Welcome to CornerSpotter, Curbed's regular 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 tomorrow.
The above hotel, pictured in 1912, was a lesser sequel to one of downtown's most stately and prominent hotels in service for only 22 years. The earlier hotel hosted many celebrities and dignitaries and launched a long run of popular and eccentric social dinners. Actually the second hotel on this site (the original burned in the Great Fire), half of the building came down to make way for a taller tower and bigger money in the late 1890s and the other half (pictured above) was redesigned and reopened under the same name until its ultimate demise in the 1920s. Today, the intersection has nothing so short. Hit us with your best shot!
·Cornerspotter [Curbed Chicago]
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