“A museum dedicated to preserving the legacy of open outcry trading opens Tuesday inside the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the latest step in an effort to revive the nearly century-old structure.
“Much of the frantic trading activity in the building — immortalized in movies like ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ — now occurs digitally, leaving its cavernous main trading floor quiet and empty. But in the Chicago Board of Trade Building Museum, architecture buffs, other visitors and the building’s many office tenants will be able to experience what it was like to be on the trading floors, and see how generations of Chicago’s leading architects created the historic landmark.
“‘We wanted to find a way to honor that legacy,’ said Gary Stoltz, chief design and development officer of R2 Cos.
“R2 Cos. has so far spent $11 million renovating the building on the southern end of the LaSalle Street canyon at 141 W. Jackson Blvd., including the new museum and spiffing up the rooftop deck, lobbies and atriums.
“Raucous trading pits, where generations of brokers shouted orders for agricultural products and other commodities, started shutting down about 10 years ago as computerized trading took over. The CME Group, a merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, closed most of its open trading pits during the pandemic. But Cboe Global Markets, founded in 1973 as the Chicago Board Options Exchange, opened in 2022 a new group of trading pits on the Chicago Board of Trade Building’s seventh and eighth floors.
The street-level museum includes a theater and giant screen that illustrates how the 1930 building, designed by Holabird & Root and for decades Chicago’s tallest, rose on the site of the original trading exchange. It also tracks the rise of the 1980s addition designed by noted architect Helmut Jahn, designer of the nearby James R. Thompson Center, which Google will occupy next year. Other exhibits include recorded testimonies from traders about what life was like on the trading floor, photos and a projected art display visible at night from blocks away.
“The museum was supported by a $250,000 small-business improvement grant from the city, he said. Similar grants were given in 2024 to local restaurants, all clustered around LaSalle Street and still recovering from the pandemic, including Ceres Cafe in the Chicago Board of Trade Building and Goddess and the Baker.
“Stoltz said the building’s renovation is ongoing. R2 Cos. may revive the lower level, possibly transforming the massive underground vault and safety deposit boxes, where traders once stored important papers, into an event space. A long-term possibility is reopening the slanted roof’s glass-walled observation deck and visitor center, closed in the 1970s, and just below the iconic, three-story statue of Roman goddess Ceres.” (Rogal, Chicago Tribune, 7/7/25}
“Chicago Board of Trade Building Museum, 141 W. Jackson Blvd., is free and open to the public. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays.
Read the full story at Chicago Tribune
- Chicago Board of Trade Building museum pays homage to city’s trading history, immortalized in movies like ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, Brian J. Rogal, Chicago Tribune, 7/7/25
- Look inside the new Chicago Board of Trade Building museum, Danny Ecker, Crain’s Chicago Business, 7/7/25
- Chicago Board of Trade Building Museum Pays Tribute to City’s History in Heart of Financial District; Eunice Alpasan, WTTW Chicago, 7/8/25
- Chicago Board of Trade Museum opens to honor city’s trading history, Erin McElroy, Ashlyn Wright, WGN Chicago, 7/8/25
- The Chicago Board of Trade Building Museum Website