Thirty years ago the body of preservationist Richard Nickel was found beneath the rubble of the old Stock Exchange at Washington and LaSalle. He’d been part of a futile fight to save the Louis Sullivan building, and he was inside photographing and trying to salvage some of the last remnants when the building collapsed on him. The exchange’s trading floor was preserved and put on permanent display at the Art Institute, along with a plaque paying tribute to Nickel, who was hailed as a hero by everyone from writers to aldermen.
Fine and Moran see Mayor Daley as their only real hope, unlike Nickel, who was openly contemptuous of the first Mayor Daley. But they would undoubtedly agree with the sentiment Nickel expressed in a letter written near the end of his life, quoted in Richard Cahan’s book They All Fall Down: “Isn’t it the responsibility of a mayor of a city to be concerned for our spiritual welfare as well as physical? Why aren’t these agencies responsive, and why must individual citizens have to fight for everything?”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Moran thinks Daley has often been an ally of preservationists, and as proof he runs through a list of buildings the mayor ordered preserved after they’d been targeted for demolition. “Mayor Daley was supportive on the Goldblatt’s building near Ashland and Chicago Avenue and Saint Boniface Church at Chestnut and Noble,” he says. “The key is to get his attention.”
He and Fine believe the old Merc is such a building. Designed by Alfred Alschuler and built in the 1920s, it is, says Fine, “a classic Road to Perdition structure that gives Chicago a distinct look–Phoenix or Houston would die for such a building. It was the headquarters for the Mercantile Exchange, and a lot of people called it the Butter and Egg building, since dairy futures were traded there. On the outside walls you can see reliefs of chickens and eggs–that’s the whimsy of some of these great old buildings, where form follows function.”
The preservationists walked away from the meeting dismayed. “Aside from the issue of preserving a valuable building, I wondered about oversight,” Fine says. “Where are the watchdogs in city government? Who’s watching over the development of the Loop?”
Department of Planning spokesman Pete Scales says there’s nothing the city could have done to stop CC Industries from receiving a demolition permit. “It’s their right to begin demolition,” he says. “It’s not a landmarked building.” And he doesn’t think it ought to be. “The landmarks commission is dedicated to saving the best of the old buildings,” he says. “We can’t save every old building in Chicago.”
Nevertheless, the preservationists are hoping to build enough public pressure to persuade the mayor to change his mind. With that aim they’ve been holding lunchtime rallies outside the old Merc. On August 21 about 50 protesters showed up carrying signs and they all marched east to Daley Plaza chanting, “Save the Merc! Save the Merc!” Two women in flapper outfits–Dia Cirillo and Shari Matzelle–danced the Charleston at the plaza. “The clothes they’re wearing are marvelous examples of 1920s style,” said Bill Buster, a fellow preservationist. “Much the same as the Merc.”
