Talk:Auditorium Building

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Untitled

An intersection or location in the city would be nice. Hopefully, Meelar 06:25, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We now have an address. What I'd really like is a picture or two. If anyone is local and is willing to take a couple shots, that'd be great. Isomorphic 07:33, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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I think there may be a factual mistake in this article. The theatre is desscribed as being the first to be lit be incandescent light, but the Savoy Theatre produced an incadescent-lit show 8 years before the Auditorium Building was built. 94.192.227.50 (talk) 21:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Removed from succession of "world's tallest building"

This edifice is listed (in the succession template at the bottom of the page) as having been the world's tallest building for a while.

But according to the CTBUH, who ought to know if anyone does, the title of "tallest building" was passed directly from the Home Insurance Building to the New York World building. Figuring these things out is the CTBUH's stock in trade, so they must have a good reason for saying this.

And the article body (and the ref for the passage) says it was the tallest building in the city and the largest (not tallest) in the country.

On the other hand, the ref indeed says it was 270 feet tall, which would make it taller than Home Insurance. And the New York World building wasn't opened until 1890. And The Auditorium was dedicated on December 9, 1889 and a public performance made then also.

However:

• The building may not have been completed to its present height on December 9, 1889.
• And though the World Building was completed on "December 10, 1890" it may have reached its full height before that.
• And to extrapolate that the Auditorium building was ever the tallest in the world is WP:Original research and WP:Synthesis and indeed goes against what sources we have.

So given all that I've removed it from the succession of "world's tallest building" and it shouldn't be restored absent a reliable source saying that it was. (And note that I am also editing the article Home Insurance Building and New York World Building to stitch the gap; if this succession box is restored here, those articles would need to be re-edited also). Herostratus (talk) 12:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, St. Michael's Church is 290 feet tall and was completed in 1869. The Chicago Board of Trade Building (not the currently standing one) was completed in 1885 at over 300 feet high. I don't believe the Auditorium Building was ever the tallest building in Chicago. There's also no citation for the claim about being the "largest" in the United States. I'm going to remove both spurious claims for now. Hopefully anyone who wishes to keep the "largest" claim in the article will be able to provide some citation. Rexodus (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

cc postcard image

great cc postcard image here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/8032749451/in/set-72157626791024941 Victor Grigas (talk) 04:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Article name

The article was recently renamed, from "Auditorium Building" to "Auditorium Building, Chicago". It seems to me that the original name is better. Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation says, "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that." There's not another Wikipedia article about an Auditorium Building, so it seems preferable to leave it at that, and not add the name of the city. I therefore suggest renaming the article back to "Auditorium Building". — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:28, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

My reason for moving it is unique to this building. The phrase "Auditorium Building" is so blandly generic, that I felt it needed disambiguation to provide specificity for our readers. If it was, for instance, the Roosevelt University Auditorium Building or the Shubert Auditorium Building or the Chicago Auditorium Building or Louie Drombowski's Auditorium Building there would be no problem, but, in spite of its notability (which is largely limited to the world of architecture - we're not talking widespread popular recognition of the building on the order of "Eiffel Tower" or "Empire State Building"), just plain old "Auditorium Building" is, at least to me, much too naked.

That said, I'm not married to this, if the consensus is that it should have a different disambiguator (such as "(Chicago)") or go back to its previous name, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. BMK (talk) 02:49, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but upon reading the article, one would ascertain anyway, within the first sentence, that it's in Chicago.

On a related note, I think that while WP:NATURAL does apply here, it probably would not benefit the readers in this instance. However, parenthetical disambiguators can be used with articles of this nature that are not about specific localities, but I'm not going to propose such a move right now. Epic Genius (talk) ± 08:22, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Did you know nomination

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• Article history

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Auditorium Building

• ... that the Auditorium Building (pictured) hosted the 1888 Republican National Convention before it was even completed? Source: Gregersen, Charles E. (1980). Auditorium Building, 430 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Cook County, IL (PDF) (Report). Historic American Buildings Survey. pp. 26, 27
  • ALT1: ... that US president Grover Cleveland declined to lay the cornerstone for the Auditorium Building (pictured) because laborers complained he wasn't a union worker? Source: Gregersen, Charles E. (1980). Auditorium Building, 430 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Cook County, IL (PDF) (Report). Historic American Buildings Survey. p. 26
  • ALT2: ... that in 1941, the Auditorium Building (pictured) was closed because the owners of a neighboring building cut off its utilities? Source: "Auditorium Will Ring Down Final Curtain June 30". Chicago Daily Tribune. May 30, 1941. p. 14
  • ALT3: ... that Frank Lloyd Wright said the Auditorium Building (pictured) was "famous before it was completed"? Source: "Roosevelt College to Occupy Chicago Auditorium Hotel: Cavalcade of Celebrities Civic Center Proposed". The Christian Science Monitor. August 14, 1947. p. 17.
  • ALT4: ... that at the Auditorium Building (pictured), a hotel and offices became classrooms? Source: Kerch, Steve (October 13, 1985). "Restoration Recapturing Era of Adler-Sullivan at Roosevelt U". Chicago Tribune.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/WKAR-TV
  • Comment: This article last appeared on DYK 22 years ago, and expansion began on October 5 (when it was 8.5 kB) even though I made some minor edits in the preceding days; I nominated this page on October 10 (when it was 52 kB). I'm still working on expanding the article, but for now I'm submitting it for DYK since it still falls within the 7-day window for expansion. I can propose more hooks later.

5x expanded by Epicgenius (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 843 past nominations.

Epicgenius (talk) 01:31, 11 October 2026 (UTC).

• No copyright issues or other problems found. QPQ has been done. Article was at 8,553 characters. Article is now over 50,000 characters so it has been 5x expanded. Was nominated in the proper time. Hook facts all check out. I like all of them but alt4 which is the least interesting of the choices, so the promoter can select at their discretion from the others. Epicgenius feel free to express a preference if you have one. Great work!4meter4 (talk) 16:19, 11 October 2026 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the review. The hooks are more or less in order of preference (that is to say, I put ALT0 and ALT1 first because I preferred these). Epicgenius (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2026 (UTC)