field Building, Chicago, Illinois 20, 33, 37, Berry, Raymond (Ray) 19, 20, 50-51 40 Boggs, J. Palmer 23 Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Boyle, Michael (Mike) 4 Illinois 45 Brennan, James (Jim) 43, 44 Field Museum of Natural History, Ernest R. Brown, Aldis 23 Graham Hall, Chicago, Illinois 31 Brubaker, William (Bill) 49 Field, Marshall 14, 17, 20, 37 Builders Building, Chicago, Illinois 19, Field, Stanley 22, 38 51-52 Fine Arts Building, Chicago, Illinois 2, 13 Burke, Ralph 47 First National Bank, Chicago, Illinois 48, 50- Burnham, Daniel Hudson 1, 3, 5, 6, 13- 51 15 Flatiron Building, New York City, New Burnham, Daniel Hudson, Jr. (son of York 45 Daniel H.) 6 Foreman Bank Building, Chicago, Illinois Burnham, Hubert (son of Daniel H.) 6 34 Fortiker, James 5 Castle, A.M., and Company 38 Fuller, George A., Company 49 Central District Filtration Plant, Chicago, Illinois 46 Galpin, Homer 54 Chappell, Sally Kitt 41 Germeraad, Gerrit 44 Chicago Club 2, 43 Giralda Tower, Seville, Spain 39 Civic Opera House, Chicago, Illinois 18- Giaver, Joachim 6, 45 20, 40 Gladych, Stanislav (Stan) 49 Concannon and Dillon 32 Graham Burnham and Company 6-7 Concannon, Matthew (Matt) 31 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies Cook, Thomas (Tom) 51 in the Fine Arts 11, 12, 26, 30, 32, 40 Corey, Fred 24 Graham, Anderson, Probst and White 7, 12 Costan, James (Jimmy) 54 Graham, Ernest R. 1-10, 12-18, 20, 23-31, 34- Crown, Henry 50, 52 38, 40-41, 53 Cushman and Wakefield 35 Graham, Robert 28 Graham, Ruby Leffingwell (second wife of Daley, Richard J. 46-48 Ernest) 8, 15, 17, 22, 27-28, 30 DePaul University Alumni Hall, Graham, William Leffingwell (Billy, stepson Chicago, Illinois 50 of Ernest) 27-29, 31, 41 Dinkelberg, Frederick P. 45 Grant Park Underground Garage, Chicago, Doran, Robert 2 Illinois 49-50 Du Pont, Thomas Coleman 8-10 Griffiths (John) and Sons 35, 49 Griffiths, John 13, 37, 49, 50 Grumman, David 49
61 Merchandise Mart, Chicago, Illinois 17, 33- Hansen, Louis 53 35, 38 Harren, Henry 30 Mulig, Thomas J. (Tom) 32 Hibbard Spencer Bartlett Warehouse, Murphy, C.F., Associates 20, 42 Chicago, Illinois 37 Murphy, Charles F., Jr. (son of Charles Horowitz, Louis 10 Francis) 54 Horrigan, Ann 15 Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois 23 Insull, Samuel 10, 18, 29 Insurance Exchange Building, Chicago, Naess and Murphy 17, 22 Illinois 12, 22, 27, 42 Naess, Sigurd 16, 18, 21, 22, 43, 47 Nakonechny, Bohdan W. (Dan) 49 Jahn, Helmut vii, 48 Nation, Agnes Burrell 26 Jewelers Building (later Pure Oil Netzman, Gustav 43 Building), Chicago, Illinois 45 Johanson, Lorentz (Lorry) 44 O'Donnell, Simon 4 Johnson (Charles B.) and Son 2 O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Johnson, John G. 9 Illinois 47, 48 Johnston, Wayne 42 Owings, Nathaniel (Nat) 41 Joslyn, E.B. 5 Pam, Max 10-12, 32 Kanazawa, Takenori (Tak) 49 Paschen, Chris 50, 53-55 Kelly, Edward Joseph 47 Paschen Contractors 53 Kendall, Nat 21 Perkins and Will 48-49 Kennedy, Joseph (Joe) 39 Perkins, Dwight Heald 13 Kennelly, Martin H. 43 Perkins, Lawrence Bradford (Larry) 13, 48- Kiley, Daniel (Dan) 46 49 Kisielius, Albin 49 Piccard, Napoleon 10, 12 Kostican, Kent 25 Pittsfield Building, Chicago, Illinois 16-17, Kribben, Earl 37-38 32 Kuechenberg, Bill 38 Post, Louise (wife of Wilbur) 28-30 Post, Wilbur 28-30 Landefeld, Carl 44, 45 Potter, W.C. 36, 43 Lesch, Lyndon 43, 47 Powers, R.J. 4 Lever House, New York City, New York Priestley, William Turk (Bill) 47 9 Probst, Edward 7, 22,-24 Livingston, Homer 48 Prudential Insurance Building (first), Chicago, Illinois 33, 42 McDermott, Michael (Mike) 19 McGuire, William 26 Railway Exchange Building, Chicago, McKinley, John 39 Illinois 1, 22, 23, 27, 45 McKinsey and Company 38-39 Reynolds, R.V. 4, 6, 45 McNulty Brothers 3, 4 Richardson, Ambrose (Am) 48 Madden, Skinny 4 Richardson, George 40 Manny, Carter H. 49 Root, John Wellborn 13, 46 Marshall Field and Company Annex, Ruettinger, John 36, 49 Chicago, Illinois 45 Rummel, Charles Garman (Charlie) 49, 55 Marshall Field Wholesale Warehouse, Chicago, Illinois 34 Salinger, Robert J. (Bob) 21 Maxon, John 26 Sasaki, Hideo 46
62 Schiavoni, Mario 34, 39, 40 Tebbs and Knell 15 Schoy, Fred 43 Tebbs, Robert W. 15 Schuyler and Ettleson 34, 36 Thielbar and Fugard 45 Scott, Charles (Charlie) 31 Thompson, Matilda B. (Mattie) 32 Seagram Building, New York City, New Thompson, Will 16, 27 York 9 Thompson, William Hale 34, 54 Selfridge Department Store, London, Thurber Art Gallery, Chicago, Illinois 1-2 England 14 Thurber, W. Scott 2 Severns, Clifford 7 Tipburner, Fred 3 Shanks, Carroll 43 Shaw, Alfred (Al) 16-18, 22, 26, 33, 34, Union Terminal, Cleveland, Ohio 14 37, 39, 40, 42 United States Gypsum Building, Chicago, Shaw, Naess and Murphy 17, 22 Illinois 49 Shaw, Patrick (son of Alfred) 37 United States Post Office, Chicago, Illinois Shedd, John G., Aquarium, Chicago, 33 Illinois 34, 38, 45 Shedd, John H. 17 Wanamaker's Department Store, Sheridan, Leo J. 42-43, 47, 50, 53 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 14, 45 Shiff, Sidney 10-11, 32 Wells, Arthur (Art) 49-50 Simpson, Bill 38 White, Howard Judson 20, 22-24 Simpson, James 22, 23, 33, 37-40 Whitmore, Warren 33 Smith, C.R. 43 Wilson, Christopher (Chris) 48 Stevenson, Adlai 30 Wilson, John P. 29 Straus Building, Chicago, Illinois 34 Wright, Frank Lloyd 2, 25 Straus, Simon W. 35 Wrigley Building, Chicago, Illinois 34, 39 Sullivan, Harris 52 Zimmerman, Frank 51 Taft, Robert 5
63