“A slender Streeterville low-rise has been a rooming house, an artist’s studio and the Chicago headquarters of a presidential candidate, before a late 1960s renovation turned it into a glassy boutique-and-art-gallery building. But that could all come to an end Thursday for the property at 67 E. Oak St.
“That’s when the Chicago Plan Commission votes on a proposal by a limited liability company, called 67 E. Oak Street Partners, to wreck the five-story building and replace it with a 34-foot-tall, two-story, glass-fronted retail structure.
“The almost certain loss of 67 E. Oak St. isn’t a full-scale preservation emergency. But its likely demise is still worth noting as the architectural face of Oak Street continues to grow more polished, profitable and upscale — and maybe just a bit characterless — with each passing year.
“Besides, the building’s history and that glassy ‘Hollywood Squares’-like facade shouldn’t be sent to that Great Brick Pile in the Sky without something being said about it first.
“The history of 67 E. Oak St. was a stone-cold mystery to me.
“I’d assumed it was a midcentury building based on that great facade. So did Yuke Li, the new research manager of the group Preservation Chicago, until she tracked down the rest of the building’s tale.
“‘Because it looks very modern from the exterior, and it’s on Oak Street with a lot of other luxury brands together, I thought it was built, like, very recently,’ Li said.
“She found out it was originally a four-story Victorian era Richardson Romanesque-styled residence with first-floor retail space.
“It later became a rooming house. The legendary Arthur Rubloff — he redeveloped North Michigan Avenue and nicknamed it ‘the Magnificent Mile’ — switched the building to commercial use by 1949.
“But Oak Street hadn’t yet gone posh, and for years, the building held a variety of uses. In 1953, tenants included Hobby Breeders, which sold parakeets, lovebirds, cockatiels, canaries and pet supplies.
“The noted Chicago surrealist artist Julia Thecla either lived or worked there in the 1960s, Li found. Thecla was booted from the spot when the modernist renovation plans were drafted.
“Presidential candidate Hubert H. Humphrey’s Chicago campaign headquarters leased space in the building in 1968. The vice president and Democratic Party nominee lost to Republican Richard Nixon in November of that year.
“A $500,000 renovation of 67 E. Oak St. began in December 1968, giving the building its current look and creating air-conditioned gallery and shop spaces. Stores such as Gold Coast Travel, Ladies Fashion Exchange, That Paper Place, the Free Galleries, Distelheim Galleries and Robert Paul Gallery then moved in, Li found.
“And for those of us of a certain vintage (I turn 60 this month), it’s yet another piece gone of the old Oak Street — where you were once able to take in the latest blockbuster at the sleek Esquire Theater, at 58 E. Oak St., or pick up a big ole Pioneer stereo receiver from MusiCraft a few doors down.” (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 10/15/25)