{"nrhp_refnum":"11000243","name":"Sutherland Hotel","other_names":["Cooper--Monatah Hotel"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"4659 S. Drexel Blvd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.811810268000045,"lon":-87.60340595399998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2011-05-04","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Entertainment/Recreation"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A seven-story reinforced concrete apartment hotel at 4659 South Drexel Boulevard in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, built in 1917-1918 as the Cooper-Monatah Hotel by developer Sherman T. Cooper.","why_significant":"The building is significant at the local level for black ethnic heritage and entertainment. It reflects the shift of the Forty-Seventh Street corridor from a white upper-class suburb to a center of black culture on Chicago's south side. Its Sutherland Lounge was a center of experimental jazz in the post-World War II period and hosted performers such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Nina Simone.","narrative":"At the northeast corner of East Forty-Seventh Street and South Drexel Boulevard in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood, this seven-story reinforced concrete building was erected in 1917-1918 as the Cooper-Monatah Hotel. It has red brick walls, a limestone base and cream terra-cotta Classical Revival detailing. The building served as a military hospital in 1918, then as a Public Health Service hospital, and was renamed the Sutherland in 1925 for its director. In 1952 new owners began admitting both black and white guests, making it one of the city's first integrated hotels. The owners invested heavily in improvements to serve middle-class black families moving into the area. Its Sutherland Lounge became a leading venue for experimental jazz in the 1950s and early 1960s, hosting Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. The lounge closed in 1963. Marble lobbies and stairs survive, and the upper floors are now apartments.","period_of_significance":"1952-1963","architect_builder":"Henry L. Newhouse","architectural_style":"Late 19th & 20th-Century Revivals/Classical Revival","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Currently used as apartments, with a restaurant and stores; the lounge space was renovated in the mid-2000s and the building underwent a rehabilitation in 1989.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.448698-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/13/8926/28892613/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/11000243.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000243/b20c6bc266-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/11000243/b20c6bc266-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Teemu08","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sutherland_Hotel.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Teemu08</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sutherland_Hotel.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892613","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland_Hotel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18589092"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/sutherland-hotel-11000243/"}