With its plain cream brick facade and run-down interior visible through a large display window, the Ford Motor Company showroom at 1444 S. Michigan doesn’t look like a landmark. But the utilitarian building has a revolutionary past–legend has it that while Henry Ford was here in 1905 to oversee the construction of his first showroom outside of Detroit he took a break to watch meat being processed at the nearby stockyards and hit on the idea of the auto assembly line.
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The Ford showroom was phenomenally successful, in part because of its proximity to the silk-stocking Prairie Avenue District and to the Loop, with its growing business base. Michigan Avenue was also one of the best-paved roadways at the time, which made for a smoother test drive and an easier sale. Other automobile dealers soon flocked to the 16-block stretch of Michigan between 12th and 28th streets, which became known as Motor Row.
The Cadillac dealership is gone. Ditto the Metropole Hotel, which was demolished in 1975 and is now the site of City Chevrolet. But the Ford, Marmon, and Hudson showrooms still exist. The Ford, now empty, was most recently home to a catering service. The Marmon and the Hudson are being used for storage. The three are among 55 Motor Row buildings given landmark status last year by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. “From my perspective,” Kerr says, “with so many buildings remaining, it would be a shame to lose them, because in all of the other cities in the U.S. nobody has anything like this.”
