GAnother of Chicago’s landmark skyscrapers has been repurposed as a hotel – this time it’s the New York Life Building, located at 39 S. LaSalle.
Designed by William LeBaron Jenney, father of the skyscraper, the hotel redevelopment of the building (which began construction in 1893) cost $106 million and opens with a new name, the Grey Hotel, a 293-room property in the Kimpton hotel chain.
In an article on the building, the Tribune’s Blair Kamin noted that this building is the closest link to Jenney’s ground-breaking Home Insurance Building. We included it on our list of Most Endangered Buildings in 2006 due to a redevelopment plan that would have demolished most of it.
Kamin quotes Preservation Chicago’s executive director Ward Miller from that year: “This is a building that should be preserved whole.”
Read Kamin’s full article with photos of the new hotel here.