Close-up of Alexander Levy’s 1910 Douglas Auditorium. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Serendipity often strikes when I’m doing research. A couple of years ago, when I gave a presentation on Chicago’s Jewish Architects, one of the attendees asked if I had done any research on Alexander L. Levy. I was somewhat aware of Levy, and meant to do more research on him, but never followed up. More recently, I decided to give my Jewish architects program as a seminar at the Newberry Library. (This one-session virtual program will take place on August 5, and registration is now open).
Alexander L. Levy, from History of the Jews of Chicago.
Around the time that I was writing my proposal for the seminar, my husband, Lloyd, and I put a condominium we own on the market. Located at 5456 N. Glenwood Avenue, the fabulous duplexed-unit is in a handsome historic structure. It suddenly occurred to me that I had never done research on the building, so I pulled the original permit, and as chance would have it, Alexander L. Levy designed the twelve-flat! So, of course, Levy has now made it into the seminar, and I am devoting this month’s blog to him.
Levy designed the stately twelve-flat at 5454-5456 N. Glenwood Avenue in 1912. This is the building in which our condo is located. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Born in Brookfield, Missouri to Jewish immigrant parents from Prussia, Alexander L. Levy (1872-1965) received a public school education. He went on to earn a degree in architecture from the University of Illinois. By the mid-1890s, Alexander, his parents, and his three siblings had moved to Chicago. Levy found a job teaching mechanical drawing in the Chicago Public Schools. He began as an “unassigned teacher” but was soon given a regular position at Hyde Park High School (now Ray Elementary School).
Ray Elementary School was Hyde Park High School when Levy taught there at the turn of the 20th century. Photo courtesy of Bill Latoza.
Medinah Building from Rand McNally’s Bird’s Eye Views of Chicago, 1893.
In 1898, Alexander married Eliza Westerfield, the daughter of German Jewish immigrants. The young couple lived on the South Side and were quite active in the Jewish community. In fact, in 1900, Alexander Levy helped plan a bazaar to benefit the Orthodox Home for Aged Jews. He designed a mock Jerusalem street with “shops, smoking-rooms and gypsies camps,” all installed on the 12th floor of the old Medinah Building at Wells Street and Jackson Boulevard.
Levy designed a handful of buildings while still teaching. By the end of 1904, he was able to resign from the Chicago Public Schools to fully devote himself to architecture. He opened an office on N. Clark Street, north of the Chicago River. His early work included several two-flats, three-flats, and mixed-use buildings.
Alexander L. Levy designed this Greystone three-flat at 714 W. Briar Place in 1904. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Levy’s close ties with the Jewish community clearly helped when he was first starting out. In 1905, the newly-formed Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home hired him to design an addition to an existing structure in the Wicker Park neighborhood. Through this project, the organization created an orphanage for 29 children. The Orphan Home quickly outgrew this facility. In 1909, the organization purchased nine contiguous lots just west of Douglas Park and commissioned Levy to design a new orphanage that could accommodate as many as 300 children. The complex included a synagogue, separate girls’ and boys’ wings, offices, a dining room, and servants’ quarters.
Levy’s Marks Nathan Orphan Home opened in 1912 at 1528 S. Albany Street. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
While working on the new Marks Nathan Home, Levy also prepared plans for a synagogue for the Ohave Sholom Miriampol congregation at 733 S. Ashland Boulevard. Founded by Lithuanian Jews around 1870, the congregation was experiencing tremendous growth in the early 1900s. Levy’s domed Neoclassical building was completed around 1910. Six years later, the synagogue merged with another congregation and became known as Anshe Sholom. In 1927, the congregation completed a new temple in Lawndale and Levy’s structure became the St. Basil Greek Orthodox Church.
Levy designed what is now the St. Basil Greek Orthodox Church as a synagogue for Ohave Sholom Miriampol’s growing congregation in 1910. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
In late 1912, a businessman named Emanuel Levy hired Alexander L. Levy to design a $40,000 twelve-unit building at what was then 5454-5456 N. Southport Avenue (now Glenwood Avenue—this is our condo building). Both Emanuel and his wife, Sarah Levy, were first generation Americans who had been born in New York, and it is unclear whether they were related to Alexander. However, by this time, the architect was working in the Otis Building at 10 S. La Salle Street, a new high-rise in which Emanuel Levy also had his office. Although Alexander and his wife did not live in the twelve-flat, they soon moved into a nearby apartment on Magnolia Street.
Douglas Park Auditorium. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
By this time, Alexander L. Levy was becoming known for his theater designs. He had recently produced the Douglas Park Auditorium at the corner of W. Ogden and S. Kedzie avenues. The surrounding Lawndale neighborhood was then becoming known as a Jewish enclave. According to the Chicago Tribune, Levy’s client, Samuel Polakow, one of the area’s major developers wanted this to be “one of the finest equipped amusement buildings in Chicago.” The lavish structure would not only become a mainstay of Yiddish Theater, but also went on to serve as a meeting place for members of Jewish labor unions. Several years after completing the Douglas Park Auditorium, Levy prepared plans for the Marshall Square Theater at 2875 W. Cermak. (This “palace theater” is now known as Apollo’s 2000.)
The 1917 Marshall Square Theater is now called Apollo’s 2000. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Around 1920, Alexander L. Levy formed a partnership with William J. Klein (1889-1969), another first-generation American. Born in Cincinnati, Klein had moved to Chicago around 1913 and had been working in Levy’s office for several years before the two became partners.
K. Levy & Klein’s North Avenue Bath House. Photo by Eric Allix Rogers.
View of Granada Theater during its demolition, 1990. Photo courtesy of Historic American Building Survey.
Levy & Klein flourished during the 1920s. Their work included the North Avenue Bath House at 2039-2045 W. North Avenue (nicknamed the Russian Baths); the Parkwood Apartment Hotel, now Clarkwood Apartments, at 438-440 W. Wrightwood Avenue; the Diversey Theater at 2828 N. Clark Street, now the Landmark Century; the Regal Theater at 4719 S. Martin Luther King Drive (demolished); the Granada Theater at 6425 N. Sheridan Road (demolished); and the Bryn Mawr Apartment Hotel at 5550 N. Kenmore Avenue (a designated Chicago Landmark).
As was the case for many of Chicago’s firms, Levy & Klein struggled during the Great Depression. Alexander Levy had been a co-developer of the Bryn Mawr Apartment Hotel and so he and Levy moved their office into the building. They relocated back downtown to 179 W. Washington Street in 1934, but the two architects dissolved their partnership soon after. (By this time, Alexander was a widower.) Levy then opened his own office. Klein joined a firm known as the Gundling Building & Construction Company.
In the early 1930s, Levy & Klein had their office at 5552 W. Kenmore Avenue in the Bryn Mawr Apartment Hotel, a building they had designed several years earlier. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Alexander L. Levy managed to make it through the lean Depression years. In 1935, he produced a commercial building with nine storefronts at the corner of W. Bryn Mawr and N. Winthrop Avenues. Levy gave this commercial block a distinctive streamlined design. At the same time, he prepared plans for a large Art Moderne style movie theater for the corner of W. Belmont and N. Central avenues. (This building was likely never constructed.) Levy was married for a second time in 1939. His workload had slowed considerably by the early 1940s, however he was still practicing in the years following World War II. Levy was then active in the Illinois Society of Architects. He produced several Post-War residential projects including an addition for the Oak Park Arms Hotel in Oak Park, Illinois. After retiring in the early 1950s, Alexander Levy and his second wife, Mary, moved to Florida. He died in Miami Beach in 1965.
Alexander L. Levy designed this 1935 storefront block at 1055 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue, directly west of the Bryn Mawr Apartment Hotel. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
If you’ve enjoyed learning about Alexander L. Levy, I hope you’ll consider signing up for my Newberry seminar. I will also be giving a Designed to Dazzle and Delight seminar about the making of the fairgrounds for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition on July 8, 2021. Please consider joining me for this virtual program as well.
