By Ricky Rieckert
Dear readers,
I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend.
This week, I’m writing about old buildings in Aurora’s downtown.
Let’s start with the tallest building in Aurora, and at one time, the second tallest building in Illinois, behind the Sears Tower, in Chicago, the “The Aurora Leland Hotel.”
The 22-story building was constructed in 1928 at 7 South Stolp Avenue (Island Avenue) at the southwest corner of Galena Boulevard, (Main Street).
It was designed by Anker Sverre Graven and Arthur Guy Mayger of Chicago to be a first-class hotel and entertainment center.
The architects called their building “a modern adaptation of the Italian Romanesque style.”
It was host to great jazz musicians, baseball greats, and just about anyone and anything that wanted to entertain on the 19th floor, which the entire floor was one huge room.
I knew a man, William (Bill) Berger, a former friend of mine, now deceased, who was one of the two doormen outside of the building when it opened in 1928.
Bill, who was a bartender at the Knights of Columbus #736 building (the old McCarty Mansion), had told me that fact, and upon going to the Aurora Historical Society, executive director John Jaros was able to produce a picture of Bill, 21 years old in his red uniform.
As a hotel, the Leland, didn’t have a parking lot.
Parking was limited on the streets, however there were not a lot of automobiles back then, so transportation was provided by trains, cable cars, busses, and cabs, along with walking to everything the downtown offered. It was all there for hotel guests, just like downtown Chicago, you had to rely on transportation.
I have said it for years, that Aurora has had everything at least once.
When I was growing up in the 1960s, when Aurora had a population of 38,000 and neighboring Naperville had a mere 9,000, I was a senior in high school. I was in photography class at East Aurora High School and the teacher, Raymond Trembacki, sent me and another student downtown in a car, with a camera to take pictures. One of the places we went to, was the Leland Hotel.
Years later, I did service work there with my brother, when it was condos. The maintenance guy took us for a guided tour. We took the service elevator in the back room, towards the River. It had a dial arrow that you would turn to the select floor and then push the on button. It was just like in the old Three Stooges shows.
The service elevator rode like a Cadillac compared to the regular passenger elevator in the middle of building. We went down and through the two lower levels below ground, with the bottom basement below the Fox River, the water running by, just under the windows.
We then went up to the 19th floor. The open floor was all windows and it was a sight for the eyes seeing in every direction for miles away. The River on the West Side, the buildings, and trees in the distance, along with church steeples. Looking down, the people on the ground level looked so small.
We walked up to the 21st floor and saw the steeple room, used for antennas. The maintenance man told us, that on a clear day, you could see the Sears Tower in Chicago, from the roof.
What a landmark to have in this great city of ours. I would have loved to have been there in the late 1920s and 1930s.
The times and the economy in the 1960s caused the hotel once known as “The Aurora Leland Hotel”, the “Illinois Hotel”, and the “Leland Hotel” to stop operations.
Today, it still remains an apartment building with a first floor restaurant inside, on the Galena Boulevard side, at the corner.
If you have time, stop by the Aurora Historical Society on E. Downer Place to view some pictures and memorabilia.
Have a great week, and see you then.