The Midwest Athletic Club is a historic athletic club building located at 6 N. Hamlin Ave. in the

West Garfield Park West Garfield Park on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois, is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas. It is directly west of Garfield Park. Neighborhood boundaries The boundaries of West Garfield Park are NORTH: W. Kinzie St. ...

community area of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. The club was built in 1926-28 under the direction of a committee of

West Side West Side or Westside may refer to: Places Canada * West Side, a neighbourhood of Windsor, Ontario * West Side, a neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia United Kingdom * West Side, Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Westside, Birmingham E ...

business leaders. The thirteen-story building's design featured ornamental

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

, large arched windows on the third floor, and a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

; it also provided views of Garfield Park, the north side of which was across the street. Its facilities included an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a gymnasium and exercise rooms, handball courts, billiard rooms, a library, dining rooms, and a ballroom. The club grew to include 2000 members in its first year, most of them businessmen and their families; however, the building entered

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in ca ...

in 1930 and was converted into a hotel. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on October 18, 1984.

References

Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago Buildings and structures completed in 1928 Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Men's club buildings {{Chicago-struct-stub