Keegan Morris

If you’ve been above Floor 1 of the Chicago Loop’s Fine Arts Building, you’ve probably been in them. The last manually operated lifts in the City of Chicago trundle up and down the building with a charming inefficiency.

It’s just one enigma in a building of them.

Built in the 1880s, the Fine Arts Building has long housed some of Chicago’s greatest artmakers — music schools, sculptors, architects, violinmakers have long occupied some of the address’s studios. Today, that roster includes barber shops, puppeteers, and a wonderful book shop: the second story’s Exile in Bookville.

A New Book Explores the Fascinating Stories and Businesses Inside Chicago’s Eccentric Fine Arts Building | WTTW Chicago

From its manually operated elevators to the master instrument builders inside, the Fine Arts Building holds numerous distinctions, which are explored in a new book.

www.wttw.com

One other person who makes the building their professional home is author Keir Graff. Following a multi-part article in NewCity (it was far and away the publication’s longest), Graff has now published a book with Chicago-based Trope that lovingly recounts the many histories and eccentricities of the building’s many past lives.

I interviewed Graff for WTTW, producing a written story about both the building and his new book.

Read the story at wttw.com, and learn more about Chicago’s Fine Arts Building: Music, Magic and Murder at keirgraff.com.