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London Guarantee Building, United States

Category: Attraction

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360 N Michigan Ave
Chicago
IL 60601
USA

Chicago, United States Print route » N41° 53' 16.8" W87° 37' 30"   (41.888, -87.625) Start navigation »

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The London Guarantee Building or London Guaranty & Accident Building, formerly known as the Stone Container Building, is a historic building located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. It is known as one of the four 1920s anchors of the Michigan Avenue Bridge (along with the Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower and 333 North Michigan Avenue). It stands on part of the former site of Fort Dearborn. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on April 16, 1996.
In 2001, the building was acquired by Crain Communications Inc. and was until recently referred to as the Crain Communications Building. However, Crain sold the building during the summer of 2013 to a Chicago hotel developer, Oxford Capital Group, which is remodeling the structure into a multipurpose building with 450 hotel rooms as well as offices, retail and meeting spaces.
The London Guaranty & Accident Building was designed by Chicago architect Alfred S. Alschuler and completed in 1923 for the London Guaranty & Accident Company, an insurance firm that was then its principal occupant. The top of the building resembles the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, but it is supposedly modelled after the Stockholm Stadshus. It is located in the Michigan–Wacker Historic District. The building stands on the property formerly occupied by the Hoyt Building from 1872 until 1921.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, the studios of Chicago's popular WLS (AM) radio were located on the fifth floor of the building. For several decades, Paul Harvey performed his daily syndicated radio show from studios on the fourth floor. The building was also famous from the 1950s through the early 1970s for The London House, the famous Chicago jazz nightclub and steakhouse that was located on the west side of the building's first floor; it had its own entrance on Wacker Drive. The space is now occupied by a Corner Bakery restaurant.
In the 1980s and 1990s TV show Perfect Strangers, the building's exterior was used as the home of the fictional newspaper Chicago Chronicle.

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