INTERVIEW with MILTON M. SCHWARTZ Interviewed by Harvey

INTERVIEW WITH MILTON M. SCHWARTZ

Interviewed by Harvey M. Choldin

Compiled under the auspices of the Chicago Architects Oral History Project The Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings Department of Architecture and Design 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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface iv Outline of Topics vi Oral History 1 Addendum 103 Selected References 104 Curriculum Vitæ 105 Index of Names and Buildings 106

iii

PREFACE

This oral history was conducted in four sessions in October 2005, in the dining room of architect Milton M. Schwartz. It is a room full of sunshine with views of Lake Michigan, Lincoln Park, and downtown Chicago. It is part of a penthouse apartment atop a building Milton built as a young man, where he and his wife, Audrey, lived for five decades and raised a family. When I would arrive at his front door, Milton, a tall man, who was then eighty years old, would greet me with a smile and offer a cup of coffee. We would sit down and start the recorder and he would tell stories of his life and his career. Altogether our conversations took seven hours.

There was something original about him: Milton’s architectural career doesn't fit a conventional story line. He was the son of immigrants from Rumania. He was educated at a state university. He did his year of architectural apprenticeship and passed his examinations and received his license, but he pursued his career in a multifaceted and unorthodox manner. These stories are spelled out in the oral history itself.

With one big exception, Milton's practice was in and around Chicago. He built in the Loop (the Executive House hotel), at Midway Airport (the Chicago Airways Hotel), around the perimeter of Lincoln Park (four apartment buildings), and in smaller cities in the Midwest (Timber Cove Apartments in Decatur, Illinois and Timber Lane Apartments in Indianapolis, Indiana). The big exception was the ten years when he was the chief architect for the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas during the 1960s, a time when the hotel was continually expanding and Milton was shuttling back and forth between the two cities, an exciting period in his life.

As an architect, Milton was always looking for ways to do things better—ways to improve design, increase efficiency, and lessen construction expenses. Each project presented its challenges and even fifty years later he delighted in telling how he solved them with innovations. A new way of digging caissons, a new coating, a new window system, a new cooling system—his solutions often defied the conventional wisdom. That quest for new solutions is one of the characteristics that make architects special.

Milton Schwartz died in January 2007, before the final version of this project was printed and bound; its purpose, then as now, is to capture and preserve what he said. It was a privilege and a pleasure for me to be able to sit and talk with him and to listen to his stories and to try to capture them accurately.

The project was spearheaded in 2005 by Martha Thorne, who was then Acting Department Head of the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. She had been working with Mr. Schwartz on a gift of drawings and other works from his office, and asked him if he would contribute an oral history—and he agreed. Architectural historian Robert Bruegmann, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, knew Mr. Schwartz and had a serious interest in his work. She assigned the oral history to Bob Bruegmann and he, being aware of my interest in architecture of the 1950s, "sub-contracted" it to me. Bob and I conducted the first interview together and I did the subsequent ones alone.

After the interviews were completed, the burden of this project fell upon Carissa Kowalski Dougherty, who brought it to completion. She did an enormous amount of meticulous work to transform to the original raw transcripts into a finished, useable scholarly product. Corrections have been made to help clarify and amplify thoughts and ideas, and the transcripts were minimally edited to maintain the flow, tone, and spirit of Milton’s story.

Our unit in the Art Institute of Chicago has since become the Department of Architecture and Design. Carissa and I would like to thank Lori Boyer, Exhibitions and Collections Manager, and Joseph Rosa, John H. Bryan Curatorial Chair of Architecture and Design, for their support.

Harvey M. Choldin May 2007

OUTLINE OF TOPICS

Childhood, High School, and Early Inspirations 1 His Father, Abraham Schwartz 5 Architectural Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 7 Apprenticeship and Early Jobs 12 Working as a General Contractor 14 Architectural Licensing Examination 18 320 Oakdale Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 19 Chicago Airways Hotel, Chicago, Illinois 33 Constellation Apartments, Chicago, Illinois 40 Executive House, Chicago, Illinois 45 Dunes Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada 57 Apartment Buildings in Evanston and Waukegan, Illinois 79 Architectural Styles and the Architectural Profession 88, 96 Milton Schwartz and Associates Firm Organization 91 Participation in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 94

Milton Schwartz

Choldin: Okay, Milton, before we start let me give you my understanding of what this project is about. I assume that Martha Thorne [former Associate Curator of Architecture] explained it to you herself, but let me give you my understanding of it as a newcomer. In the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute, you’ll see a wall that has over eighty books on it—beautiful, bound books—and each one of them has the story of an architect in it. I think they’re mostly men, although I know there are a couple of women in there… Each one is what they call an oral history. And so, each one starts with a conversation like this at a tape recorder with interviewers like Bob [Bruegmann] and me and an architect telling the story of his career in architecture, from the time he was a boy to when he got into architecture: his education, his early projects, how he got his license, what his first projects were about, the high points in his career, what his experiences were—and in his own words. In other words, the museum has a collection of the drawings and the photographs [of the architect’s buildings] but the oral history is a way of capturing the life of the architect in words so that people who are interested in architecture can come in contact with the architect himself. What we’re hoping to do today and in a couple of sessions after today is just to talk with you and to let you tell your story. So, let me say that we are here on October 3, 2005. It’s a beautiful sunny morning. We are in the penthouse of 320 Oakdale in Chicago, a building that Milton Schwartz designed—in what year?

Schwartz: Approximately 1952.

Choldin: You and your family lived here ever since then?

Schwartz: Correct.

Choldin: Milton is here at the table in the dining room. Robert Bruegmann, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is also here at the table. I am Harvey

Choldin, a retired professor of sociology at the University of Illinois in Urbana and volunteer at the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. We are going to talk this morning about the beginnings of your career. So, let’s begin at the beginning. Tell us about your family and about where you were as a boy.

Schwartz: Well, as a child I was raised at a home at 5032 North Central Park Avenue, right alongside the Chicago River. I went to Volta Grammar School there in that area.

Choldin: You were born in what year?

Schwartz: I was born in 1925, but I guess I’m skipping ahead a little bit because I can’t remember that far back.

Choldin: Oh, that’s okay.

Schwartz: I guess I’m skipping to grammar school days—that’s about the best I can do for you. As I said, I went to Volta Grammar School while living on Central Park Avenue and ultimately I went to Von Steuben High School while living in that area. I used to attempt to build a boat every year in the basement of our home and float it on the Chicago River. My aim was to float it down to Von Steuben High School, where I ultimately went to school… And the boat would sink every year. One year, I finally made a boat that floated down and I tied the boat to a tree, went to classes, and when I came back the boat had continued to float down the river and disappeared. I never saw it again. From there I moved to a home with my folks, which is just across the street from this building at 2930 Commonwealth Avenue.

Choldin: Did you have brothers or sisters?

Schwartz: Yes, I have one sister. Her name is Phyllis Frankel. She’s formerly a professor at Lake Forest College and presently is retired and running her own private practice. She’s a psychologist.

Choldin: She didn’t build boats with you?

Schwartz: No, she didn’t build boats with me. She would look at me in disdain. She’s a younger sister and…

Choldin: You were saying you moved over here…

Schwartz: We moved from there to 2930 Commonwealth Avenue, right just across the street from this building. [2930 Commonwealth Avenue] is a building that I ultimately wound up building, prior to our moving there. I built it not as an architect but as a general contractor. We moved into that building and I lived with my folks; in those days that was the thing to do. I would often look down at this property that we’re at right now—320 Oakdale—and I admired the property from that building very much. I could always visualize the use and I would see a high-rise building here. During this period of time, I took my state license exam for architecture and managed to pass—with a flurry, I might add, because as I handed in my final paper I passed out. I had passed out completely and alarmed everybody but I came to shortly thereafter and lo and behold I had passed my examination to become an architect. And that’s what I set out to do—build this building that we’re in now.

Choldin: Can you tell us about Von Steuben High School?

Schwartz: Sure, I guess.

Choldin: Did they have any courses that were useful to you?

Schwartz: Well, I took courses like mechanical engineering. It was useful, more or less. I learned how to handle a T-square and triangle from it but there was nothing

that really inspired me to become an architect, as such, at Von Steuben. I think what inspired me most was when I would look at the tall buildings in Chicago—buildings that were built by Daniel Burnham, buildings that were built by Louis Sullivan. I think those are the things that inspired me. And, of course, later when I went to the University of Illinois to study, we would listen to lectures by Frank Lloyd Wright and he was very inspiring and that is what really set my mind to becoming an architect. I became a firm believer in good architecture and in doing things that would benefit society to the best of my ability.

Choldin: Did you ever meet an architect before you went to the university?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. I met many architects before I went to university. I used to look over the corner of a drawing board with my father when we went to visit some of his customers. He was in the plumbing and heating business. My dad had studied at Armour Tech [Armour Institute of Technology] for two years after World War I and was a sanitary engineer and later developed a large plumbing and heating company in the city of Chicago. I used to go with him to various architects’ offices and look over the end of the drawing board with my nose over the end of it and watch the draftsmen working on the drawing boards and drawing artistic drawings. I was fascinated by that.

Choldin: Did you like to draw yourself?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. I was always drawing or sketching or playing with a pencil and paper in the early years—always sketching something. I guess that came to me just ordinarily; it’s just something I did. Later, of course, at the University of Illinois, I learned to work in many mediums: pencil, charcoal, temperas, oils. That was when I studied under Professor Woodroofe in the Art department at the University of Illinois and she taught me those things. I used to go out—what is the name of that park in Urbana where they have a lake?

Choldin: Oh, Crystal Lake Park?

Schwartz: Yes. I used to rent a boat and paint in the boat. I would take my watercolors and I’d have a mat and I would dip the brush in the water and wet the mat and I’d get beautiful colors—especially with the green water. And Professor Woodroofe would say, “How in the world did you get these beautiful colors?” I would never tell anybody I was out at Crystal Lake dipping the brush in the water.

Choldin: Can you tell us about your father?

Schwartz: Sure. My dad went into World War I as a second lieutenant; he came out of it as a first lieutenant. He originally was from Rumania. He came over on the boat with his brother when they were seven years old and they applied for U.S. citizenship and ultimately passed their examinations and became U.S. citizens. That was all before World War I; later he went into the army. When he came out of the army as a first lieutenant he went to school at what was then known as Armour Institute of Technology and studied sanitary engineering there for two years. Of course, two years of college in those days was a lot of college by comparison. He ultimately opened up his own plumbing and heating shop and ran one of the largest plumbing and heating companies in the city of Chicago. He was also the mechanical engineer for this building that we’re sitting in; I had a great deal of confidence in him, of course, and he was more than capable of producing this building.

Choldin: What was the name of his company?

Schwartz: Schwartz Brothers Plumbing and Heating Company.

Choldin: Where were they located?

Schwartz: They were located at 2707 West Roosevelt Road.

Choldin: You were with him when you had your office?

Schwartz: No, my office was at 2709 West Roosevelt Road and that was right next door. It was a vacant lot at the time and then I built a building on it and opened my office in there—with my father’s help, I might add.

Choldin: You were next door to him?

Schwartz: Yes.

Choldin: So, they had a big company at 2707…

Schwartz: Right, and I ultimately had a big company going at 2709.

Choldin: Oh, how wonderful. So, it was Abraham and his brother, your uncle.

Schwartz: That’s right. Those were the two who came over originally on the boat together as little boys. Of course, they ultimately brought their two other brothers over with them. They also had a sister who was left over in Rumania, which later became Russia, and she married there.

Choldin: What kinds of jobs did they do?

Schwartz: In the beginning, they were coming through the Depression and they didn’t do large work. They did repair work and attached themselves to various management companies so that they could do repair work in the buildings. Then slowly their work got larger and larger and larger and they did many large buildings all over the city.

Choldin: You must have learned a lot from him.

Schwartz: Yes, as a child I would spend some summers working for my father as a plumber’s apprentice and I soon learned how to do quite a bit of plumbing

myself. I learned how to do a lead joint on the lead piping that we laid down in those days—and that took a particular talent because you were handling hot lead in your hands with tubes and pads. You had to “wipe” this joint, as they called it, this lead joint. I learned how to do that as a youngster in my early days working on the job as a plumber’s apprentice and a laborer.

Choldin: So, you got to see the other trades as well.

Schwartz: Oh, yes. I learned all about the carpenters and concrete people. I worked with them all my life. I was around them all my life. I learned their likes and dislikes, how to handle them, what to do, and that sort of thing. It helped me a great deal in my later life in understanding the men and acting as a leader for them. I enjoyed good times because of it.

Choldin: When you finished at Von Steuben did you ever think of going to Armour Institute [of Technology]?

Schwartz: No, when I finished at Von Steuben I went to North Park College for a summer session because I was anxious to get into school. I learned about the The Iliad and The Odyssey during that summer and from there I went to spend a semester at Wright Junior College. I didn’t know if I was going to ever get to the University of Illinois but that’s where I wanted to go. I knew that was what I wanted to do because Frank Lloyd Wright was lecturing there from time to time in those days and I wanted to hear him lecture. So, I knew I wanted to go to the University of Illinois. I spent a semester at Wright Junior College and then ultimately I went to the U of I and studied under Professor Lindsey, Professor Keith, and Professor Love at the University of Illinois— and, of course, Professor Woodroofe was my art teacher.

Choldin: You know, I’ll tell you a story from when I was in high school. This was in the 1950s, twenty years later. I told my mother that I wanted to be an architect and she said, “No, that’s no job for a Jewish boy.” I never forgot that. Nobody ever said that to you?

Schwartz: No, no. As a matter of fact, my dad encouraged it because he always admired architects. He always thought they were the ones who had the knowledge at the construction site and they and the engineers knew what they were doing. He said they were a step above the construction people. That’s the way I was always taught. So, he encouraged me to become an architect when I told him that’s what I wanted to become.

Choldin: But you were one of the first Jewish architects, right?

Schwartz: Yes, I was.

Choldin: When you were a student were there other Jewish students?

Schwartz: Not that I know of.

Choldin: Before you, there was Max Abramovitz. He was a little older than you.

Schwartz: Oh yes, he was much older.

Choldin: Were there Jewish professors?

Schwartz: No, not that I can remember.

Choldin: Now tell us about the professors. Why did you admire Lindsey so much?

Schwartz: Well, he had a flair about him.

Choldin: Which course did he teach? Were these design professors?

Schwartz: Yes, these were all design professors. They taught architecture.

Choldin: Not history?

Schwartz: No, they all taught architecture at the architecture building in Urbana.

Choldin: Did they have the studio system in those days?

Schwartz: I don’t know what you mean by “studio system.”

Choldin: I was in the sociology department but when I would visit the architecture building the kids were all in their studio classes doing their projects and making their designs and building models.

Schwartz: We were in one large room—I think it’s on the second floor, if I remember correctly. We were all working on our projects. We would build models, we would do drawings. In the freshman year we were doing black-and-white ink renderings and that’s where the professors would look over us and critique us on whatever we were doing. As I recall, Professor Lindsey was an excellent professor. He had an understanding and a flair for design and so did Professor Love and Professor Keith. They all had a great understanding of architecture and design and I think they instilled that in me. Of course, the most memorable occasions were when Frank Lloyd Wright would speak to us in a large hall and he would tell us about his organic architecture and how we should derive our forms from nature. I would absorb that; it would become part of my mind. I was fascinated by the man.

Choldin: So, he was inspiring?

Schwartz: Oh, extremely so for me. Yes, he was my Howard Roark, as Ayn Rand would put it.

Choldin: Were the professors very critical? Were they hard on the students?

Schwartz: Always. They were brutal sometimes. When I thought I had an outstanding design they would tell me where I made my mistakes and why it was wrong

and how it was wrong. Even though I may have disagreed with them, I smiled and listened—but not too carefully. They were extremely critical of us all the time and I appreciated that criticism because it’s what formulated our thinking a great deal.

Choldin: It wasn’t crushing?

Schwartz: Oh, no—it wasn’t a crushing criticism. It was sometimes a bitter pill to take, but nonetheless I survived it.

Bruegmann: Do you remember any of those student projects?

Schwartz: It’s funny, I can remember the picture of what I created but I can’t remember the project. I can remember rendering bricks—no, not bricks—stone that I had in the front. I was rendering it so that the shadows were on the stone and so that they popped right out of the drawing at you. Professor Keith particularly liked that rendering. I can’t remember the project, though. It was some kind of a building for a park or a municipal building that we had to do.

[Tape 1: Side B] Schwartz: They were teaching us about sun control in buildings; that was a big thing. We learned a lot about the zenith of the sun as it passed through the sky and about sun control in the buildings and how to aid the air conditioning in the summertime and how to aid heating in the wintertime by the use of good design. This building, as it faces south, has that design incorporated into it. When I say this building, that’s the 320 Oakdale building—it has that design incorporated into it and that was always considered in everything that I did. It became a part of my architectural knowledge.

Choldin: Were any of the students, any of your classmates, working in the more modern styles?

Schwartz: No, many of them still stayed with traditional styles, traditional architecture: the Greek columns and the Ionic columns and the Corinthian columns and so on. But I chose not to, and that didn’t seem to affect my grades any. So, I continued.

Choldin: But you weren’t the only one, were you? Were some of your classmates…

Schwartz: No, there were some others who also stayed more modern. I can remember there was always the Beaux Arts school of design; that’s the era that they were in at the University of Illinois. I had always wanted to win a design because I wanted to spend a year of free schooling in Paris—that was the prize for winning. I was out to win, but unfortunately never did.

Choldin: So, you could go into the competition even with a modern design.

Schwartz: Oh yes, in those days. I think I did take second prize once. I’m not sure. I think it was $500.

Choldin: Do you remember any of your classmates from that time?

Schwartz: No, not really. I mean that was fifty…

Choldin: Fifty years ago. More than fifty years ago.

Schwartz: Yes, it’s more like fifty-five or sixty. I remember my professors; they stand out in my mind and they always will. I listened to them and didn’t always agree with them, but I listened.

Choldin: Do you remember any of the history professors? Did they emphasize history?

Schwartz: Yes, they did. It was never one of my great subjects. I can’t remember my history professor’s name. I’m sorry.

Choldin: No, I’m sorry. That’s not a fair question.

Schwartz: It was a good question. I just can’t remember. I’m sorry.

Choldin: So, you graduated in 1947 and came right back home?

Schwartz: Yes. When I came back I was not an architect at that time. I had not passed my architectural exam yet. I came back and I was living at 2930 Commonwealth at that point.

Choldin: You had your diploma.

Schwartz: I had my diploma, but that was all.

Choldin: You were twenty-two years old and you had a diploma. You were in good shape.

Schwartz: Well, yes. I went to work for a construction company at that point in time. Let’s see, a little before that I went to work for an architect and did an apprenticeship. His name was Leo Karlin—K-A-R-L-I-N—and I worked for him for a year. I served a year apprenticeship for him: opening the office in the morning, closing it at night, sweeping the floors, and learning about the workings of architecture. Then, I left him and went to work for a construction company by the name of Robins Construction Company. Al Robins was the proprietor and I worked there designing storefronts. I designed hundreds of storefronts for him because that was his specialty.

Choldin: So, it’s right after the war. There was a lot of construction going on?

Schwartz: No, not a lot. There was a lot of storefront construction going on. There wasn’t much architecture at that point in time.

Choldin: Was it still hard to get materials?

Schwartz: Well, no. Materials were available, as I can remember, but there just wasn’t a lot of building like there is now. It hadn’t started yet.

Bruegmann: Could you go back to Leo Karlin for just a moment?

Schwartz: Certainly.

Bruegmann: Do you remember anything about his work? Where the office was, what you did?

Schwartz: Not really.

Bruegmann: How did you find him?

Schwartz: I don’t even remember that. I think he had an ad in the paper or something and I told him I was a student fresh out of school and I wanted to serve an apprenticeship. He said, “Well, I need somebody to pick up around the place.” And I said, “I’m your guy.” I don’t even remember where he was located. I only worked there for about a year. I do remember working for Robins—he was on Wells Street, I think. He had a little board set up for me in a back room without a window and that’s where I sat and that’s where I worked on all these storefronts that I designed all over this city. He liked my work. It was about then, after I had been working for him about two years, that I decided to go into my own business.

Choldin: Okay, but working for Robins you needed hours for your AIA licensing.

Schwartz: Right.

Choldin: Were those hours for him counting for your licensing?

Schwartz: No, the hours for Karlin counted but you only needed a one-year apprenticeship in those days.

Choldin: In those days you only needed one year?

Schwartz: That’s all.

Choldin: Oh, I see. Because now you need more…

Schwartz: I know—two or three years, I think. Yes, I only needed one year and that’s the year I gave to Karlin.

Choldin: I see, okay.

Schwartz: Yes, it was only one year and when I finished at Robins’ office after about two more years I decided to go into the general contracting business. I still did not have my license to practice as an architect, but I opened my own general contractor’s office. It was called Milton and Company.

Choldin: So, what were you lacking for your license?

Schwartz: Nothing.

Choldin: You could have gone and applied for your license?

Schwartz: Yes, I could have at that point in time.

Bruegmann: What made you decide to do contracting work?

Schwartz: Well, I don’t know. There was a lot of work going on that I knew about for the government up at Great Lakes, Illinois, and in Lake Forest at Glenview Naval Air Base, and the naval air base on Roosevelt Road at the time, and I wanted to get to work. I was anxious to get to work, so I opened up a general

contractor’s business, which flourished a great deal. In no time at all I was bidding on contracts. As prime contractor for the United States government under a performance bond and under the penalty clause—there was no fooling around then. If you guessed wrong, you lost. I was able to get backing from my banker who would give me the money to get the performance bonds and I would go ahead and bid these jobs. In no time at all—I was twenty-four or twenty-five at the time—I had a couple, three million dollars’ worth of work and smiling all the way to the bank.

Choldin: How many guys were working for you?

Schwartz: Oh, my crew increased exponentially with the amount of work. At one point in time, I must have had twenty-five or thirty people working for me. I was doing my own concrete, my own carpentry, my own masonry, and, of course, my dad would get the plumbing, heating, and air conditioning [contracts]. So, we were competitive; we could take any bid we wanted to go out and get—and we did. We did that exactly. We received many [government] construction contracts.

Choldin: What was a typical job that you would do?

Schwartz: One of the most memorable ones was the plant on Roosevelt Road, which is no longer there. It was the naval ordinance plant and the torpedoes were not working; they didn’t know why they were not exploding on the ships. I had to build a large, concrete, explosion-proof structure that was maybe ten stories high with explosion-proof lights and explosion-proof everything and a concrete pad on the bottom that was ten feet thick. This structure would go up and they would haul the torpedo to the top and drop it and find out why that pin was not exploding. I had all these Navy personnel around me and it was quite exciting. The structure had to hold that torpedo and it was a very interesting design. Then we did places at Great Lakes, Illinois, that stored munitions—cartridges and things like that. We did the center for the boys who had returned who were shell-shocked and things of that sort; we

designed the psychiatric ward with the tension screens and all that kind of stuff. Actually, we didn’t design it. It was designed for us, by the Navy. We had to extrude it and construct it. I was not the designer on all of these things. This was all in Admiral Nimitz’s 9th Naval District and, as I recall, the Korean War had come along. I had Admiral Nimitz’s house torn apart and his wife was hollering at him. They wanted me to do some maintenance work on the house; it was all torn apart. They sent me a 1-A [draft notice]—for the Korean War, I think it was—and I dropped the 1-A call on the admiral’s desk and he looked at me and said, “The hell, you say.” He picked up the telephone and told the draft board to stop and that was it. Then he said, “You’re finished.” So, I finished the admiral’s home and then there was one project after another. I did work at Glenview Naval Air Base and the big [Quonset hut] building that they had there. All the main trusses were rotten out and I had to support those and build up concrete pylons under them and replace the rotted-out portion of the wood. That was a fascinating project. There were many of these pylons that had rotted out. The whole thing was getting ready to collapse. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace it all in those days. And it went on. There were many, many other fascinating projects that occurred between Glenview Naval Air Base and Great Lakes and the naval torpedo [ordnance] plant on Roosevelt Road.

Choldin: So, you had someone to take care of the government paperwork?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. I had many employees at that point in time and I worked up a very large organization. Then I decided that it was time to go back on course to becoming the architect that I wanted to be and I…

Choldin: It sounds like you had fun being a contractor.

Schwartz: I did. Yes, I did have a lot of fun. A lot of fun and made a lot of money, too.

Choldin: When did you get married?

Schwartz: I got married in 1953.

Choldin: Were you still a contractor?

Schwartz: I was just changing. I took my license exam in 1952 and I got married in ’53. I was already an architect but I was still in the construction business.

Choldin: Did your professors give you a hard time for being a contractor or didn’t they know that?

Schwartz: No. They didn’t know. They didn’t follow me.

Choldin: Yes, because they were down there [in Champaign] and you were here in Chicago.

Schwartz: I was here. Of course, it was not the proper thing to do at the time. Contracting and architecture were not compatible—but I didn’t see it that way. I saw that contracting was very compatible with architecture because you had to know what you were doing before you did it. That’s the way I deemed the problem. You had to know that a two-by-four wasn’t a two-by- four, it had other dimensions. And you had to know how it fit together before you could put that on a drawing and design for it. And the same went for concrete. There are different kinds of concrete, strengths of concrete. And so I was bent on learning about all of this, which I certainly did do.

Bruegmann: Were there other architects, people with architectural training, who were in the contracting business? Did you know any?

Schwartz: No, not that I know of at the time; I was the only one. And, of course, it helped me immeasurably over the years. There were times when I was on the construction site and a contractor would argue with me about dimensions— but he couldn’t argue with me because I knew what was correct. I would tell

him and he would ultimately say, “I’m sorry, you’re right.” That’s the way it was.

Choldin: Well, let’s talk about how you got your license. What happened?

Schwartz: Well, it was a six-day examination at the time. Five days, as I recall, at eight hours a day and then the Saturday, the sixth day, was twelve hours.

Choldin: Where was the exam?

Schwartz: Well, the University of Illinois [at Chicago] campus wasn’t up at that time. I think it was at IIT [Illinois Institute of Technology], as I recall.

Choldin: Were there a lot of people sitting for the exam?

Schwartz: No, there were only about twenty-five or thirty of us. It was in a fair-sized room, a typical classroom. There were not a lot of people sitting for the exam.

Choldin: Did you have to do any drawings?

Schwartz: Well, the drawings came on the sixth day that we had the twelve hours for. It was on the Saturday that we had to do the drawings. The rest of the time was questions on trusses—structural and architectural questions and so on for eight hours a day for five days. It was not an easy exam to pass, but when you finally passed it you knew you had passed something. Of course, later on I went on to take my NCARB. That’s the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards—but I’m skipping ahead now. For the the NCARB exam I came in with six of my draftsmen carrying one each of big rolls over his shoulder and bending under it and dropping it on the table in front of all of my peers. That was the Illinois state architects. Love, Keith, and Lindsey were there, and the Chicago Architectural Board was there. They were all sitting in a big semi-circle around me and my entourage dropped all of these drawings in front of them and they laughed and that was it. They started firing

questions at me and ultimately I got my NCARB license and certification to practice anywhere in the United States—New York, Hawaii, and so on.

Choldin: Please tell us about starting your firm.

Schwartz: Well, after I received my license to practice architecture I opened up an office at 2709 West Roosevelt Road and I was doing small architectural work. The first architectural job that I had was to build a home. I built and designed this home and made many mistakes on it.

Choldin: Where was that?

Schwartz: The home was on Central Park Avenue, north of the river. I did two homes, actually.

Choldin: Who was the client?

Schwartz: The client was my uncle. He was willing to take a chance on me and, of course, his dining room window wound up off-center because of it.

Choldin: These were not spec houses?

Schwartz: Oh, no, no, no.

Choldin: So, there were two houses, one for him and who was the second one for?

Schwartz: Singer, I think the name was.

Choldin: And were they on one lot or were they adjacent to each other?

Schwartz: They were adjacent to each other, just north of the north branch of the Chicago River. Those were among my very first architectural contracts. But then, I must tell you, I was living across the street and looking down at this

property at 320 Oakdale. I fell in love with this property and I had to find out who owned it. I found out that a fellow by the name of Jerry Wexler had owned this property. It was given to him as a wedding present with his first wife. I got in touch with him and I told him I would like to buy the property. I said to him, “I want to build a large building on it—would you like to come into the deal with me?” And he said, “No, I need the cash.”

Choldin: He didn’t know you from Adam?

Schwartz: Oh, no. He didn’t know me and I didn’t know him. We did many things together later on but at that point in time we didn’t know each other. He said, ”I need the cash.” So, I said, “All right, I’ll get you the cash.” And I went out and made a loan and got him the cash for the property. Then I set about designing this building on it—which was, by the way, circular originally. It [would have been] the first circular building in the United States. It was circular and I brought it to a fellow by the name of Doug Turner, who was the head of the loan department for Prudential Life Insurance Company. He looked at me and said, “Boy, it’s circular.”

[Tape 2: Side A] Schwartz: Of course, to get the loan I had to guarantee it personally. At that point in time because of the construction work I was doing I was able to do that satisfactorily with the banker. So, the construction work really helped start my architectural career in a big way.

Choldin: Was Abraham [Schwartz’s father] your partner?

Schwartz: No, no, no.

Choldin: This was you.

Schwartz: This was me. I wanted to make him a partner but he didn’t want to be one. There was a lot of liability involved, of course, in building a building like this in those days. We didn’t know.

Choldin: It was a big, big project.

Schwartz: It was a big project. I was all of twenty-six years old at that point in my life and I took it up. I set to work and designed 320 Oakdale and, of course, I set the top floor aside for myself—this floor that we’re sitting on right now. I wanted to create a building that was considered good architecture. That was my aim. I wanted to have it so that it was especially conducive to sun control from the south of the building, which would reduce the maintenance costs of the building over time. I wanted it to be different and unique in proportion from all the other buildings in the city of Chicago—and that was taking on a great deal of responsibility. I realized that at the time, when I started to design 320 Oakdale. We ultimately wound up with the girders on the third floor that carried the rest of the structure and reduced the columns at the base so we didn’t have to force the columns down there. So it was easy to park, and so on. The parking, by the way, originally had an underground heating system in it that had copper coiling all the way through it. Freezone could be circulated throughout so the heat would rise up and keep the cars warm during the wintertime, making them easier to start. Of course, that was all destroyed in the process [of making more recent modifications, made by the building’s management company]. They cut the pipes when they cut into it, but it had miles and miles of copper piping under the driveways as a small melting device. The building, as it went up, had this large canopy in the front, which had a twenty-foot cantilever in concrete with two-and-a-half- inch thick steel reinforcing rods placed into it that would fan out around the entire canopy. It was quite spectacular when it was being constructed. Finally the building was up and enclosed and we plastered the entire interior in white. Then I got the idea—it was more of a marketing idea because it was a co-op at the time—to take a plug and put a light bulb into it and plug it into the electrical outlets around the building. With the white plaster I figured it

would reflect off of it and this building would light up like a beacon. And that’s what it did—and the building did light up. It was quite a spectacular sight. It stopped the traffic on the Outer Drive [Lake Shore Drive]. It hit the newspapers the next day.

Choldin: I saw those stories and those pictures.

Schwartz: Oh yes, it was quite spectacular. I think we managed to sell one or two apartments from it. These apartments in those days were selling for $36,000 for three bedrooms. The two-bedroom was selling for around $28,000 or something like that. It took me over two years to sell fifty-three apartments.

Bruegmann: When you were doing this did you have employees in your architecture practice?

Schwartz: Oh, yes.

Bruegmann: When did you get them and how many did you have?

Schwartz: Well, I had Warner Brunell, who was my chief draftsman. I’m trying to remember if Stanley Tigerman was working with us at that point… No, he came later, and so did Neil Frankel. I had Warner Brunell and three or four other draftsmen working for me at that point in time.

Bruegmann: Did your contracting firm do the contracting?

Schwartz: Yes. Milton and Company did the construction work for the building.

Choldin: Then, did your father do…

Schwartz: Schwartz Brothers Plumbing and Heating did all the mechanical work.

Bruegmann: So, what other contractors did you need?

Schwartz: We needed an electrical contractor, a plasterer, of course, and painters—that was it. We did most of it ourselves, including the masonry. All the partitions in the building are of masonry. They were made of mackalite or pyrobar that were really fabricated out of plaster but put up like masonry with mortar. So, I did the masonry, the concrete, and the carpentry there and all of the partitions were done that way. For the plastering and electrical work we needed additional help.

Bruegmann: It was mackalite or pyrobar partitions?

Schwartz: Yes, mackalite is a block that is sixteen inches wide by about twelve or fourteen inches high. They plaster the block and that’s what set all of the partitions at 320 Oakdale. We had a lot of weight to support.

Bruegmann: So, those were mortared in place?

Schwartz: That’s right. They were something like the old clay tile partition block and that’s why this building was so soundproof. I used it for soundproofing purposes; because of the partition you can have difficulty hearing sometimes from one room to the other.

Choldin: Otherwise, in a normal apartment building of this kind, what would they have used?

Bruegmann: Well, they used a lot of metal lath and plaster and baize and stuff, metal lath studs.

Choldin: One thing I don’t understand about the structure of this building are the big “X”s and where they are in the structure.

Schwartz: They’re in the four corners of the building, the “X”s.

Choldin: What floors are they on?

Schwartz: They’re on the third floor only.

Choldin: They’re on the third floor only. What are they doing there?

Schwartz: All right, that “X” is a girder. It is a large girder. A huge girder. [Draws a diagram.] Right at the base of that girder is a column that’s the column you see downstairs. Okay? And above it are four columns that come up. There is a column that comes up off of each end and there are four columns and there is one that supports the whole thing off of those girders. This occurs at the third floor. This is what you see on the bottom floor and this is what’s occurring above.

Choldin: They’re holding up the whole building?

Schwartz: That’s right. Well, there were other girders, too. There were other girders that were hitched to two columns and one in the center. Those are the smaller ones on the side of the building.

Choldin: So, you put it there to have an open space under the building?

Schwartz: That’s right—to make room for the parking so the columns can come down and we didn’t have to force the columns down there. That gave us the parking all the way around.

Bruegmann: So, your chief reason was a program reason—the parking—but it also had excellent aesthetics.

Schwartz: Well, it was aesthetics that was one of my chief reasons, of course, and parking was secondary.

Choldin: Was that very expensive to do?

Schwartz: No. You have to understand, I understood concrete in those days and the average person would think that it would be expensive. To me, it was not expensive because I understood the forming of concrete from working up at Great Lakes, Illinois. I understood the function of concrete and I was not afraid to use concrete in those days. I understood it. I was the contractor for it and therefore it was more economical for me to produce than for anybody else at that point in time.

Bruegmann: In your contracting company were you doing both poured-in-place and precast concrete?

Schwartz: I was doing poured-in-place. I wasn’t doing pre-cast work.

Bruegmann: So, it was all poured-in-place and you weren’t involved in any of the post- tensioned and pre-stressed technology that was just coming in during the 1950s?

Schwartz: No, I did use pre-stressed. Flexacor, I believe they called it. Distributed by Material Service Corporation at the time. I used it on various buildings. It was used throughout that building across the street. I was, of course, not the architect for that building—I was the contractor.

Bruegmann: Had you seen this solution anywhere before?

Schwartz: No. It just came out of my head… It drove my structural engineer crazy, by the way.

Choldin: Who was that?

Schwartz: Henry Miller was the structural engineer.

Bruegmann: How did you know him?

Schwartz: Well, Henry was admired by many of his peers. I knew him by reputation and that’s why I chose him. He was an outstanding engineer and capable of doing the things that I wanted to accomplish. He was capable of creating twenty-foot cantilever canopies and things of that sort. Henry was an outstanding engineer and, of course, he had a son by the name of Herb Miller who is still an engineer to this day.

Choldin: Would this building have been very expensive to build in steel?

Schwartz: Yes. Steel, to me, is a more expensive structure to build because with steel you had to fireproof everything. You had to cover the ceilings with plaster and everything. Here we just plaster directly, right on the concrete. There was no fireproofing requirement here. The columns were concrete; they were fireproof. So, to my way of looking at things… You must remember my specialty was concrete. I felt that steel would be far more expensive.

Bruegmann: As a business proposition, how well did you make out? How long did it take to pay back the loans?

Schwartz: For this building?

Bruegmann: Yes.

Schwartz: Well, as I told you, it took about two years to sell this building and much of the profits went into the two years. It was profitable, but not as profitable as I had anticipated.

Choldin: How was the competition doing in those days? Were they taking two years to sell their units also?

Schwartz: I don’t know about that. That’s something that competitors rarely talked about at the time. Around that time, Mies van der Rohe had put up his building at 860–880 Lake Shore Drive and I think that was a co-op, too.

Choldin: Because, I mean, your press coverage was so wonderful. You’ve got wonderful stories in the architectural press and you’ve got wonderful stories in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune and everything…

Schwartz: Oh yes, oh yes. I was very flattered by all the stories that we were getting. As I said, I think we sold two apartments when I lit up the building and it didn’t take much more than some light bulbs and plugs.

Bruegmann: Who did the sales?

Schwartz: Well, my uncle would sit here and take people through the building. My brother-in-law, Jay Frankel, was with me at the time and I forgot the name. He basically did the sales, he and an uncle would sit out and sell for me.

Bruegmann: His background was in business?

Schwartz: Jay was a political science major. He was in the Korean War. He had come back from the Korean War by that point in time and was learning all about management.

Bruegmann: And your uncle, his name was…?

Schwartz: Ben Schwartz. He would assist Jay in the Solar Management Company.

Bruegmann: Was Jay Frankel the owner of Solar?

Schwartz: Well, yes and no—because I was a silent partner. In the course of my career I became management, contractor, and architect—all three very compatible aspects of construction.

Choldin: So, the house that you built on Central Park Avenue—was that for Ben Schwartz?

Schwartz: No.

Choldin: Oh, that was for a different uncle?

Schwartz: That was for a different uncle, another relative.

Bruegmann: What were some other design features in this building that you considered important at the time?

Schwartz: Well, I considered the lobby very important. I wanted to create a core, or the appearance of a core, for the building, which was the elevator core of the building. Originally the core was designed with aluminum panels all around it—not as you see it now. The aluminum panels were lovely; they reflected the lights all around. The lighting patterns were considered in relation to the core so that the reflections and shadows would come out properly. Of course, our lighting patterns have now been destroyed down there, unfortunately, by the introduction of the capitals by the management. It was quite unfortunate. The capitals were unnecessary.

Bruegmann: So, what’s now plywood on three sides and marble on the front, all of that was aluminum?

Schwartz: It was an aluminum panel. A four-by-eight aluminum panel. It was striated aluminum panel, quite lovely.

Bruegmann: I think you said something about the terrazzo on the floor extending out to the outside…

Schwartz: Yes, my concept was to have terrazzo on the floor all the way to the outside there. I had a form of terrazzo with a carborundum chip placed into it that would glitter and sparkle and would be non-slip all around the outside and inside in the lobby. Of course, all that has since been removed and taken away from the building. They sandblasted it all off, unfortunately.

Bruegmann: Do you want to mention any other features of this building?

Schwartz: No. The building did not have too many amenities to it. That was one of the things that was lacking with this building, too, I guess. Maybe an exercise room—but we didn’t think about exercise rooms in those days.

Choldin: Did the City of Chicago prevent you from doing anything you would have wanted to do?

Schwartz: No, never. I never had any problems with the building codes or the City of Chicago at all. We were always pretty much free to do what we wanted. I could have extended the building at that point in time with an underground garage, but it became too costly. I could have created more parking for the building by doing so, and it could still be done. But the cost is prohibitive.

Bruegmann: We should get on tape something about the curtain wall since it’s so popular.

Schwartz: Okay. The curtain wall was designed by Slidewall, I think. They were of aluminum and quarter-inch plate glass manufactured by Libby Owens-Ford. It was called parallelo plate in those days. We designed the glass for eighty- mile-an-hour winds, as I recall. These windows were designed on a five-foot module. This whole building is on a five-foot module as opposed to the usual four-foot module. The curtain wall, each division, was five feet. It’s very easy to tell dimensions of rooms that way. The center pane slides so it opens and the air can come in. It is screened to prevent the insects from coming in. At one point in time, we had the tail of a tornado pass through here and it took all of the windows on this floor and sucked them outwards so that my entire

curtain wall bent outwards. On this floor only you can see that the mullions have been replaced with heavier mullions. Hopefully that will not happen again. The horizontal bar was reinforced with heavier aluminum on this floor only; the other floors have all remained pretty much the same as when they were installed fifty years ago.

Bruegmann: Were you in the building at the time?

Schwartz: Yes.

Bruegmann: Oh, that must have been traumatic.

[Tape 3: Side A] Choldin: I’d like to go back to your days as a student [at the University of Illinois]. You said how wonderful the lectures were by Frank Lloyd Wright. How often did he come to the university?

Schwartz: Not very often, as I can remember. It was just occasionally—a few times—but when he did come all of the students, of course, were there to listen to him. In the course of the time I was there I think I can remember maybe three or four times that he spoke in the lecture hall.

Choldin: And the students were excited?

Schwartz: Oh yes, of course—everybody was. They all wanted to listen to him.

Choldin: He was very famous, wasn’t he?

Schwartz: Yes, oh, yes. I ultimately went to see the home that he had designed at Fallingwater. I went there and took photographs and so on; it was very beautiful.

Choldin: Did he talk with the students or did he just go home?

Schwartz: No, he never spoke personally with the students. He would get on the stage and speak about his organic architecture and deriving shapes and forms from nature and from the things around us. It always impressed me very deeply.

Choldin: Another question about the university. Did they have a lot of emphasis on structures and did they have a lot of emphasis on building with concrete?

Schwartz: No, not necessarily building with concrete—but they did have an emphasis on structure. I might also add that—because I don’t want to mislead you on this—I never finally graduated from the University of Illinois. I never received my degree from the University of Illinois—nor from any other university, for that matter—although I did study under the professors, as I told you, through my fourth year. But I left because I wanted to get construction experience in the field and I felt that that knowledge would help me in my future architectural career.

Choldin: How many years were you down there?

Schwartz: Actually, my second, third, and fourth year: three years.

Choldin: Did that affect you when you had to go through the registration examination?

Schwartz: No. A degree was not required for taking the examination. The final passing of the examination was what was required for registration as an architect in the state of Illinois.

Choldin: So, those were the big things: The exam and the one-year apprenticeship.

Schwartz: Right.

Choldin: And so structures…

Schwartz: Structures at the University of Illinois were mainly emphasized in theoretical and applied mechanics and we were taught how to make trusses and things of that nature. However, there was never any stress on concrete or steel structures in particular in any direction.

Choldin: But by the time you were a builder you were really into that.

Schwartz: Oh, yes. By the time I became a builder I really became fascinated with concrete.

Choldin: In the 1950s I read that you built a house in Highland Park, the Milton Schwartz house.

Schwartz: No, that was not mine. It was another Milton Schwartz who was an architect.

Choldin: Oh, I see. So, I was confused.

Schwartz: He built homes basically and…

Choldin: Because I saw that in the Chicago Tribune.

Schwartz: Many people were confused by that. There was also a Milton Schwartz, I believe, on the east coast who was an architect. I once wrote them a letter and told them all to maintain a good reputation.

Choldin: So, should we jump from 320 Oakdale to the Airways Hotel?

Schwartz: Well, we could.

Choldin: Are there some other buildings you want to talk about?

Schwartz: Before we do that—you had questioned me about my being a Jewish architect earlier and there was one other architect who was Jewish that I think deserves mention: Louis Kahn.

Choldin: Oh, sure, yes.

Schwartz: I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie, “My Architect.”

Choldin: Oh, that was a wonderful movie.

Schwartz: Yes, he was quite a guy.

Choldin: That was a beautiful movie. So, were there some buildings between 320 Oakdale and the Airways Hotel that you want to talk about?

Schwartz: Well, yes, there were many buildings. There were small industrial plants, small office buildings, strip malls, shopping centers—that sort of thing. There were many buildings and then, of course, the opportunity to build the Airways Hotel came along. I acquired an interest in it from my clients at the time and took an active part in being the architect, builder, and partial owner of the building. Each building that I created was like a baby to me; giving birth to it was always difficult. I enjoyed doing the Airways Hotel particularly. It fascinated me and I could remember times when we were in direct contact with the [air control] tower at Midway Airport. The tower would say, “Okay, raise the boom.” We were just building with construction steel, not concrete, and the Tower would say, “It’s all right to raise the boom.” We’d raise the boom, set the piece of steel in place, and they would say on our earphones, “Lower the boom,” and a plane would come right in over our heads, landing at Midway Airport. It was very exciting.

Choldin: So, it was dangerous.

Schwartz: Yes. That boom had to go up and down when the tower instructed us. It was there that some of my mathematics came in handy that I learned at the University of Illinois. I was calculating the height of the building because it had to be lower than a certain height and I chose the top of the lamppost for that.

Choldin: Why did you need to control the height of the building? Because of the Federal Aviation Administration?

Schwartz: Yes, we were right in a landing zone for the field at Midway Airport. I would take my surveying instrument—I had taken surveying at the University of Illinois—and calculate the height. Via the Pythagorean Theorem I would determine the dimension of the height of the lamppost and the height of the building, and I held it very tightly to that corridor. So, I guess many of the things that I learned at the university came to be quite helpful later in life.

Choldin: How tall was the building? How many floors was it?

Schwartz: It was three floors but I had to press it into the ground so that it was below ground level. We had drainage problems, of course, to overcome and the three floors were actually about two floors above ground level. Once again, it was depressed into the ground and the parking would slope down towards the building and it was because of that that it was unique in that respect…

Choldin: The design of the façade was very modern.

Schwartz: Yes, I felt that it should be, since it was near the airport and would cater to people who were flying all the time; these were more or less the advanced people in the world at that time. I felt that it should be designed in line with the times. I always strove to get good architecture that’s what I preached to my protégés and the people that had worked for me: to obtain good design concurrent with my philosophy.

Choldin: Can you describe it? Was it glass and metal?

Schwartz: It was glass and metal and the ends were made of solid porcelain enamel squares. The center of each floor was depicted by a porcelain enamel horizontal line.

Choldin: Was it a clear glass?

Schwartz: It was a clear glass, yes, because they weren’t making the dark UV glasses in those days.

Choldin: What kind of metal was it?

Schwartz: It was aluminum metal and the porcelain, of course, was on steel.

Choldin: Was it a bright aluminum or a dull aluminum?

Schwartz: No, it was a bright aluminum at the time but it did patina as it aged and became darker.

Choldin: It must have been very sharp-looking.

Schwartz: Oh yes, extremely so. That particular building, I believe, won me architectural awards from the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry and from the [Chicago chapter of the] American Institute of Architects for excellence in architecture.

Choldin: Who built the pylon sign?

Schwartz: Well, that was a design of mine. It was in front because I wanted to depict the hotel and canopy coming out from it and I had to have a little cover so that when people got in out of cars in the rain they were protected.

Choldin: Did it have a swimming pool?

Schwartz: No, there was no swimming pool, but there was parking for everybody all around the hotel/motel.

Choldin: Were there elevators?

Schwartz: Yes, there was an elevator in the building.

Choldin: And was there a bar?

Schwartz: Yes, there was a restaurant, bar, kitchen, and a grand lobby and it was desired by most of the travelers that came to Midway. As a matter of fact, it was doing 110 percent occupancy after it was built. The turnover was that quick and, of course, when they closed down Midway just a few years later, that went to around 35 or 40 percent occupancy and ultimately they tore the building down.

Choldin: I saw a drawing at one point where you had designed an addition to the Airways Hotel.

Schwartz: Yes. There was to be an addition.

Choldin: So, that never got built.

Schwartz: No, it didn’t, because the addition was going to go onto a rear piece of property behind the Airways Hotel that we had acquired. It was never built because eventually they shut down Midway and I sold my interest in the property.

Choldin: Who was the contractor for that then?

Schwartz: I was.

Choldin: Oh, you built it as well?

Schwartz: I built it, I designed it, and I owned a portion of it as well—I sold it at its peak.

Choldin: There were investors from Atlanta, is that right?

Schwartz: No, they were investors from Chicago. Jerrold Wexler owned a part of it at that point in time and he was my partner in it.

Choldin: Then O’Hare became the great airport and…

Schwartz: Midway was closed down at that point in time and…

Choldin: …none of the other motels at Midway were really…

Schwartz: They were all smaller.

Choldin: They were just ordinary.

Schwartz: They were ordinary motels and many of them closed when the airport closed down.

Choldin: What was the style of the bar and the lobby?

Schwartz: Well, the lobby had a warm feeling, as I recall. I had completed it with walnut wood in tones of brown and beige and dashes of white here and there. The check-in counter was of walnut and pearl. It had a white Formica top on it. I don’t exactly recall what happened with the lounge. I think the lounge was in leather and black and the lounge, I think, was leased out to a restaurant operator at that point in time. He had full control of it.

Choldin: I know Bob [Bruegmann] would want me to ask you about the curtain wall. What do you remember about the curtain wall itself?

Schwartz: The curtain wall was a grid wall, a slide wall—the same curtain wall I had at 320 Oakdale—and it was of aluminum. The glass was just regular Libby Owens-Ford, parallelo plate glass. It was heavier; I made the glass heavier for the soundproofing from aircraft. We didn’t have insulated glass in those days at all. So, we could not use an insulated glass and we didn’t know enough about UV rays and things like that, so it didn’t have any UV protection. The aluminum was anodized, of course, and that would grow darker as it would patina. And that was the effect that was desired at the time. It was the only one available to me at the time.

Choldin: So, if somebody was staying in one of the rooms, could they slide the window open? Were they sliders?

Schwartz: Yes, they were sliders, and they could slide it open. The curtain wall and building were designed on a four-foot module, which was normal for that construction in those days and still is to this day.

Choldin: Why did you use the five-foot module at 320 Oakdale?

Schwartz: Well, basically because at 320 Oakdale I wanted the columns a little further apart and the columns were on fifteen-foot centers. I wanted the windows divided into thirds between those columns; that would automatically determine the length and width of the room and the room sizes and so on. It was basically because of the structure and room sizes that maintain that [the five-foot module].

Choldin: What did people say when they saw the look of the motel with the straight lines and…

Schwartz: They liked it. They liked it very much. As a matter of fact, Hedrich Blessing [photographers] came by and they photographed it without my asking them to or anything. He [the photographer] fell in love with it and that’s where that photograph came from. He never charged me for that photograph and insisted on knowing all the rest of the buildings that I would build in the future.

Choldin: How did you come up with the design? Was there an earlier design?

Schwartz: No, no.

Choldin: It just came to you?

Schwartz: It just came to me; it came from my head. It was what I thought would be a fine, economic hotel. It could be rendered economical at the airport for people in a hurry, who were hustling and bustling in and out. It turned out to be very successful.

Choldin: Why did you build it out of steel and not out of concrete?

Schwartz: Well, once again, the steel at that time was more economical than the concrete. That changed as time went on, but at that time steel was quite economical in Chicago. It was easier and faster to build with steel, but it also taught me certain things about the city building codes, the fireproofing requirements—the hidden costs involved in fireproofing a steel building. I learned from that and that is what ultimately caused me to go into concrete structures.

Choldin: It caused you to go back to concrete construction.

Schwartz: Yes, it caused me to go back to concrete construction.

Choldin: Is there anything else we need to talk about with Chicago Airways Hotel?

Schwartz: No, I think that covers the Chicago Airways Hotel.

[Tape 4: Side A] Choldin: You mentioned that you had done a bunch of little stores and factories; was there anything interesting about them?

Schwartz: Nothing that is worth mentioning, I don’t think. There was a factory building around 1800 South Wabash—but that was just a factory building.

Choldin: I see—you did those just to keep the firm going. Were there any interesting projects between the Airways Hotel and the Executive House?

Schwartz: Oh yes, of course. There was the Constellation Apartments, twenty-seven or twenty-eight stories facing Lincoln Park. That was after the Airways Hotel and before the Executive House.

Choldin: That was the first high-rise apartment building where somebody took down one or two of those old houses and put up apartments, right? I mean on the Gold Coast...

Schwartz: Yes, I think so. I’m not quite certain of that. I remember at the time my clients were Henry Dressler of Dressler Drugstores in Chicago and Saul Fellars of the Sun Drugstores in Chicago. The two of them were partners and purchased the land that the old Kranz residence sat on, on the corner of North Avenue and Dearborn. That residence was originally used, I believe, as a crematorium and there were one or two graves still in Lincoln Park right in front of it. They’ve since been moved, but that was the residence we chose to demolish to build the Constellation Apartments. It was a very narrow site. It was fifty feet wide by a hundred and thirty-eight feet long. I set to work to put this twenty-seven-story structure on it with sufficient parking to meet the building code requirements.

Choldin: In the scrapbook there was a newspaper story that said that some of the neighbors objected; they didn’t want an apartment building.

Schwartz: Very strongly, very strongly.

Choldin: Okay, so then what happened?

Schwartz: There were the usual battles and my clients, Dressler and Fellars, prevailed and won in court against the objectors. We went ahead with the project and the project was ultimately constructed. It was a very fascinating project. I enjoyed designing that building very much. The large concrete slabs that were introduced were to tie the concrete sheer walls and sides together so that the building had stability in both directions against the wind. Sumner Sollitt was our general contractor on that building and he proposed a method for forming the concrete slabs that gave a good effect on the stone that you see on there today. He was wonderful, Sumner Sollitt. He had a great sense of engineering values and he knew and understood construction. To watch those huge forms—they were three stories in height, each form—he would take them off and move them to go all the way up the vertical faces on both sides of the building. It was very exciting to watch him building the structure.

Choldin: What was the water table like?

Schwartz: The water table was, I believe, around ten feet below grade. However, I went down two basements to achieve the parking and we drained the water and had pumps working all the time. I introduced two elevators to bring the automobiles down there; [the underground parking] went under the sidewalk and the parkway and under a portion of the alley as well. And the city permitted me to do that. We were able to meet our parking requirements in that manner. The foundation for that building was pilings, wooden pilings on a concrete pad. It’s been successful ever since, of course, and highly desirable. It was a series of one-bedroom and studio apartments, although

some people combined the studio with the one-bedroom to make a two- bedroom, two-bath apartment out of it. I know they did have trouble getting around the sheer walls because we did not permit penetration of the sheer walls with door openings at all. The building could shake. Again, we had fun with the building with its long white walls. I had chosen white because everything else in the city seemed so drab at the time and everybody laughed at me when I chose white and said, “It won’t be long before that building will be drab also.” But I chose a white vinyl coating for the concrete that was manufactured by the Muralo Company that would allow it to breathe from the inside out but would prevent the water from going from the outside in. The building remained white for many, many, many years and did not accumulate any dirt on it. So, all the people that said it would turn dark were wrong; this was a common occurrence in my life. I enjoyed building that building. It was very, very nice.

Choldin: Does it have special penthouses?

Schwartz: No, there were no special penthouses at the top. The only thing there was at the top is a way to have the windows washed from the outside. We designed a davit similar to the kind you find on a boat that would sit on the roof and curve over the top of the building that they could hang the window-washing scaffolding from safely. To my knowledge, no one has ever died and they’ve washed windows all these years with that davit. It’s on all four sides of the building. Around Christmastime we also designed some large, flame-like forms that you could put on the top of the vertical white walls so that they would all appear like candles. Of course, the first time we put them up they stopped all the traffic on the Outer Drive! We had fun doing that, and they still use those.

Choldin: Did the investors come out okay?

Schwartz: Yes, oh yes, they did very well. It was a very successful building.

Choldin: So, Sumner Sollitt was very important to you on this project?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. I learned a lot from Sumner Sollitt. He told me about concrete. He had designed and put in a dam and reinforcing steel that he had coated with Rustoleum. He took it out twenty-five years later and found that the steel was not corroded. It did not spall the concrete even though all this was against all the structural engineering rules and regulations and the ASCI code and everything. They all said not to coat the steel because the steel could then slip out of the concrete. But Sumner didn’t believe this. He was a good engineer who understood materials. He taught me that and I learned it well because after that I coated all of my reinforcing steel with Rustoleum—much to the disdain of all the structural engineers—and who worked for me. Ultimately, it was incorporated into the building codes across the nation; it is now in the Uniform Building Code that reinforcing steel shall be coated with an epoxy coating. It is a little more costly but it will stay there and protect the steel and prevent the concrete from spalling.

Choldin: How did you get the idea of alternating between panels and windows, panels and windows?

Schwartz: I guess that was simply my aesthetic sense of values at work. I can remember setting it on the drawing board, looking at it, and studying it—and then simply deciding that’s the way I wanted it. There was no reason or purpose to it. I knew that a building that narrow needed some solid structure; it could not be all glass. Of course, once again the windows there were of the slide wall variety because in those days we did not have insulating glass. So, we used the kind of aluminum that would patina and grow darker over time.

Choldin: I don’t know the building very well. Does it have windows facing south also?

Schwartz: Yes, south and north. The south elevation just has certain windows facing south because a stairway had to be put on the south elevation and a portion of the south elevation was devoted to the stairwell behind those walls.

Choldin: Does it have a single-loaded corridor?

Schwartz: Yes, it’s a double-loaded stairwell. It’s what we called a scissors stair at that point in time.

Choldin: No, but the corridor…

Schwartz: The corridor is a single-loaded corridor.

Choldin: How many elevators does it have?

Schwartz: Two, I believe—two elevators. They were of the higher speed. I don’t recall if they were Westinghouse or Otis elevators, but they went three hundred and fifty feet a minute or more.

Choldin: So, what comes between that and the Executive House?

Schwartz: Oh, I think the Statesman was built—I don’t know if that came before or after the Executive House. I forgot the exact chronology.

Choldin: I had a list but I’m not sure I have it with me. I’m showing the Executive House in 1959 and the Statesman in 1961.

Schwartz: Okay, so when was the Constellation built?

Choldin: About the same time as the Executive House. Would that be right?

Schwartz: Yes, that would be right.

Choldin: Why don’t we go to the Executive House. That one sticks out in my memory from when I was in college. I remember it going up. It was such an important building in changing downtown Chicago.

Schwartz: All right, let’s talk about the Executive House. The Executive House was first designed as a circular building.

Choldin: I saw the picture of that. Wasn’t this building, 320 Oakdale also designed…

Schwartz: …as a circular building, yes. They were the first of their kind in the nation, to my knowledge.

Choldin: Why were you so interested in circular buildings?

Schwartz: I was fascinated by the circle. Also, I found that the circle was the most efficient structure that could be designed; it was the most economical. When you take a square—say, ten-foot by ten-foot—you get a hundred square feet at the center. When you get a rectangle—say, two-foot by fifty-foot—you get a hundred square feet at the center and that would give you a hundred and four lineal feet on the outside.

Choldin: For the record, I should say that Mr. Schwartz is drawing the square and rectangle as he speaks.

Schwartz: The square has only forty lineal feet around the exterior. But if you take a circle with 100 square feet, you’re only going to get thirty-eight lineal feet around the exterior. So, the circle was by far the most efficient and most economical structure that you could design for the same square footage.

Choldin: You’re using less material.

Schwartz: You’re using less exterior material. This was another reason I went from the circular building to the square building at 320 Oakdale. Of course, the property always dictated the kind of structure that you would have, but this is why I always attempted to design a circular building. It was first tried at 320 Oakdale and it was again tried at the Executive House. However, the

mortgage company would say, “It isn’t good enough. The building has to be air-conditioned… How do you expect me to invest the money of widows and orphans in such revolutionary ideas as these?” And so, the Executive House became a rectangular building in order to obtain the loan for the money to build the building. Nonetheless, it was a very fascinating structure to build. It went a hundred and forty feet to bedrock on the caissons. As an architect I was fascinated by the caissons because the Chicago history of caissons had caused many, many deaths to occur. Many people died building caissons in Chicago and I saw the method that would save lives. I found this French machine called the Benoto machine, a fifty-eight-ton monster machine that waddled along on four pontoon feet. It had a huge center core that looked like a circular saw, only it had a thirty-nine-inch diameter to it and it had a yoke at the base of the machine. The yoke would swing fifteen degrees in either direction and there were teeth on the bottom of this thirty-nine-inch diameter tube that would cut into the ground. There was a grab bucket at the top that would drop down inside the tube and take the material out and put it into a waiting dump truck. Well, when we brought the machine in, it was laughed at—as everything else was. It was like a surrey with a fringe on top because it had a French curlicue fringe. The French engineers and the American engineers had a big fight over who was going to operate the machine and finally one of each was chosen for the operation and the machine was put to work. The result was spectacular. We ran down fifty-nine caissons in fifty-nine days. One hundred and forty feet to bedrock and our greatest injury was the loss of one finger; there were no deaths at all on that job. Nobody died putting in my caissons. I was always very fussy and I had to know that I was on bedrock. To test for bedrock there is an iodine test. I instructed the men to lower me down this thirty-nine-inch tube in this grab bucket, down a hundred and forty feet, or approximately fourteen stories, to the bedrock. I had a helmet on with a flashlight on top. I got to the bottom with my chipping hammer, chipped away at the rock, and had placed the iodine on it to make sure that it was limestone bedrock that I was resting on. It was at that point in time that some of the workmen decided to have some fun with the architect who was in the hole. They took some pea gravel and

they spun it around this thirty-nine inch diameter tube. Well, by the time it reached me down below and started to dance on top of my tin hat, it scared the heck out of me.

Choldin: I’ll bet it did!

Schwartz: I was frightened. I thought the whole roof was going to cave in on my head so I started pulling the chain, yelling, “Get me out of here.” I grabbed onto the grab bucket and they pulled me up to the top and when I got to the top I was whiter than a ghost and everybody was laughing at me. They had scared me out of my pants. I was really frightened and they were laughing so hard… They all decided to take me out for beer after that—I really needed it.

Choldin: So, that was the Benoto machine.

Schwartz: That was the French Benoto machine.

Choldin: How big is the machine? Is it as big as a tractor?

Schwartz: It’s fifty-eight tons. It’s much larger than a tractor.

Choldin: Is it as big as a garbage truck?

Schwartz: Oh, it is larger than a garbage truck. In size, I would place it at about fifty feet long. It had these large pontoons that it rested on, two in the back and two in the front, and it would walk along on the site that way. It was a spectacular sight. The construction barricade was different on this site than on all the other sites because I wanted everything to be different for this building. I thought that all the people would want to see what was going on, so I had a panel of Plexiglas and a panel of plywood.

Choldin: I saw pictures of that.

Schwartz: Yes, a panel of Plexiglas and then a panel of plywood so that all of the “sidewalk superintendents” could look down and see the construction that was going on. There were many of them and they enjoyed it.

Choldin: Oh, that was good. I’ll bet I was one of them!

Schwartz: They enjoyed it immensely.

Choldin: What used to be on that site before that hotel was built and how did you get the property?

Schwartz: The site, I believe, was vacant. It was just a parking lot at the time and the principals had acquired the property.

[Tape 4: Side B] Choldin: So, the principals had acquired the property, which was really a choice piece of property.

Schwartz: Yes, it was in downtown Chicago and right on the north branch of the Chicago River. It was a lovely piece of property.

Choldin: Was the Prudential Building up already?

Schwartz: No, the Prudential Building had not been built at that time, nor had the Sears Tower.

Choldin: No, the Sears Tower was much later.

Schwartz: I don’t think the Prudential Building was up. I don’t remember.

Choldin: The principals got this beautiful property…

Schwartz: Right. There was a restaurant right next door called the Riverside Restaurant and they could not acquire that property. They came to me and asked me to be the architect and I told them that I would be delighted—but that I wanted to be a part owner in the property as part of my fee. And they agreed. So, we set to work to design this building and we could not acquire the small little property right next to us. He refused to sell his restaurant. And so we built the building right alongside of Lincoln Tower and, of course, I had Lincoln Tower to worry about and the Wacker Drive bridge and the Chicago Motor Club, which was right in back of me. That was another reason I had gone to the Benoto machine to do the caissons…

Choldin: Because you couldn’t damage any of this.

Schwartz: I could not damage any of these adjacent properties and I was very, very concerned about that and about my liability at that point in time. That was another reason I went to this Benoto machine, which I thought could deal with the problem and, ultimately, it did.

Choldin: So, were you the contractor?

Schwartz: No, I was not the contractor on this particular project.

Choldin: But the contractor agreed to bring in the Benoto machine?

Schwartz: Right.

Choldin: Who was the contractor, do you recall?

Schwartz: Tharnstrom and Company was the general contractor on this particular job.

Choldin: Another biggie.

Schwartz: Oh yes, Tharnstrom was a grand contractor. We had a great deal of respect for each other. When the building changed from a circular structure to a rectangular structure it had exposed balconies on it because I envisioned the people would want to walk outside and look at the river. It was envisioned as an unfurnished apartment building, not as a hotel building, originally. It had one-bedroom units and studio apartments facing the river; that was the original concept for the building.

Choldin: When I saw the drawing of the circular building, it looked to me like a much smaller building. It looked to me like it would have been a lot less square footage than the existing building.

Schwartz: No, it actually had the same amount because it was circular.

Choldin: Was it taller, then?

Schwartz: It was just as tall. I think it was forty-two floors at that point. I believe the Art Institute has that drawing.

Choldin: Yes, I saw it at the Art Institute. And it had a separate building, a rectangular building, that was a restaurant.

Schwartz: Yes, at that level on the long side.

Choldin: No, I mean the site plan had the circular tower and then…

Schwartz: Well, that’s when we had hoped to acquire [the land where the Riverside was] but we never did. The Executive House, of course, became at that point in time the tallest reinforced concrete structure in America. It was only topped by two others in the world: one in Sao Paulo, Brazil and one in Madrid, Spain. It was the tallest reinforced concrete structure in the United States. My building received an award from the Chicago chapter of the AIA

and the Chicago Association for Commerce and Industry gave it the 1959 Meritorious Service Awards for Excellence in Architecture.

Choldin: How did you do the cladding? Was it stainless steel?

Schwartz: Oh, the cladding? It was a stainless-steel panel that was laminated to a Libby Owens-Ford/Corning Glass Company core. The stainless steel was on the front side of it and the balancer was on the backside. It had to have a balancing sheet on the back of it or it would tear itself apart. The stainless steel was a non-rusting type of stainless. I think it was Type 302, as I recall. I have a sample of it here that I’m going to provide to the Art Institute. It was all around the building and, of course, it was the first stainless steel building in Chicago. It was beautiful up there and the sun would hit it at the angle it set off and it lit up like a ball of fire. It was beautiful in the light.

Choldin: Well, it’s still beautiful, I think.

Schwartz: Yes, it still is.

Choldin: Tell me about the penthouse.

Schwartz: Well, the top of the building, during the course of the construction, changed from an apartment building to a hotel building. It was then given the name— by me, I might add—the Executive House. It was to be a hotel and they were going to take studio apartments and convert them into large rooms, which they ultimately did, and the one-bedroom units were going to be suites, which they ultimately were. When it converted to a hotel building, it needed a nice restaurant at the top of the building. I also thought it would be nice if we could land helicopters on top of the building. And so, I began to design for the Sikorski helicopter to be landed at the top of that building. It would have come directly from O’Hare Airport to fly the executives to the Executive House. Of course, I ran into Mayor [Richard J.] Daley at that point and he absolutely forbade the helicopter from coming in next to Lincoln Tower,

which was the tall tower alongside. We tried to explain that it would not be a problem—and so did the helicopter company and the aviation industry—but he would not hear of it. He would not allow helicopters to land there. The roof of that building still has stainless steel tie-down rungs to tie down the helicopter. They will be there for a long time to come. The underside penthouse was designed as a restaurant. It was called the 71 Club, and it overlooked the Chicago River and the beautiful city of Chicago. It was a very popular restaurant for a while and then apparently they closed it. I don’t know why.

Choldin: Was it a fine restaurant?

Schwartz: Oh, it was a fine restaurant.

Choldin: So, essentially the penthouse was a restaurant.

Schwartz: Right.

Choldin: Were there suites on the upper floors?

Schwartz: No, not on the very top.

Choldin: Okay, so it never was apartments then. By the time it opened it was a hotel with rooms and with one-bedroom suites.

Schwartz: Right. The person who leased it from us was a man by the name of Morris DeWoskin. He had his own concept of how to run a hotel. I had installed four high-speed elevators into the building and I said to him, “Mr. DeWoskin, you need a fifth elevator to be put in the building for a service elevator if you’re going to have a hotel.” He said, “No. I’ll take room service up through the passenger elevators. We don’t need the extra elevator.” I told him very strongly this was a big mistake. He was firm that he did not want another elevator. I explained to him that if he did decide to put it in later he would

have to cut it through forty floors of concrete at an estimated cost—at that time—of $300,000, and he still said he didn’t want to do it. And so he opened the hotel without the service elevator and ultimately it was found that that was inadequate and he did cut in a service elevator. I think it wound up costing him $350,000 to put in a new service elevator, plus he had to give up one of his rooms to do it.

Choldin: When you think about how you designed that building, you have at least two designs for it. You have the circle design and the rectangle design.

Schwartz: Yes.

Choldin: Were there intermediate designs as well, or did it just go from…

Schwartz: No, it went from circular to rectangular because we wanted the loan and that’s the reason that it went that way. It just went to a rectangular building at that time.

Choldin: In your office, how much of a team did you have with you to design the Executive House?

Schwartz: At that time I had one, two, three, four… I think there were seven and myself was eight.

Choldin: And who was doing what?

Schwartz: Well, we were all working on various facets of it. I was working on design, of course, and I had certain people working on plot plans and basement plans and first-floor plans and so on. Then, when the drawings of each floor were completed, they were turned over to electrical and all the electrical had to be put in. And then the mechanical needed to be installed and, of course, the structure went along with it because it was all bearing on the structural requirements at that time. The wall got thicker or thinner, depending.

Choldin: Were these all junior people who were just doing drafting or were there any experienced people who could…

Schwartz: Well, my chief draftsman, Warner Brunell—he was experienced. Warner has since passed away, I believe. I think maybe Stanley Tigerman was working for me at that point, and Neil Frankel. But, experienced? I didn’t have any other registered architects working for me at that point in time.

Choldin: Mainly, the drawings had to be churned out.

Schwartz: Yes, that’s it. The drawings were designed to be outstanding. Of course, they carried the structural engineer’s seal on them, too.

Choldin: Who was that?

Schwartz: The structural engineer on that job was Henry Miller from Miller Engineering Company.

Choldin: So, you and Miller and Brunell worked on a lot of things.

Schwartz: Oh, yes. We worked together on all of this.

Choldin: On other projects as well?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. I believe Miller was the structural engineer on the Dunes, but I don’t think he was on the Constellation. I think Paul Rogers was the structural engineer on the Constellation, but Miller was involved most of the time.

Choldin: Apart from getting to the bedrock, what was particularly interesting about the structure of the hotel?

Schwartz: Well, the sheer walls had to go up forty stories and could not be penetrated by any doorways. They were two feet in thickness to withstand the wind sheer. Even then the building was designed to sway, I believe, nine inches at the top from side to side in an eighty-mile-an-hour wind. It still does this today. Even a concrete building must sway before the wind or it will snap off at the base. Even this building [that we’re in] sways in the wind and it had to be designed that way. Of course, as concrete gets older it gets stronger—but there are certain properties of concrete that we still don’t know anything about. One of them is creep. Creep means that the concrete moves imperceptibly every year in one direction or another. It does move, but we don’t know very much about it.

Choldin: I’m trying to remember the lobby in that hotel. I never saw the lobby when it was new. What were you trying to do in the lobby at that time?

Schwartz: Well, I think just to create a nice feeling…

Choldin: It has a lot of windows over the river.

Schwartz: Yes. I wanted to capture the view of the river and I wanted to capture the feeling of being in Chicago, of the activity in and around the building. I believe the lobby was able to do that. The stainless-steel columns were introduced in the lobby to carry forth the materials from above. The original canopy of the building was much larger and greater in scope to protect the people from the snow, the rain, and the elements. It was much larger than the present canopy. And, of course, the open balconies gave the appearance of texture.

Choldin: Oh yes, that’s a big change.

Schwartz: Yes, they closed in the open balconies now to make the rooms larger so they could charge more for them, and that’s what happened. The stainless steel panels were very interesting. We used a series of aluminum extrusions. There

was a tube that was placed over an iron insert in the concrete and then filled with an expanding-type concrete. It would expand up to the top of the tube and that’s what held the panels and the safety railing in place. And it was very rigid, very firm, because after all it is concrete and steel and it was tied together with a balcony. The contractor who did the work installing the panels and the aluminum work, I think, deserves some honorable mention. His name was Richard Axelrod, as I recall, and he deserves some honorable mention for putting those panels in place the way they are.

Choldin: They are just perfect. And they’ve held up so well.

Schwartz: Well, the panels are interlinked as well and there is caulking in between them to hold them together. At the time, we used the best caulking that was available; the panels form a continuous span around the building.

Choldin: When you think back on the Executive House, is there anything you would like to have done differently?

Schwartz: Well, the only thing I might have done differently is introduced some dark glass like they have today. I might have also introduced a dark, patina-ed aluminum so that it would have been black glass with black aluminum. I think it may have made the stainless steel stand out better.

Choldin: It would be a different building.

Schwartz: Yes. But of course these are all new materials that we have available to us today; they weren’t available in those days.

Choldin: What about the bathroom fittings at the Executive House? Was there anything interesting about the plumbing?

Schwartz: Well, the water in the Executive House had to be lifted in three tiers, as I recall.

Choldin: No, I just meant the style of the bathrooms.

Schwartz: Oh, the style of the bathrooms. No, not that I recall.

Choldin: Okay, so it was just whatever was available for hotels at that time.

Schwartz: At that time, yes.

[Tape 5: Side A] Choldin: I’d like to break out of our chronology and jump all the way to Nevada and talk about Las Vegas because that’s such an interesting part of your career. It’s bright and early in the morning and I just don’t want to miss any of it. Do you mind doing that?

Schwartz: Not at all, go right ahead.

Choldin: The first time I met you—I was here with Martha Thorne and Bob Bruegmann and Martha Pollak—you just got started telling us about how you got to work on The Dunes. Should we call it the Dunes Hotel?

Schwartz: Sure.

Choldin: You told us a story that began at your office on Roosevelt Road where a man with a large truck pulled up in front of the office and the driver got out of the truck and said that he wanted to talk to you. So, that’s where the story begins. It’s a long story, so you take it from there.

Schwartz: All right, I will. I spent ten years of my life at the Dunes Hotel, flying up and back between Chicago and Las Vegas. I came to know Las Vegas very well because of it. My client, Jake Gottlieb, pulled up in front of my office unannounced with his big semi. He was an uneducated man; he walked in and wanted to meet with me, but my secretary told him that I was busy. He

said, “That’s all right, I’ll wait.” And he sat down in my vestibule and he waited for about a half hour. Finally, he came into my office. He asked me if I was the architect who had designed and built the Executive House and I told him, yes, I was. He told me how much he liked that building. Now as I said, Jake was an uneducated man—but he had an understanding of human nature and people and he was willing to place his money and thoughts wherever he felt he should. Jake said, “Mr. Schwartz, I have something that may interest you.” And with that, he threw the deed to the Dunes Hotel on my desk. The Dunes Hotel at that point in time was two hundred rooms. It was bankrupt and closed in Las Vegas. He said to me, “I just won this in a craps game on the highway.” I looked at him, hardly believing my ears, and I laughed. He said to me, “Would you like to go to Las Vegas with me and we’ll have a look at this place? I’ll pay all your expenses and we’ll see what we’ve got.” I said, “Certainly, I’ll be happy to,” and off we went to Las Vegas. The Dunes was located on The Strip in Las Vegas, diagonally across the street from the Flamingo and right across the street from where the MGM [Grand] presently stands. Jake had the keys, and he unlocked the door. As we walked into the darkened area we saw a large place that was apparently used for gambling. Jake said he wanted to…

Choldin: Two hundred rooms—by Las Vegas standards was that one of the bigger places or smaller?

Schwartz: No, it was small at the time.

Choldin: It was small. So, the other places were bigger?

Schwartz: Well, there weren’t very many other places… The place was empty, closed, and Jake’s idea at that point in time was to bring in strippers, girls, to dance down the center of the bar. He wanted to bring all of his truck-driving friends from all over the nation into the Dunes Hotel. I said to him, “That’s fine, Jake, but let’s do it artistically.” And he said, “Yeah, how are we going to do that?” I said, “Well, first of all, where are you going to get the girls?” He said, “At

Papa Boushe’s Villa Venice,” and I said, “Okay. They’re fairly tall girls. Let’s have each of them carry an umbrella and we’ll put flashlights in the umbrella shining down on them. And then we’ll put a gauze curtain around the umbrella so that as they walk and hold the umbrella, the men can view their bodies through the gauze.” They would walk down the top of the bar—that’s where Jake wanted to walk them, right down the top of the bar. I said, “That’s a great idea and I think it will be very beautiful.” And that’s exactly what we did. Jake got all the girls from the Villa Venice and they came down and they walked down the top of the bars.

Choldin: Was the Villa Venice right here in Chicago?

Schwartz: The Villa Venice was in Chicago, right. It was out on Northwest Highway. He shipped all the girls in, he put this show on, and then in no time at all we had every trucker in the United States stopping at the Dunes Hotel to see this show. It was quite spectacular when those women walked down the bar that would snake all the way through the room.

Choldin: What year was this?

Schwartz: This was about 1959, 1960, maybe.

Choldin: So, you’re the architect. Did he want you to tear down the Dunes Hotel?

Schwartz: No, I’m coming to that. Anyway, Jake had hired all of his friends to be the various croupiers and dealers who were required for the gambling. In no time at all there were millions of dollars flowing into the Dunes Hotel from the show and from the drivers who came to gamble.

Choldin: So, he’s running a hotel and a casino and a bar with a show?

Schwartz: Yes, that’s the way it started—with two hundred rooms. And it grew and grew and grew. First we added a conference room because we needed to

have a conference room when we held meetings of all the heads of the various departments. Then, we needed a large breakfast room for informal dining; that was introduced off the side of the casino as an adjunct to the casino. And of course that required a large kitchen, and it grew in that direction. Then we decided there were more rooms needed because they were running at one hundred percent occupancy at that point in time. So, we added more rooms around the back of the hotel. I might add that The Dunes was a two-story motel at this point in time and so we added, I think, an additional two hundred rooms around the back of the hotel. In the course of time, we needed more rooms because people still kept coming and the income kept growing larger and larger. Finally one day Jake came to me and he said, “We’ve got to get rid of all these bums in this place”—that’s the way he put it! They were his friends. They were truck drivers and they were nice men, of course, but he said, “We’ve got to get rid of all these bums and we have to get the mink coat set in here.” He said to me, “I want you to design the finest restaurant in America. Go anywhere you want in the world, but I want the finest restaurant in America.” I said, “I don’t know if I can do that, but I’ll try.” I didn’t want to take advantage of the man, and I wound up in Los Angeles at the L’Escoffier Room in the Beverly Hilton Hotel. I hired Joaquin as the maitre d’ for this restaurant. Joaquin was a bald-headed Spaniard who made a blue martini that I liked. Along with him came the French chef from the L’Escoffier Room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. Then, I went to Mexico—I don’t know what led me to Mexico—to the Via Fontana Restaurant and I listened to “Arturo Romero and His Magic Violins.” Sitting there, I was mesmerized with the sound of the music that he provided and I was determined to design a restaurant around him and for him. There were ten violins, one man on a bull fiddle, and one man on the piano. I went to work and hired them on a ten-year contract with a ten-year option to play at the Dunes Hotel. They had, of course, never seen anything like it in their entire lives and I made them wealthy because of it. Arturo came and played at the Dunes Hotel and I designed the Sultan’s Table Restaurant around him. The Sultan’s Table Restaurant had a circular platform in the center of the room that was rotating…

Choldin: Let’s start with the structure.

Schwartz: The structure was a one-story structure that was added on to the casino. The structure had an undulating curve in the front of it into which I fit the booths of the restaurant. It had a waterfall that I had designed, it had beautiful sconces on the wall, and it had an aviary with birds flying in it. And to this I added the circular platform where the violins would stand in a circle while it rotated and the lights would shine on them as they would play. It cast beautiful shadows all around the room. The pianist would play, the man on the bow fiddle would play, and then the violins would break and spread out. The rotation of the circular moving platform would stop. The violins would break and spread out around the room under certain lighting that I had positioned and they would play at various points and fill the room with violin music. It was quite spectacular. I had a control booth that was hidden from the view of the people eating in the room that would control the lights, the motion of the platform, the waterfall, the lights in the bird aviary outside the one-story building—it was quite a spectacular thing, having dinner there. It ultimately won a Diner’s Club Award for the finest restaurant in America. They awarded me a plaque and I brought the plaque over and I gave it to Jake, my client, and I said, “Is that what you want?” He said, “Yes, there’s no stopping us now.” It was quite an exciting time for all of us at that point and it did bring in the mink coat set, as Jake wanted. The level of people who came to dine in that restaurant was elevated.

Choldin: So, when they brought the great statue of the sultan, it was that for that restaurant?

Schwartz: No, no, you’re at a different point in time. The great statue of the sultan was there originally and ultimately taken down. Ultimately, I removed that big sultan. So this was much later in time. The Dunes had begun to become sophisticated and then Jake said, “We need a meeting room because I want to hold meetings and banquets.” And so, I built an addition and put meeting

rooms onto the Dunes Hotel. Then he came to me and said. “We need many, many more rooms. I want to triple the number of rooms. I want a high-rise building to be built.”

Choldin: Let me interrupt you now. When you were doing this you had an office in Chicago. When you were in Las Vegas did you have an office in the hotel?

Schwartz: I spent three days of every week in Las Vegas. I was working seven days a week. I would spend three or four days in Las Vegas and three or four days in Chicago. In those days, the planes were all prop [propeller] jobs. They were not jets. It would take about six or seven hours to fly from Las Vegas to Chicago. The Dunes would always fly me first class. They would drive me to the airport and pick me up from the airport—many times the plane would wait for me, loaded with passengers. I would come to the airport… There were no ramps to get on. You had to walk up stairs in those days. I would get on and they would close the door of the plane, they would remove the stairs, and the plane would taxi down the runway. Now, I had to do the details while I was running back and forth. So, I had a small drawing board that fit on the tray in front of me and I had miniature triangles—forty-fives and thirty-sixty-ninety —and I would draw my details on this drawing board.

Choldin: Milton is showing me a small drawing board that’s on the dining room table. Milton, how would you describe this board?

Schwartz: This board is about the size of the tray in front of you on an airplane. I was able to set this board up. It has a T-square that is attached to it that moves up and down. I had small triangles—a forty-five-degree triangle and a ninety- degree triangle—that fit to this board. I was able to paste down a drawing onto this board while I was traveling. I must remind you I had six hours in the air uninterrupted. There were no telephones. There were no televisions [on airplanes] in those days at all. So, I was able to collect my thoughts and draw what I wanted in a miniature scale on the plane as I traveled up and back weekly. When I would get into Chicago I would tear the drawings off,

put them into my drafting room, and have them blown up to the scale that was necessary to build what I wanted at the Dunes Hotel.

Choldin: When you were in Las Vegas did you have an assistant?

Schwartz: No. I had no assistant. I was alone. I had a superintendent who was quite a superintendent. I had hired him through the FHA [Federal Housing Authority] office in Chicago. I told them I wanted a top-notch superintendent. At first I had hired a man who I thought was going to be good but it turned out that he wasn’t. He got drunk. He wasn’t any good and I had to fire him. When I came to Chicago I stopped at the FHA office and they told me about this one man called Jerry Cizek. I said I needed an honest man who didn’t drink to be my superintendent and representative at the job site. They told me they had just the man for me, and that was Jerry Cizek. Jerry was a tobacco-chewing ex-sergeant in the army, tough as nails and they did it his way or they didn’t do it—that was the way he was. There are many stories I could tell you about Jerry Cizek, my superintendent, because I would give him orders on the job of what I wanted and how I wanted it and he would implement those orders and he was very rigid about it with the general contractors at the time. Anyway, I’m skipping ahead now…

Choldin: Let’s skip backwards. On your first trips out there with Mr. Gottlieb, did he drive you around and show you the other properties? What did the competition look like?

Schwartz: There weren’t very many. There was the Flamingo, which was diagonally across on the corner across from us. We were on one corner and the Flamingo was on the opposite corner. There was nothing else. The MGM Grand had not been built. There was nothing else around. There were very few. The Sands had been built. It was there and it was a one-story building. No—it was a two-story, and so was the Flamingo. So was the Stardust, it was there—but the rest of them were not there yet.

Choldin: When you looked at the Stardust what did it look like to you?

Schwartz: An ugly building. It looked like a very ugly building.

Choldin: You were this very modern guy from Chicago. You had built the Executive House and the Airways Hotel at the airport and you were out there looking at this sort of “Wild West” town. What did you want to accomplish?

Schwartz: Well, the architecture that was there wasn’t very much to speak of. I wanted to accomplish what I thought would ultimately bring a higher class of people to Las Vegas to gamble and to enjoy the weather and so on. That was what I was attempting to accomplish in the end, and that was Mr. Gottlieb’s aim as well. Ultimately, that’s what we achieved. There are many, many stories that I could just go on and on… The building grew. We ultimately added one eighty-room, two-story addition to the Dunes Hotel.

Choldin: Let’s save that for later. Going back to the beginning, Gottlieb had this old, closed-up building. How did you fix it up to get it ready to open? Did he have to paint it or was it ready to open?

Schwartz: No, there were some renovations that took place.

Choldin: Was that your problem or did he have contractors do it?

Schwartz: No, that was my problem and he did have contractors; there were contractors out there. They were not very good contractors and we ultimately wound up hiring our own people and doing it ourselves: renovating the furniture, painting, and making sure the plumbing was working and the air- conditioning was working, and so on. The air-conditioning wasn’t very good originally and ultimately I had to revamp that entire system.

Choldin: Was it hard to get good help?

Schwartz: Oh, yes, it was very difficult getting good men. We ultimately did get a few people who lived around there, painters and plasterers and things of that sort, but did it ourselves, mostly. When we finished we had about a forty- man construction crew of our own headed up by a man by the name of Hy Ferguson.

[Tape 5: Side B] Schwartz: So, Hy Ferguson was able to handle this forty-man construction crew and put the existing hotel into a condition so that it could be occupied. The crew consisted of plumbers, electricians—there were no unions, so an electrician could do plumbing work and vice versa. A carpenter, if he knew enough, could do the same. We were able to wander up and back through the trades and each man became his own specialist and that’s how the original old hotel was renovated and got started.

Choldin: Did the Stardust have any style that was interesting?

Schwartz: Absolutely none; it just had a big sign across the two-story front. It was a flat front and I took one look at it and I thought to myself, “I could easily design something more pleasing than that.” I thought the same about the Flamingo and about The Sands as well, at that time. Of course, since then The Sands has been torn down and replaced with a high-rise building.

Choldin: So, in the early years while you were there, Gottlieb wasn’t the only guy who was building?

Schwartz: No.

Choldin: What I’m getting at is, what did the competition look like? When the other casinos were building, were they bringing in architects from Los Angeles? What did they do when they wanted to build?

Schwartz: It’s interesting. We never found out or attempted to find out. We didn’t attempt to copy from one another. We didn’t know who their architects were and they didn’t know who ours were. They didn’t know me. The casinos made it a point not to intermingle. In the course of time, the Flamingo came up with a high-rise and there were others that were built in the course of time but they each had individual architects who were brought in from different places. I frankly was too busy to take note of their work or what they would do. What we were doing was coming out of my head at the time and I was only interested in creating a good design and something outstanding. I was able to travel up and back, as I said, with just this superintendent overseeing the project for me and my crew in Chicago working on the designs. I raised a family at the same time, I might add: two young girls and my wife that we managed to stay together over the years through all of that.

Choldin: At the Art Institute a few weeks ago I was looking at the drawings of The Dunes and I sat looking at one plan—I think it was part of the restaurant. I thought to myself, This is tremendously complicated. There were all these cutting tables and coolers and meat coolers and I think there was a kosher section and I thought to myself, How in the world does an architect—who is designing a nursery for babies in one place and another place for secretaries to do the mailing—how in the world does he learn how to design an enormous kitchen like that? How do they explain that to you? How do you figure out something that complicated? Do you remember the kitchen I’m talking about?

Schwartz: Yes, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. The kitchen that you’re talking about was the ultimate kitchen that served a showroom of three thousand people, meeting rooms for twenty-five hundred people, a restaurant of about a thousand persons, and two other restaurants of about five hundred each. In total the kitchen served maybe five to six thousand people and it was designed so it could do it all at one time. It had to be designed so all of this food that moved would not be seen by the public. It was put through underground tunnels, up through back elevators, and into warming kitchens

that were created. I had worked with the chef in the design of this kitchen. I didn’t know a lot about kitchens, but I had designed the kitchen for the Sultan’s Table at the time. So, I understood some of the rudiments that were required from talking with the French chef. I understood his desires, and talking with the head chef for this large kitchen—he was really the one who would organize my thoughts, ultimately. He had over two hundred people working under him, twenty-four hours around the clock, seven days a week. Now, if you could envision something like this happening, it was just an unbelievable situation. We had a cooler section. We had a vegetable section. We had a kosher section. We had a bakery section. We had a dishwashing section and a soup section.

Choldin: He had to explain to you what he needed.

Schwartz: Well, what he needed and then I had to organize it so that he could move around it and flow through it on an orderly basis. Where the waiters would come in, where the food would go out… In some cases he had to serve two thousand people in the second-floor meeting room. So, we had to have warming kitchens. The food would move up service elevators, through the back, up into the warming kitchens—which were huge things to start with. All the equipment was in stainless steel, of course, and it was quite an operation.

Choldin: Let me ask you the same question about designing a casino. How do they move the money around? How do they move the chips around?

Schwartz: Well, that was another problem. The money that would come from the casino would go into a central counting room and only very special people were allowed in the counting room. This is where they had all the money out on the table; sometimes millions of dollars were out on the table. The room had certain specifics, how they counted it, how they packaged the money, how they took in the chips… The chips were delivered in cans from the tables to the counting room. Each croupier or gaming table had a can and the can was

where the money went. That can was taken out and delivered to the counting room each time.

Choldin: How did you learn enough about this to design it? Did you observe how it worked? Did they explain it to you?

Schwartz: No, it was developed along the way and I developed a certain circulation pattern for them to follow. They were always concerned with security. Security was a big thing and because of that, we ultimately had what we called the “Eye In the Sky”—a separate floor up above the casino. The casino ceiling had mirrors in it and there were people on the floor above looking down over every table, watching the movement of the hands, watching the people who were playing. For security purposes, they were always concerned that a dealer would cheat or a patron would cheat. There had to be a way to stop it and that was the “Eye In the Sky,” as we called it. There were security personnel around all of the time as well and the building grew and grew and grew. It ultimately had an eighteen-hole golf course in the rear. It had the twenty-one-story addition that was added to it. Along with that was the “Dome of the Sea,” which was another restaurant that was added to it. The Dome of the Sea was something I had always wanted to design. It was a circular building and it looked like it came from outer space. I had worked with a man by the name of Sean Kinney, who has passed away now. Sean had formerly worked with Frank Lloyd Wright; he was a choreographer and a designer and he was especially good at lighting—that was his specialty.

Choldin: Can you describe the structure for us and tell us why you chose that structural form?

Schwartz: Well, I can’t say why I chose it. I chose it because I liked it.

Choldin: I mean, it’s very unusual.

Schwartz: Yes, it is, and I liked it very much. It just felt like it fit on the desert to me. It had structural elements that support domes and stainless steel rods that were two inches thick holding the dome from these structural elements that fell into a pool of water, a reflecting pool, with fountains that bubbled up underneath it. Inside, the structure came to a point at the top of the dome, meeting the bottom of the curve, and there was a black cheesecloth that dropped in front of it. The camera was put behind it and the booths sat in front of the cheesecloth so that the people became part of the show. Then these cameras would shine scenes of outer space or underwater scenes onto the screen. We actually made people seasick with some of the underwater scenes! The restaurant was called the Dome of the Sea because it was meant to be a seafood restaurant. I had chosen a woman with long, golden blonde hair. She was five-foot-six and played a harp, a golden harp, and I placed her in a seashell in the center of the restaurant that rolled around on a figure- eight track in the water. She would play the harp in this seafood restaurant in the water. Not in the water—but she sat in the seashell and the seashell- shaped seat. The people were mesmerized by the music and the ambiance of the restaurant; it was very beautiful. The lighting, of course, added to it and it was one of the highlights of the things that I liked to do down there. Another highlight was the structure of the multi-story building. Working in the desert we have what is called caliche. Caliche is a material that is under the desert floor in the sand and over many, many years it forms lenses of concrete. These lenses of concrete—some were thicker, some were thinner… We never knew in providing the foundation base if it was structurally sound. It was a very difficult problem and we ultimately had to…

Choldin: What does that mean, “lenses of concrete”?

Schwartz: Well, a lens would be thicker or thinner and go through the sand underneath the desert and because it was thicker and thinner we had varying compression rates with which to rest the structure on. And we didn’t know exactly how to handle that for the twenty-two-story building that we were designing. You can just visualize these lenses of concrete running under the

sand and desert with some as thin as a quarter or a half inch and some thick as three feet in a lens that went under the ground that way. Ultimately, we placed a solid bed of concrete that was ten feet thick and the size of the building over the entire area and then ran our columns through that, floating the foundation.

Choldin: How interesting.

Schwartz: From there we brought up sheer walls to withstand the wind, a large consideration for desert storms.

Choldin: Why did Mr. Gottlieb decide that he needed a twenty-two-story building at that time?

Schwartz: Well, he was at one hundred percent occupancy and wanted more rooms and we couldn’t give him more rooms without ruining a golf course or one thing or another. The only way was to tear down one of the fifty-unit existing buildings and build this twenty-two-story building. This was our ultimate plan.

Choldin: That was in 1964, is that right?

Schwartz: Yes. It was our ultimate plan to tear down each of the fifty-unit, two-story buildings and build twenty-one-story structures all the way around. There was a swimming pool in the center of this the seahorse pool.

Choldin: So, in 1964 The Dunes was doing very well?

Schwartz: Oh, very well.

Choldin: Because by then the whole plan of the property was quite complicated…

Schwartz: It was very complex and we had parking and everything else to consider. We had a maintenance department to consider and we built buildings just to store some of our maintenance stuff. The air-conditioning system alone was huge. We had these huge Trane air-conditioners with an underground water storage system.

Choldin: You had all the electricity you needed?

Schwartz: Yes, we had plenty of electricity in Las Vegas from Hoover Dam.

Choldin: You were going to tell me about the twenty-two-story building. You had said that you had put the big pad underground…

Schwartz: Yes. And then we went up with the sheer walls and then we had balconies up there. At one point in time, we had a very difficult thing happen with the hotel. My superintendent, Jerry Cizek, was standing up on the deck on the twentieth floor and the general contractor was going to pour the concrete for the twentieth floor. My superintendent said, “The color of the concrete doesn’t look right. Don’t pour it.” The general contractor said, “All the concrete trucks are down below. The hoist is up and we’re going to pour the concrete.” The superintendent said, “Don’t pour the concrete.”

Choldin: You were not there?

Schwartz: I was not there. He said, “Do not pour that concrete, the color is bad.” He recognized that. The contractor insisted on pouring the concrete. The superintendent advised him in writing that he was not allowing the pour to proceed and that the contractor did so under his own responsibility; as far as he was concerned, the concrete appeared bad and he wanted additional concrete. The contractor proceeded to pour the concrete. It turned out that there was a deleterious material in the concrete. Instead of the concrete gaining strength, the concrete was losing strength.

Choldin: How long did it take for that to become apparent?

Schwartz: It became apparent after the first week when we were taking core borings. It became even more apparent after the first week, after the first month, after the first two months—the strength of the concrete was going down and we were very concerned. I was especially concerned because if that concrete were to collapse it could cause a chain reaction that could collapse the entire building. I ordered the contractor to tear it out and replace it and the contractor said, “This is going to break me.” And the owner said, “How can you do this to the contractor?” I said, “I’m concerned for the safety of the public at large.” And the contractor said, “There must be another way. Please help.” So, I brought the structural engineer in and we ultimately developed another way. To tear out that floor and replace it at that time would have cost approximately $250,000—and a quarter of a million dollars was a lot of money in those days. So, we ultimately came to a conclusion with the structural engineer to put a steel plate under this concrete floor and to carry columns down three stories to allow the floors below to support it and to cover the top of the floor with an epoxy coating. The cost to the contractor was about $100,000 and he had that choice or to tear it out and replace it. So he chose to do it that way. All the time the owner thought I was a terrible, terrible person for doing this to the contractor but I had no choice. The concrete was weak. It had bad material in it.

Choldin: So, Jerry Cizek was right.

Schwartz: He was right. Jerry Cizek was right. He was on hundred percent right. Anyway, to continue with the story, the owner’s penthouse was on the twentieth floor and a couple of years later there was a big fire on the twentieth floor. We were concerned, by the way, that if water got into that concrete it would completely deteriorate and everybody said to me, “How’s water going to get on that concrete up on the twentieth floor?” Well, two years later the owner was in the new penthouse on the twentieth floor and somebody fell asleep in one of the other units with a cigar and set the whole

floor on fire. Everything was burning—the furniture, the drapes, everything —and, of course, there was water. The firemen came up and got the fire hydrants that were built into the building going and they were squirting water everywhere. Mr. Gottlieb had run out to their terrace with his wife at the time to avoid the smoke and the flames because they couldn’t get down the corridor. He came to me and he thanked me. He said, “All I could think of was that damn Schwartz was right.” He thanked me and he said that I had saved his life. These are the kinds of things that an architect runs into in his lifetime and the kind of decisions that you must make and he must stand behind his convictions.

Choldin: Yes, exactly right. Mr. Jerry Cizek was smart.

Schwartz: Oh yes, he was a good superintendent. I’ll tell you one more story about Jerry Cizek. Jerry was a very honorable, God-fearing man and nobody questioned Jerry’s honesty, ever—or his ability. He knew what he was doing. We were sitting in the conference room one time, settling up with the contractors after the construction was over, and Jerry Cizek was sitting at one end of this long conference table, the contractors were sitting at the other end of this long conference table. And when I say long, it was about twenty feet long. The contractors were accusing Jerry Cizek of cheating and stealing. I was sitting at the table at about the center of the table and watching Jerry’s face turn red. I thought he was going to explode. And the contractors kept up and they wouldn’t let up on him.

[Tape 6: Side A] Schwartz: He jumped up, grabbed the contractor, took his fist and he gave him one sock in the face and the contractor went out cold on the floor. Everybody around the table started to clap for Jerry Cizek. They applauded him—and these were all the executives of the Dunes Hotel, my client, and all the various people involved in and around the construction. Even the contractors were applauding him because they all knew of this man’s honesty.

Choldin: So, he was really straight.

Schwartz: Oh, yes. These were very exciting times for me.

Choldin: How old was Jerry?

Schwartz: Jerry was about ten years older than me and at that time he must have been about forty-five.

Choldin: He was in his forties?

Schwartz: Yes, in his forties.

Choldin: What was his background? How did he learn building?

Schwartz: He was, as I mentioned earlier, a sergeant in the army and I think he learned it basically in the army.

Choldin: One of the things I was wondering about during all of this—particularly, I guess, building the twenty-two-story project—was that I noticed there was a hydraulic lift and an escalator and I was wondering: If you’re a Chicago firm and you’re putting in an escalator and a hydraulic lift way out in Las Vegas, Nevada, how do you do technical stuff way out there? How do you get contractors to do stuff like that?

Schwartz: Well, it wasn’t easy, but you bring to mind another story—if I may digress— when you talk about the hydraulic lifts. When we did the showroom for the Dunes Hotel, they would seat about two thousand people on balconies and we had a huge machine that was designed so that it had circular disks on the end of each arm. The arms would cantilever out over the audience by about fifty feet and they would have the girls dancing on the circular discs on the end of each arm. We had elevators that came down from the ceiling—they were used in the play “Cats” that we did there—and we had hydraulic ramps

that would come down from the stage into the audience so that the girls could walk down the aisles from the stage. These were spectacular effects that made our booths look like flying saucers in the room. The room took on an entirely different appearance. One time, I was sitting backstage, working with Sean Kinney and we were working on a…

Choldin: Who is Sean Kinney?

Schwartz: Sean Kinney was this choreographer that I told you about earlier who was from London. He has since passed away. He did the London theater. Sean incorporated many of our designs into the London theater so that they could do “Cats,” and he did so with my permission. Sean and I were working backstage on what we called the smoke machine. It was a dry ice machine and it was getting stuck and we couldn’t get it turned off. So, we were playing with it backstage and the dry ice was in the machine. Eleanor Powell was dancing out on the stage before an audience of two thousand people. George Burns comes backstage and says, “What are you fellows doing?” We said, “Well, we’re playing with this machine. It’s stuck,” and so on. Then, he throws the switch—George Burns throws the switch. It gets stuck and smoke starts to pour out of the machine out onto the stage and people are looking at each other and getting ready to panic. Eleanor Powell is dancing out on stage and I said, “Gee whiz, George, what did you do that for?” So, I said, “Sean, you try and get the machine turned off. I’ll run and turn on the exhaust fan and try and draw this smoke out of the place. George, you better get out on stage and do something with that audience before they panic.” And with that, George Burns walked out on stage and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, don’t worry about a thing. Whenever Eleanor Powell dances she always sets the place on fire!” Everybody started to clap and laugh and I got the fan turned on and Sean got the machine turned off and the smoke was taken out of the place. Eleanor Powell comes backstage and says, “What are you fellows doing to my act?” When we told her what happened we all had a good laugh and we went out for a cup of coffee after that. These were the kinds of experiences that I enjoyed when I was there. I used to have lunch

with Carol Channing occasionally and she would carry her diet dressing in this big purse that she was always carrying with her. When we would go to lunch she would order a salad and put her diet dressing on the salad. I would have breakfast occasionally with Cary Grant… When I was building the Dunes Hotel there was a head woman in charge of reservations—her name was Vi Kaufmann. Vi came to me one time and said, “Will you give me a window in my place so I can see out?”—because they had her located without any windows. So, I provided a window in designing the hotel for her and she thanked me profusely. Then she came to me and she said, “You’re having breakfast with Cary Grant. Would you introduce him to me?” And, I said, “Of course, I will, Vi.” One day Cary Grant and I were walking out of the dining room into the casino and I saw Vi Kaufmann in the casino. I said, “Vi, come on over here; I want you to meet somebody.” And she lets out a scream. She says, “Oh, no, no, not now, not now!” I said, “Why not now, Vi?” She said, “I don’t have my lipstick on!” With that, Cary Grant walks over to her, puts his arm around her, and says, “Vi, you don’t need your lipstick to say hello to me.” Vi was about to pass out. Those are the kinds of experiences I enjoyed there. It was a very exciting time of my life.

Choldin: Oh, it must have been. Tell me about the Chicago office. You had moved out of Roosevelt Road by then and moved downtown?

Schwartz: No, I hadn’t moved out of Roosevelt Road. I still had my office there.

Choldin: How many people were working in the office?

Schwartz: Well, at that point in time I was running my office twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I learned how to fall asleep while I was standing up in the office. I watched my draftsman fall down on the drawing board and fall asleep. Some of them would curl up on top of the filing cabinets or under the conference table or on top of the conference table and fall asleep. We were working very, very hard. We were able to accomplish in one week what it would take close to a month to accomplish in normal working hours. You

must remember it was seven days a week, twenty-four hours around the clock—and I had only two shifts going. So, the men were only getting to sleep maybe twelve hours at a time.

Choldin: Do remember how many of them there were?

Schwartz: Yes, at that point in time, it had grown to about forty or fifty men.

Choldin: This was particularly for the twenty-two-story high rise?

Schwartz: No, I had other buildings that we were doing at the same time.

Choldin: So, you were up to forty people in the office and there were some other commissions going as well.

Schwartz: Oh, yes. The office grew and grew and grew. There were other commissions that were in process over this ten-year period that I worked at The Dunes. You know, the Constellation Apartments, the Statesman Apartments—these are twenty-five- and twenty-seven-story buildings. Of course, the San-Jil was only four stories. Then there was Waukegan Timberlake, which was about seven or eight hundred apartments. All of this was going at the same time. We were working ‘round the clock. So, actually the office grew from about forty to fifty on up to more than a hundred, with outside superintendents running each of the projects. It grew and became larger than that. It pyramided. Getting back to the Dunes Hotel—it was one of the most exciting periods of my life.

Choldin: What was Gottlieb like as a client?

Schwartz: He was a wonderful client. He understood and was very sensitive to my needs. The only requirement that he ever had of me was honesty—and that I gave him completely. Gottlieb would see to it that I was driven up and back to the airport in Las Vegas. He would see to it that the public relations people

for TWA would meet me in Chicago. My wife, Audrey, had special parking places in Chicago where she could pick me up at the airport and wait for me and they would take me right to her. I was normally the first one off the plane because I always flew first class. I was in seats one and two; two seats were reserved for me on the first class section on every flight that I took. Gottlieb would see to that. He was very considerate that way and he would see to my other needs when I was in Las Vegas. He saw to it that I had what they called the “power of the pen”—you can sign anything, anywhere, and it was on the house.

Choldin: How would you characterize the kind of style that you were working towards for The Dunes? When you were doing the Airways Hotel it was a severe, modern style and when you were working in Las Vegas it seems to me like you were going in a different direction.

Schwartz: Well, I never attempted to “stylize” my architecture or choose the style, but I would say being in the desert and watching the swirling sands began to shape my thinking differently. I would watch little whirlwinds of sand and begin to think of circular designs—I had always thought of circular designs. The designs that came to my mind were basically from nature and the natural things around me. Many of my designs came from the sea and seashells and…

Choldin: I would say you used a lot more color out in the desert.

Schwartz: Yes. Yes, I did—considerably more color. I felt a certain freedom with color. I think that came with the desert sunsets, which were magnificent. They just affected me.

Choldin: You started to talk about the hydraulic thing and the escalator...

Schwartz: I was telling you about this machine that we had that had two arms and cantilevered fifty feet out over the audience. On the end of each arm was a

circular disk about twenty feet in diameter, and the girls would dance out on the end of these circular discs with the audience looking up at them. Sean Kinney had been given a commission in London to do the London Theater and he came to me and asked if I would mind if he used some of the design techniques I had created at The Dunes. I told him, “Not at all.” He created these elevators coming out of the ceiling in the London Theater and the hydraulic ramps coming down from the stage, so the girls could walk through the audience. Many years later Sean died and I was in London and I went to see a play and it was quite a thrill to see all of these things that I created in the play called “Cats.”

Choldin: Is there anything we’ve missed on Las Vegas?

Schwartz: Oh, I don’t know. There are so many stories I could tell you over and over again about Las Vegas: some wonderful, some very sad, some thrilling to experience. It was probably the most exciting time of my life. I enjoyed every minute of working there and at the same time I was happy when it was over because it was the end of ‘round-the-clock working for me and I was able to settle back and relax and do these other large buildings that I went on to do. I think one of the nicest things that I enjoyed doing was the Timberlake Apartments in Waukegan under Mayor Sabonjian. There were over eight hundred units that were designed—one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments—with strip shopping centers with gas stations on either end of it. That, too, was an experience because I had created a lake. There was a dam to create the lake; I ran the water right underneath one of the buildings and it still is running under the building to this day. They were low-rises. They were only two- and three-story buildings, at best, but they were still exciting times. I enjoyed architecture tremendously. I enjoyed designing.

Choldin: Let’s talk about Timberlake. Was the mayor involved in that venture?

Schwartz: No, the mayor was not involved at all. His only involvement was giving me permission to dam up a stream and run it underneath one of my buildings—

which everybody said would collapse, but never did. And of course, by doing so, I created an entire lake, a whole new environment for people. The curved buildings were very soft to visualize. The curved parking lots were easy to park in and the people enjoyed the place tremendously—and I kept adding to it and adding to it. I couldn’t add enough units to it. I did it in three or four different phases of a hundred and fifty units per phase and we did it four times over. We wound up with around six or seven hundred units.

Choldin: Tell us the whole story from the beginning. How did you get started with Timberlake?

Schwartz: Well, we saw the land. The man who owned the land did not want to sell it and we talked to him about a ninety-nine-year lease. So, he agreed to lease it to us for ninety-nine years.

Choldin: What was attractive about it?

Schwartz: Well, I liked the stream, the water that was running through it, and I envisioned a whole lake being created and buildings being created around the lake; that’s what attracted me there. Of course, nobody at the time could envision that whole scope of things.

Choldin: What was nearby?

Schwartz: There wasn’t anything nearby. There was a golf course…

Choldin: Was it residential?

Schwartz: Yes, it was basically a residential area but it did have commercial property at Sunset that attracted me. The owner finally leased the property to me for ninety-nine years with subordination; that was a very important clause because it meant that he would subordinate to a first mortgage, which I would have to pay to build the buildings that I wanted to build. It was

another complex twist of the law. With subordination we were able to design this curvilinear structure and obtain a mortgage on it because the mortgage had first rights over the property.

Choldin: What does subordination mean?

Schwartz: Well, he would subordinate to a first mortgage. In other words, if I didn’t pay the first mortgage, the first mortgage people could come in and take the land away from him and from me along with the building that’s on it. That’s what subordination means. That clause was key to the creation of the entire complex.

Choldin: Had you been doing something else in Waukegan at the time?

Schwartz: No, I hadn’t, but I subsequently built a whole series of Timberlake Apartments around the Midwest because of Timberlake Apartments in Waukegan. There was Timber Cove Apartments in Decatur, Illinois. There was Timber Lane Apartments in Indianapolis, Indiana. In all of those, approximately two thousand apartments were built.

Choldin: These were rental units?

Schwartz: Yes, they were one- and two-bedroom rentals at that time.

Choldin: What market were they aimed at?

Schwartz: To the existing market that was there in Indianapolis or Decatur or in Waukegan. In Waukegan it was basically the market of Great Lakes, Illinois, and the people who occupied Great Lakes [Naval Training Center] and the families of those people. Working people were the market for Waukegan and there were other markets in Decatur and in Indianapolis.

Choldin: Were they younger people?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. It was a younger market, generally.

Choldin: With children or without children?

Schwartz: The two-bedroom apartments were large enough for them to have children and they’d had children, yes. They were in good school districts. I would watch the school districts closely. I was always cautious about transportation, school districts, and shopping areas when I would place these apartments. That was all a prerequisite for a successful project.

Choldin: You know what I’m going to ask now…

Schwartz: Oh, yes.

Choldin: Why are they curvy?

Schwartz: Well, I don’t know. I guess that was left over from some of the circular feelings that I had in Las Vegas—but I also liked the appearance of the curvilinear building. It was softer on the eye, easier to see, and many of the photographs that were taken by Hedrich Blessing show this. He took photographs of it—some of which I still have.

Choldin: I just saw one of them.

Schwartz: That’s the only one that’s left. The others were ruined by water damage.

Choldin: Oh, that’s too bad. So, the complex includes the sets of interlocking buildings with the parking and the lagoons. Did you say that there were shops as well?

Schwartz: Well, that was in a different location on the property. The shops were not around the residential portion of it. The shops were on the commercial portion of it, along the main streets. But these curvilinear buildings were

interlocking and went all the way around the lake and made a very nice environment.

[Tape 6: Side B] Choldin: Were there any downsides to the apartment developments?

Schwartz: There were always bad times. Nothing is ever perfect in life and there were always times that something would go wrong. We developed outside property with the management team and we had many outside property managers. Jerry Cizek, after the Dunes Hotel was complete, became one of my property managers. To this day he lives somewhere in Texas and tends his garden in retirement. Arturo Romero—just digressing for a minute—with his Magic Violins, had a wife whom he was very much in love with and she always wanted to leave Las Vegas. She hated Las Vegas and she always wanted Arturo to go back to Mexico City with her, but he said he could not because he was on a contract. Of course, the Dunes Hotel had renewed his contract after ten years for another ten years on a ten-year option. At the end of that ten years, Arturo was a wealthy man and his wife finally convinced him to go back to Mexico City. They were walking along the De La Reforma Boulevard and a car jumped the curb and hit his wife and killed her instantly. Arturo was devastated. He was very, very much in love with this woman and a year later Arturo passed away of a broken heart. Joaquin, the maitre d’, passed away from cancer and all of those wonderful people are gone now.

Choldin: Did the architectural profession ever beat up on you for being in development?

Schwartz: Yes, I guess so, because at the time it was not ethical and it was not in accordance with AIA regulations—although I later became very active in the AIA and became a chairman of the legislative committee.

Choldin: Next time I would like to talk about that. So, you did get some flack about it.

Schwartz: Oh, sure—which I promptly ignored.

Choldin: Because that became a big thing when John Portman was doing hotels, I think…

Schwartz: Architects weren’t supposed to be involved in construction. They were supposed to be architects in the pure sense of the word—much less become a developer or a planner—but I couldn’t understand that. It didn’t make sense to me.

Choldin: You just said: “I’m going to do this.”

Schwartz: I said, “I’m going to do that.” At that time there were no laws to stop me and I did it.

Choldin: So, getting back to Waukegan, you finished Phase I of the apartments and when you got the second property was it from the same owner?

Schwartz: No, the whole property was acquired at one time.

Choldin: Oh, I see.

Schwartz: It totaled around twenty-five acres, as I recall, at the time it was acquired. Phase I used a portion of the property and, of course, when it rented up as quickly as it did and operating as quickly as it was, I immediately started Phase II.

Choldin: You could use just the same plans to build some more?

Schwartz: Certainly, which gave me an advantage, cost-wise, because it took the cost of those drawings and spread them out totally over the entire project. I started Phase II and Phase II was rented out completely; we started Phase III and then Phase IV. I phased it that way on an orderly basis. I didn’t want to

overbuild because if I were to overbuild I could be hurting myself. My vacancy factor would go up and I had that to consider as a developer. Since my aim was to make successful buildings, I was always concerned with things like vacancy factors and occupancy rates—that kind of thing.

Choldin: Can we talk about San-Jil in Evanston?

Schwartz: Certainly.

Choldin: How did you come upon that piece of property?

Schwartz: The San-Jil was next to the cemetery, the Calvary Cemetery.

Choldin: I grew up in Rogers Park, just on the other side of the cemetery at the north end of Rogers Park. So, I know that cemetery.

Schwartz: That cemetery was a very popular one.

Choldin: And a beautiful one.

Schwartz: A beautiful one, exactly. I saw that property—it had been for sale for many years—and I started to ask questions of various people that I knew. It was very interesting, the replies that I got. I asked them how they felt about living next to a cemetery. Jewish people didn’t care to live next to a cemetery. Christian people have no objections to a cemetery. They said it’s quiet and peaceful there. There’s nobody to disturb you in the area next to a cemetery. So, I decided to purchase that property and build San-Jil. Building the San-Jil, I wanted the building to be unique in design, different from anything around, and that would offer a possible future for expansion. That was a [goal] of the design that is seen there today. The building was designed for one- and two-bedroom rental apartments. There are only thirty-eight apartments. The lower wing, the first floor wing, swings out across the entire site. It was designed in a manner that would allow a future swimming pool

to be placed on that front lawn and allow those apartments to have sliding glass doors that would open out onto that pool area, making them extremely desirable apartments and raising their rental considerably. The swimming pool would also be a nice amenity for the upper apartments as well. There was parking for everybody on the site and there was a laundry room that was introduced on the first floor for everybody in the building.

Choldin: What was your thinking about the heavy traffic in front of this area—or wasn’t it that heavy at that time?

Schwartz: Traffic didn’t disturb me at all. I guess maybe it should have, in retrospect, but it did not. And ultimately the people who rented the apartments felt the same way about the cemetery: that people out there didn’t disturb them and they were quiet. Those on the third and fourth floor could look out over the cemetery; they thought it was a nice sight to see and, of course, they could also see the lake from those floors. They were also close to the beach in that building. So, the building had many amenities to start with and it had an excellent location. It was in Evanston. It was in an excellent school district; it was in the New Trier district, I believe. My oldest daughter works at New Trier, by the way, and has for many years. Anyway, I enjoyed Evanston. I like Evanston; I like suburbs. I like the school and I thought that the building would appeal to students who were coming there, as it ultimately did. The market was excellent for it and the building remained one hundred percent occupied for many, many years until I ultimately sold it when the occupancy rate went down.

Choldin: What are the materials?

Schwartz: The materials on the exterior were very interesting. The panel was a laminated panel, made by Englander Bed and Mattress Company, of cardboard fiber honeycomb laminated to a fiberglass panel on the front and back side. We needed a back side because of the balance—otherwise the panel would warp. So, we laminated this to this cardboard interior but before

we did that we inserted a loose, vermiculite, sand-like substance in the honeycomb openings of the panel. This was done to insulate the panels, so it would have greater insulation value. Vermiculite was an excellent insulator.

Choldin: So, it was made especially for you.

Schwartz: Oh, yes, designed by me and made for me.

Choldin: In a special color of blue.

Schwartz: In the blue I chose at the time. Yes, it was a very special panel and the forerunner of many to come. Later, the honeycomb—instead of being of a cardboard nature—became an aluminum honeycomb and was used in many panels because it was light in weight and it caused less weight on the exterior skin of the building. It also had great insulation factors because of the air spaces in between as well as the vermiculite that we put into it.

Choldin: How did you do the HVAC?

Schwartz: The heating and ventilating and air-conditioning system was designed by my father and it was what we termed a fan-coil unit. It had a chiller in the basement and it had a boiler in the basement and we could receive hot or cold water through the pipes into the units. The unit had a coil in it and a fan, and an electric switch, a rheostat, ultimately turned on the fan at varying speeds. What water was forced through the system [determined] whether we received heat or air-conditioning in the unit. So, when we wanted heat, the boiler was turned on, the chiller was turned off, some valves were thrown in the basement, and hot water was put through the system. When we wanted air conditioning, the same thing occurred: Cold water was put through the system. The only thing we had to be cautious of was when the chilled water went through the system, the piping had to be insulated to prevent condensation from occurring in the walls. The condensation could occur on the pipes when they were cold. So, we insulated them with the best

insulation we had available to us in those days. It was a rubberized insulation that was split and placed over each pipe carefully as it went through the walls. In that way the air conditioning did not cause leaking in the apartments.

Choldin: Was that one of the first air-conditioned buildings?

Schwartz: No, the first air-conditioned building was at 2930 Commonwealth Avenue. That was one that I built but was never the architect for. I think John Payne was the architect, as I recall. I think that was his name. John Payne was the architect of 2930 Commonwealth and I was the general contractor. My dad had designed the air-conditioning system. I was also part owner of the building. We had purchased the property and ultimately moved into that building with my folks on the top floor, the penthouse, and I might add that that was a unique building because we used flexicor. That was the first time flexicor was used in the city of Chicago. Flexicor was a precast concrete slab, a pre-stressed concrete slab, that we placed in the building… but I got ahead of myself. The unit that was designed by my father really was ultimately taken up by another contractor who patented it and sold it all over the United States.

[Tape 7: Side A] Choldin: Let’s go back to your student days. You said that when you competed in the Beaux Arts competitions that you always did modern designs. And when I think of the work that you did as a young architect, particularly the Chicago Airways Hotel, it was all dramatically modern design. It couldn’t have been more modern. How did you get interested in designing that way?

Schwartz: Well, you refer to it as “modern.” I never thought of it as any particular category of architecture. I design the way I felt about a particular project, and the Chicago Airways Hotel was designed to meet a flying public. Therefore, I felt it required a design that would fit with the airport and the airlines of those days. Again, I’m referring back to the period of time around the 1950s,

about ’55, and it was a period when things were just getting started. Airline travel was becoming commonplace and the passengers who flew were not only tourists but many of them were traveling for business. That’s really what caused the design of the Airways Hotel to occur as it did.

Choldin: When you think back to when you were at the university—I think Bob [Bruegmann] asked you about this—you said that some of the students were doing classical designs and things with columns and you said you didn’t want to do it that way. You wanted to do it your way. What got you interested in modern design? Why weren’t you doing classical stuff?

Schwartz: Well, I just thought that you had to know about the classical stuff before you could go forward and do what you wanted to do in design. I just felt that the classical stuff—the Ionic columns and the Corinthian columns and the old Doric order—were all things from a bygone era of the past and I wanted something that would depict the future of our world. I sought to achieve that in everything I did. I referred to it as good architecture. I attempted to follow Mr. Wright’s “form follows function” theories; I was greatly influenced by Mr. Wright in those days.

Choldin: I am going to skip around a bit. I think it was in the 1990s. My wife and I were living in Champaign, Illinois but we liked to come up to Chicago rather frequently. When we were lucky, and when we got a good rate, we got to stay in the Executive House hotel. It never occurred to me that I would get to meet the architect! I would look in the rooms and I liked the rooms very much. It was clear to me the rooms were very carefully designed and they had a very carefully drawn soffit; I remember that very well. Everything about it was done carefully and I wonder if you can remember what the process was of designing the rooms at the Executive House.

Schwartz: Yes, I certainly could. The Executive House was originally designed as an apartment building, an unfurnished apartment building with the suites facing the river, basically. The rooms that you refer to, which you later saw as

hotel rooms, were really studio apartments, originally, with a kitchen and an entrance out onto a balcony that overlooked the river. It was always my intention that the people living in that studio apartment would be able to sit on the balcony overlooking the river and barbecue and do whatever they wanted to in total privacy. The rooms were carefully laid out in between structural elements and the concrete sheer walls that supported the upper portion of the building. The air-conditioning units were similar to the ones that were installed at 320 Oakdale, only with a little different design to them. They were basically a fan-coil unit built for the comfort of the individual and offering heating in the wintertime and cooling in the summertime at the flip of a switch. The kitchens were designed very carefully—they were small in terms of today’s kitchens—they were very efficient and a person standing in them could just about touch everything around them. The rooms were designed so that the furniture could be placed in them in a very comfortable manner. Later, when the building was converted to a hotel, it became apparent that the room size was perfect for a hotel room with twin beds or king-sized beds, as the case may be. As it became converted, the studio apartment became more and more comfortable. The end units were one- bedroom units and they basically became suites in the hotel.

Choldin: Was it your job to design the hotel room, or was that done by another designer?

Schwartz: No, it was my job. I designed everything. The basic rooms and sizes and everything were as they were in an apartment building. Later, when the interior decorating came in, that was done by somebody else or the hotel.

Choldin: The rooms had a drapery that went all the way across—was that a part of your concept?

Schwartz: The drapery, yes.

Choldin: Let me skip down again to something we were talking about last time. You were telling me that at the height of the work, when you were so busy with the Dunes Hotel, your office in Chicago was very large with maybe forty people in it—is that right?

Schwartz: Forty or more.

Choldin: How did you organize the office? What were all those people doing and who was doing what?

Schwartz: Well, at that point in time, we were operating on a twenty-four-hour-a-day schedule, seven days a week. So, each week of work we were literally getting three-and-a-half normal weeks of work in. My personnel were organized to operate on two, twelve-hour shifts, working seven days around the clock. We introduced other personnel and combined them in with our lead personnel for weekend operations because there had to be some off-time for the people. The personnel would get very sleepy and tired at times. They would fall asleep on the drawing board. They would fall asleep under the conference table or on top of the filing cabinets and we knew and understood that. I myself would fall asleep while I was standing up against a wall. We just kept on working.

Choldin: How did you divide up the work? Were they on teams? What were they doing besides drafting?

Schwartz: Well, I had a presentation team because we had to constantly make presentations to the owners of whatever we were designing. I had an engineering team that was in charge of the various engineers that we used— the electrical, mechanical, and structural engineers—and incorporated this into the drawings. Basically, each engineer did his own drawings and we would issue typical floor plans to each of the engineers and they would bring them back to the office and then they had to be coordinated in with the rest of the drawings. There was a department that just handled the engineering

work alone and incorporated it into the drawings. There was the drafting department. There was an artwork department, of course, and a design department. I was traveling up and back from Las Vegas; at the time it took six or seven hours of flying time in the air—uninterrupted, I might add, by telephones and cell phones and computers. I was able to get the designs accomplished on the drawing board that I told you about and bring them into the design department of my office.

Choldin: Who did the billing and the legal work?

Schwartz: Well, now you stated two different categories. Legal work was one thing. Neil Frankel and Stanley Tigerman were in charge of the design department. Jay Frankel was in charge of all of the legal work. Then there was a specification department for writing the specification. I was in every department. I was in the design department, the specification department, and overseeing every department. There was also a department for construction that turned out the shop drawings and things of that sort and checked all the shop drawings. It was quite intricate.

Choldin: Who did the billing?

Schwartz: Billing was done by the legal department. Jay Frankel handled all billing.

Choldin: So, it was an enormous operation.

Schwartz: Oh, yes. As I said, many times we were in excess of forty people. Earlier I don’t remember just exactly how many people there were, but it just grew and grew.

Choldin: When did you move downtown? Was it after the Dunes Hotel?

Schwartz: No. I think it was before the Dunes Hotel. It was after the Executive House and before the Dunes Hotel. So, it was around 1959 or 1960 or somewhere in there.

Choldin: When did your dad pass away? Did he stay on Roosevelt Road when you moved downtown?

Schwartz: At that point in time, yes. Eventually, he moved downtown and came into my office with me. He came downtown and was a very important part of the mechanical engineering process.

Choldin: Was it easier to work downtown or was it easier to work on Roosevelt Road?

Schwartz: I found it easier to work downtown. We worked closer to the mortgage companies and closer to the banks and so on. Although the parking was different, we found it much easier working downtown.

Choldin: The rent was higher...

Schwartz: Yes, the rent was higher and the parking was higher and everything else was higher but we were able to afford it then. So, the location was much better.

Choldin: Okay. Is there anything else you want to say about the office as an office?

Schwartz: Well, there were four people who were at the head of the situation: myself, my father, Jay Frankel, and Neil Frankel, his brother. Those were the basic partners of the company. There were no other partners.

Choldin: Jay was a designer; is that right?

Schwartz: No, he was in charge of legal and bookkeeping. Neil…

Choldin: Neil was a designer.

Schwartz: Yes. Jay was in charge of legal, bookkeeping, billing, and so on. My dad was in charge of mechanical engineering.

Choldin: What sort of design work was Neil doing?

Schwartz: Well, there were different elements of the Dunes Hotel that were taking place on a constant basis over a ten-year period. The designs were created while flying up and back and I would take them off the drawing board and bring them to the Neil. He and I would confer and I’d say, “This is what I need, this is what I want, this is how I want to do it, and this is how the owners want to do it.” Neil would proceed and finish the design and then put it through the various departments of the office. Ultimately, the finished product would come out. I might add that during the ten-year period that I was flying up and back between Las Vegas and Chicago on a weekly basis, three days in Las Vegas, four days in Chicago—or four days in Las Vegas, three days in Chicago—I was also attempting to raise a family and overseeing the entire operation in Chicago, while I was there. The rest of the time Neil was in charge. And, of course, so was Stanley Tigerman. It was a large operation.

Choldin: I had read and you had mentioned that you joined the AIA and that you got involved with one of the committees on the AIA.

Schwartz: Yes, I did. I became involved with the legislative committee of the AIA and ultimately became chairman of the legislative committee of the AIA. I supported the AIA, of course, to the best of my ability and to the best of my time available. The AIA was always the representative association of all the architects. It was good for all of the architects.

Choldin: Was it interesting to work on that committee?

Schwartz: Oh, yes. At the time, we were working on the Scaffolding Act, which was a thorn in all of the architects’ sides because whenever a scaffolding came

down, the architect, owner, contractor, and everybody else was sued on it. We wanted to eliminate the architects’ involvement with that.

Choldin: Why did they get sued?

Schwartz: It was just the general practice at the time. If the scaffold came down and men were killed…

Choldin: Oh, if it came down, if it broke, if it fell...

Schwartz: If it came down itself, then we were sued. Many times the architect should not have been involved because it was a contractor operation, the scaffolding, and we didn’t feel that the architect should be sued over it. We fought very hard to get the architect eliminated and ultimately we were successful. That involved trips to Springfield and everything else.

Choldin: Do you recall who some of the other architects were that were working on that committee?

Schwartz: I’m sorry; it was a long time ago. I don’t remember.

Choldin: Were they guys who were older than you or were they in your generation?

Schwartz: I believe they were in my generation.

Choldin: Did you make any good contacts by being involved with the committee?

Schwartz: When you say contacts, do you mean contacts that would benefit me business-wise?

Choldin: Just professionals who were good to know.

Schwartz: Yes, I always met professionals who were helpful in the field and it was always good to know people in the field. The answer is yes—I did make many good contacts.

Choldin: Were you subscribing to some of the magazines and the journals in the profession over the years?

Schwartz: Oh, yes.

Choldin: I’m wondering—what were you looking at?

Schwartz: Well, I had a funny feeling I didn’t want to contaminate my thinking and therefore I tried not to look at or copy from anybody else in anything I’ve ever done. As far as the magazines, I looked at Architectural Record and several of the prevailing architectural magazines of the times. I always glanced through it, not for the purpose of copying the buildings, but basically for the purpose of seeing what the other architects were doing. Many times I was very disappointed by that.

[Tape 7: Side B] Choldin: So, you were subscribing to…

Schwartz: To Architectural Forum and Architectural Record.

Choldin: You were sort of looking at them but you didn’t want to be too much influenced by the other stuff because you wanted to be original. But a lot of the stuff you were seeing didn’t look very good to you.

Schwartz: That’s right.

Choldin: Was there stuff going up in Chicago that looked neat to you or that was disappointing, too?

Schwartz: There was stuff going up in Chicago, yes.

Choldin: What are we talking about—the 1960s?

Schwartz: Yes. There were things going up by Mies van der Rohe in Chicago with that style of architecture and I never cared for it that much.

Choldin: Why?

Schwartz: Well, I didn’t basically agree with the Bauhaus principles. I thought I found aesthetics and beauty in forms other than just vertical and horizontal lines— and along with that is included a majority of the buildings that were going up at that very time. So, I was very unhappy with what I saw and felt I could certainly do better than that.

Choldin: Was there anything going up in Las Vegas that looked interesting?

Schwartz: Not really. Las Vegas was riddled with large signs and glamour and that sort of thing, which I felt was very unattractive.

Choldin: When we were talking about your firm when it was really big, I meant to ask you: Did you ever have any apprentices working in the office?

Schwartz: Yes, I did.

Choldin: What were they doing?

Schwartz: They were sweeping the floor, basically, and cleaning up—they were doing all the things that an apprentice does, like delivering mail and that kind of thing. An apprentice never did that much.

Choldin: Did they do any drafting?

Schwartz: Yes, a little drafting.

Choldin: When did you wrap up the work at The Dunes?

Schwartz: That would have been around 1961, give or take a year.

Choldin: After the high-rise was finished.

Schwartz: Yes.

Choldin: Did you stay all the way through the construction of the high rise?

Schwartz: Oh, yes, I supervised that all the way up. As you recall, I told you how the wrong concrete was poured into the twentieth floor of the high-rise.

Choldin: Yes. Okay, so at that point your work was done for that job.

Schwartz: Yes. They wanted me to come back to do another high rise at The Dunes but I turned down the work simply because I was very tired and I had had enough of Las Vegas and all the false glamour that went with it.

Choldin: Did they ever build it?

Schwartz: The second high rise? No, they didn’t. They wanted me to be the architect for it and I turned it down.

Choldin: So, your job was done.

Schwartz: As far as I was concerned. I wanted to come back to Chicago and finish raising my family.

Choldin: At that point, I’ve sort of lost track of your commissions. What were you working on after you left Las Vegas?

Schwartz: It was then that I built the twenty-seven-story Constellation over on North Avenue and Dearborn—1555 North Dearborn.

Choldin: Okay, we talked about that.

Schwartz: Yes, it was also after Las Vegas that I had built the Statesman over at Bryn Mawr and Sheridan Road. It was a twenty-six- or twenty-seven-story building. After that I built many, many apartment buildings: the San-Jil Apartments on Sheridan Road in Evanston; the Timberlake apartments in Waukegan; Timber Cove in Decatur, Illinois; and Timber Lane in Indianapolis, Indiana. So, I was quite busy and managed to keep all that work going all that time—except we no longer were working seven days a week, twenty-four hours around the clock. We came back to a normal work week and normal time off for everybody. It was a more relaxed atmosphere for architecture—for good architecture.

Choldin: The apartment developments in the various towns, did they all follow the same pattern as the Waukegan project where you were the developer and the architect as well?

Schwartz: Yes—and the manager. We were doing management at that point. Jay Frankel was handling the management part as well as all the billing and legal work. They didn’t all follow the same designs. Designs were changed as we went along, depending on the different land that we were able to acquire and countryside we were able to acquire and develop and plan. Planning took on a whole new meaning to us. We were planners and developers and not only architects and general contractors. During the course of that period of time I ceased pouring my own concrete, doing my own masonry work, and doing my own carpentry work. Instead we began to sublet both trades to various subcontractors. We became the general contractor, subcontracting everything out to individual people. We were able to control it easier that way and control our costs better and bring better results. All of our projects were

successful as a result of this and the people living in them were generally happy and content—although you never get one hundred percent perfection in the rental world. Our managers became varied, depending on the area we were in, and grew as the projects grew. My superintendent from Las Vegas came in and managed the properties in Indianapolis, for example, because he was so good. I never wanted to leave him, and to this day I see him occasionally. He’s in Texas, tending his garden.

Choldin: So, like you, he was ready to leave Las Vegas.

Schwartz: Well, Jerry was ten years my senior. I haven’t seen him in the last few years. I don’t even know if he’s still alive but for a while I was calling him yearly around Christmastime. We have many good memories together. Old architects are something like old soldiers: They never die, they just fade away.

Choldin: That doesn’t sound like you. On the Statesman, was that something where there was an outside client?

Schwartz: Oh, yes; that was an FHA [Federal Housing Authority] project. There was an outside client.

Choldin: Tell me about that.

Schwartz: The client was basically an attorney who represented a group of investors that had gotten together to build that building. The attorney’s name was Robert Pressman.

Choldin: What did the site look like?

Schwartz: The site was a very narrow site. It was fifty feet wide by one-hundred-and- eighty feet long, I think, and it was narrow. And yet, because of its location, it was within the zoning ordinance to go to a multi-story structure.

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Choldin: For rental units?

Schwartz: Yes, for rental units. They were lovely units.

Choldin: What were you able to do with them?

Schwartz: Well, each unit had balconies off of it and it became a twenty-seven-story structure. The one-bedroom apartments had one-and-a-half baths to them— which was in itself unique in the Chicago area at that point in time. The two- bedroom units were lovely, facing the lake. The building was just a nice building. We brought the driveway up from the street level to the second- floor level and inserted the garage underneath it so there was parking for everybody; it took the form of a seashell. The shell was being built near Lake Michigan and it just seemed right to me for the first floor to assume that form.

Choldin: When did you decide to retire from your work?

Schwartz: Oh, I was sixty years old. I knew I could go on and on and on but I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life just designing and building. I was tired of building, tired of construction, tired of fighting the weather all the time. The various weather, there was always weather. Whether it was in Las Vegas or in Chicago. In Las Vegas we had sandstorms and windstorms that could kick up without a moment’s notice. In Chicago the weather is so varied; it would always change throughout the Midwest and I was tired of all of these problems that it would cause and that had to be overcome for a building to be built. I sought a life of peace and comfort.

Choldin: I bet Audrey [Schwartz’s wife] was glad.

Schwartz: Yes, yes, she was. She was and so were my children.

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Choldin: You wanted to share some thoughts for the next generation?

Schwartz: Yes, I did. I did want to tell the next generation that although I didn’t receive my degree from the University of Illinois, I was always very sorry that I never went on and finished my schooling. That was a period of time when you didn’t need a degree to take the state licensing examination and I chose not to do it. However, today architecture has become far more complicated than it was then, involving computers and building science and all of the other disciplines that are required. Today a Bachelor of Science degree is required for state licensing and I would recommend that a future student go on to get his Master’s degree. Of course, it’s very desirable to get a doctorate as well. You cannot get enough education if you’re going to seek a career in architecture. The more education you achieve, the more philosophical you can become about your designs and the work that you will create; it’s very important that you have the proper education to do that.

Choldin: You were a very serious student.

Schwartz: Yes, I was.

Choldin: Well, this has been such a great pleasure for me. I can’t tell you how wonderful it has been.

Schwartz: Good.

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ADDENDUM BY MR. SCHWARTZ

In 1952 I was the first architect to conceive of a circular tower in Chicago: The 320 Oakdale building was to have been circular. When we brought the plan to Mr. Douglas Turner of the Prudential Insurance Company for financing, he said, “Schwartz, how do you expect us to invest the money of widows and orphans in such revolutionary ideas as these?” The tower was altered to its existing square form to obtain the necessary financing for construction. When first completed and illuminated, this square tower was so spectacular that it caused all traffic on the Outer Drive to slow and stop. A story in the Tribune the following day recounted what happened.

In 1958 the Executive House (now the 71 Hotel) was conceived and designed as the first circular tower on the Chicago River. Again, to obtain financing, it was altered to a rectangular plan. The Executive House rose to become the tallest reinforced concrete structure in the United States, exceeded by only two others in the world: one in Madrid and one in Sao Paolo. The Executive House received an award from the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry. The Chicago Airways Hotel, at Midway Airport, received an award from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In 1961, the Sultan’s Table, which I designed at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, was designated the finest restaurant in America by the Diners Club and I treasure all of this recognition.

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SELECTED REFERENCES

Chase, Al. “21 Story Co-op with Walls of Glass Rising.” Chicago Tribune, 31 May 1953: A9.

Chase, Al. “Building Using Big Glass Area Under Study.” Chicago Tribune, 21 December 1952: A7.

“Eight Chicago Apartment Projects.” Architectural Forum 103 (November 1955): 140–49.

Fuller, Ernest. “Skyscraper Apartment Building Planned over N.W. Rail Spur on River Bank.” Chicago Tribune, 16 January 1959: 1.

Fuller, Ernest. “Start Work on a Million Dollar Hotel-Motel Unit.” Chicago Tribune, 22 March 1957: C7.

Fuller, Ernest. “Work Begins on Downtown Apartments.” Chicago Tribune, 31 January 1957: D7.

“Immeuble a Chicago.” Architectural Record 27 (July 1956): 90.

“New Hotel for Chicago’s Loop.” Architectural Forum 111 (August 1959): 124.

“New Hotel in Midwest Offers Unusual Facilities.” Architectural Record 125 (May 1959): 215– 218

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MILTON M. SCHWARTZ

BORN: 22 December 1925, Chicago, Illinois DIED: 19 January 2007, Manzanillo, Mexico

EDUCATION: University of Illinois, Champaign, 1944–1947

PROFESSIONAL Milton M. Schwartz-Architect, 1951–1956 EXPERIENCE: Milton M. Schwartz and Associates, 1956–1985

HONORS AND Diners Club Award for Architectural Achievement in Restaurants, 1967 AWARDS: Award for Architectural Excellence, Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry, 1959

SERVICE: Chicago Club for Crippled Children American Institute of Architects, Chicago chapter

SELECTED 320 Oakdale Apartment Building, Chicago, Illinois PROJECTS: Dunes Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada 22-Story Addition Sultan’s Table Restaurant San-Jil Apartments, Evanston, Illinois Chicago Airways Hotel, Chicago, Illinois Executive House, Chicago, Illinois Constellation Apartments, Chicago, Illinois The Statesman, Chicago, Illinois Chicago Club for Crippled Children Camp, McHenry, Illinois Timber Cove Apartments, Decatur, Illinois Timber Lane Apartments, Indianapolis, Indiana

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INDEX OF NAMES AND BUILDINGS

320 Oakdale, Chicago, Illinois 1, 3, 10, 20– Dressler, Henry 40–41 29, 32, 33, 38, 45, 90 Dunes Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada 54, 57– 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 76, 77–79, 83, 91–92, 93, 94, 98 Illinois 27 1800 South Wabash, Chicago, Illinois 40 Executive House, Chicago, Illinois 40, 44– 2930 North Commonwealth Avenue, 57, 58, 64, 89–90, 93 Chicago, Illinois 2, 3, 12, 88 Fellars, Saul 40–41 Abramovitz, Max 8 Ferguson, Hy 65 American Institute of Architects (AIA) 13, Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada 58, 50, 83, 94–96 63, 65, 66 Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, Frankel, Jay (brother-in-law of Milton) 27, Illinois 4, 5, 7 92, 93–94, 99 Frankel, Neil 22, 54, 92, 93–94 Brunell, Warner 22, 54 Frankel, Phyllis (sister of Milton) 3 Burnham, Daniel H. 4 Glenview Naval Air Base, Glenview, Burns, George 75 Illinois 14, 16 Gottlieb, Jack 57–58, 61, 63, 64, 65, 70, 73, Channing, Carol 76 77–78 Chicago Airways Hotel, Chicago, Illinois Grant, Cary 76 32–40, 64, 78, 88–89 Chicago Association of Commerce and Hedrich Blessing Photographers 39, 82 Industry 35. 51 Cizek, Jerry 63, 71–74, 83 Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Constellation Apartments, Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 18 Illinois 40–44, 54, 77, 99 Kahn, Louis 33 Daley, Richard J. 51 Karlin, Leo 12–14 DeWoskin, Morris 52–53 Kaufmann, Vi 76 Dome of the Sea Restaurant, Las Vegas, Keith, Walter 7, 9, 10, 18 Nevada 68–69 Kinney, Sean 68, 75, 79

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Lindsey, Driver 7, 8, 9, 18 Schwartz Brothers Plumbing and Heating Love, Elmer 7, 9, 18 5–6, 22 Schwartz Residence, Chicago, Illinois MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada 58, 63 (uncle’s house on Central Park Avenue) Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 27, 97 19, 28 Miller, Henry 25–26, 54 Sears Tower, Chicago, Illinois 48 Miller, Herbert (Herb) 26 Solar Management Company 27 Milton and Company 14–16, 22 Sollitt, Sumner 41, 43 Milton M. Schwartz and Associates 19, Stardust Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada 63, 64, 91–94, 97 65 Statesman Apartments, Chicago, Illinois Nimitz, Chester W. 16 44, 77, 99, 100–101 Sultan’s Table Restaurant, Las Vegas, Portman, John 84 Nevada 60–61, 67 Powell, Eleanor 75 Prudential Building, Chicago, Illinois 48 Tharnstrom and Company 49–50 Tigerman, Stanley 22, 54, 92, 94 Rand, Ayn 9 Timber Cove Apartments, Decatur, Robins, Al 12–14 Illinois 81, 99 Rogers, Paul 54 Timber Lane Apartments, Indianapolis, Roosevelt Road Ordnance Plant, Chicago, Indiana 81, 99 Illinois 14, 15–16 Timberlake Apartments, Waukegan, Romero, Arturo 60, 83 Illinois 77, 79–83, 99 Turner, Douglas (Doug) 20 Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada 63, 65 San-Jil Apartments, Evanston, Illinois 77, University of Illinois at Urbana- 8588, 99 Champaign 4–5, 7–11, 30–32, 34, 102 Schwartz, Audrey (wife of Milton) 66, 78, 101 Wexler, Jerrold (Jerry) 20, 37 Schwartz, Abraham (father of Milton) 4, Woodroofe, Louise 4, 5, 7 5, 6, 20, 22, 87, 88, 93 Wright, Frank Lloyd 4, 7, 9, 30. 68. 89 Schwartz, Benjamin (Ben; uncle of Milton) 27, 28

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