The United States Customs House is a custom house at 610 S. Canal Street in the Near West Side neighborhood 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 building opened in 1933 to meet the city's need for a larger custom house, especially with the large Chicago Main Post Office opening nearby. Two architecture firms, the

Burnham Brothers Daniel Hudson Burnham Jr. (1886–1961), was an architect and urban planner based in Chicago and one of the sons of the renowned architect and urban planner Daniel H. Burnham. Burnham Jr. was director of public works for the Century of Progress ...

and Nimmons, Carr & Wright, designed the

Classical Moderne The Art Deco style, which originated in France just before World War I, had an important impact on architecture and design in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The most famous examples are the skyscrapers of New York City including the Em ...

building. The building's design includes vertical columns of windows divided by

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s, a black

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

entrance surround and base, and a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

with a

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

eagle on either side. While the building was originally seven stories tall, an additional four stories and a new penthouse were added in 1940. The building was added to 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 August 4, 2016.

References

Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago Moderne architecture in Illinois Government buildings completed in 1933 Custom houses in the United States Custom houses on the National Register of Historic Places {{CookCountyIL-NRHP-stub