Chicago Illinois, USA

Demolished 1952

Mecca Flats was both beautiful and important. Originally, the Flats was designed as a hotel for wealthy fair goers to the Columbian Exposition of 1893. After the Fair, Mecca Flats was converted to apartments. The apartments were originally rented to white tenants but became mostly home to African Americans as the neighborhood around the building changed. It was a kind of black neighborhood within a neighborhood and was successful. Architecturally it was beautiful. Consisting of an interior courtyard covered in skylights, with the tenant apartments arranged around the courtyard, the interior was light and relatively safe. The Illinois Institute of Technology purchased the lot where Mecca Flats stood, and the Institute demolished the Mecca Flats in 1954. Mecca Flats was replaced by Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall, also a very important building! Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a wonderful poem about the Flats. I’d love to visit this space its height. Mary Jo H.

The painting is based on a photograph from the Art Institute of Chicago, courtesy of Ryerson and Burnham.

No. 301