Welcome to CornerSpotter, Curbed's new and fast expanding weekly game in which you—fair readers—consult archival streetscape photos or postcard illustrations to identify the building(s) and/or location presented. Time to tap that reservoir of urban minutiae and flaunt it before your fellow readers. Fire away in the comments, and we'll reveal the correct identity and backstory on Friday.
Well, looks like we're acquiescing again to an eagle-eyed reader. That's OK, at least some of you thought it was the Hotel Burnham (Reliance Building) at State & Washington. Ha! We see how one could mix up the facades— they're both extra ripply. But a more careful reading of our teaser post would have told you the building in question—The Tacoma—is no longer with us, whereas the Hotel Burnham is alive and well. Holabird & Roche's Tacoma was built in 1889 and razed in 1929, to be replaced immediately by Vizthum & Burns' One North LaSalle. The Tacoma was super significant in a few respects: It was Holabird & Roche's first big commission; it used a steel and iron frame held together, for the first time, by rivets; and, two of its facades were non-structural curtain walls, thus raising the engineering bar after Jenney's Home Insurance Building. Its replacement is also a hot shot of sorts, standing as one of Chicago's tallest buildings for decades at 48 stories and 530 feet. It's also on the National Register of Historic Places and a designated Chicago Landmark. And just like that, the new kid has become the old sage.
·Hint: One Skyscraper Giving Way To Another [Curbed Chicago]
·The Tacoma Building [Wikipedia]
·CornerSpotter [Curbed Chicago]