Courthouse Place

Chicago, United States

Open to visitors

The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

Strollie cannot guarantee access — always check before you travel.

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Heritage registerNational Register of Historic Places↗

Courthouse Place, located at 54 West Hubbard Street in Chicago's Near North Side, is a Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse designed by Otto H. Matz and completed in 1892 or 1893. Built on the site of an earlier 1874 criminal courthouse and incorporating materials from that structure, it originally served as Cook County's criminal court and included adjoining jail cells and execution facilities. For its first thirty-five years, the building hosted landmark trials including those of Leopold and Loeb and the Black Sox Scandal, and it inspired journalist-written works including the 1928 play *The Front Page* by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. The building's pressroom attracted prominent Chicago writers of the 1920s literary renaissance, among them Carl Sandburg and Sherwood Anderson. After the courts relocated in 1929, the building housed various city agencies before deteriorating. It was restored as a commercial office building in the 1980s following acquisition by Friedman Properties, Ltd. Now known as Courthouse Place, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1993.