Throwback Thursday: When Kingsbury Plaza Wasn’t Even Archdukebury Plaza

When you’ve been publishing a blog as long as we have, you end up with one heck of a photograph archive. Fortunately, the interwebs gave us “Throwback Thursday,” an excuse to re-purpose our snapshots from ten years ago.

Today the wayback machine takes us to see the genesis of Kingsbury Plaza (520 North Kingsbury Street), or as it was known back then: The Grand Kingsbury.  The stately ovoid column has become such a familiar landmark for people coming into and going out of downtown that it’s hard to believe just a decade ago it didn’t exist.

So, what used to be there?  Not much.  A surface parking lot took up the space where the skyscraper’s parking garage is today.  And the tower, itself, rests upon what was a kind of marine wasteland with disused and rotting docks and pilings at the edge of the Chicago River — remnants of the neighborhood’s more industrial past.

 

Location: 520 North Kingsburg Street, River North

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