{"nrhp_refnum":"85001912","name":"Municipal Courts Building","other_names":["Lake View Building"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"116 S. Michigan Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.88014035000003,"lon":-87.62457496299999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-08-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A sixteen-story (plus attic) skeleton-frame office building at 116 South Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, built in 1906 with a four-story addition in 1912, clad in white terra cotta.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is architecturally significant as work of Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, carrying on the Chicago School tradition, and as a contributor to the Michigan Avenue streetscape. It is also of interest for Chicago's municipal and commercial history, having housed city courtrooms before becoming a rental office building.","narrative":"Rising sixteen stories plus an attic on a forty-foot-wide lot, 116 South Michigan Avenue is a steel skeleton-frame building faced in white, matte-finished terra cotta. It was built in 1906 for developer Jacob L. Kesner and leased to the City of Chicago for courtrooms and offices while the city was without a city hall; the city vaults were in the basement. After the city left in 1911, four stories were added in 1912 to designs by the same architects, Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, and from 1917 it was marketed as the Lake View Building. The facade's three continuous vertical bays, delicate bead-and-reel and key-pattern ornament, and many large windows express the structural frame in the manner of the Chicago School. The first-floor lobby retains plaster relief, marble, and bronze details, and the exterior keeps much of its original fabric. It is listed for its architecture and for its place in Chicago's municipal and commercial history.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":"Jenney, Mundie & Jensen","architectural_style":"Chicago School","criteria":[],"status_note":"Undergoing restoration and rehabilitation at the time of nomination; lower upper floors occupied by offices and a music school, ninth through sixteenth floors unoccupied and under construction.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.092259-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/60/8924/28892460/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/85001912.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85001912/b5190657f2-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85001912/b5190657f2-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20080703_Municipal_Courts_Building.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)</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:20080703_Municipal_Courts_Building.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892460","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_Courts_Building_(Chicago)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14687923"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/municipal-courts-building-85001912/"}