Medinah Temple | |
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General information | |
Type | Auditorium, rebuilt as a department store in 2000, rebuilt as a casino in 2023 |
Location | 600 N. Wabash Ave. Chicago, Illinois United States |
Coordinates | 41°53′34″N87°37′38″W / 41.89278°N 87.62722°W |
Completed | 1912 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Huehl & Schmid |
The Medinah Temple is a large Moorish Revival building in Chicago built by Shriners architects Huehl & Schmid in 1912.
It is located on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois at 600 N. Wabash Avenue, extending from Ohio Street to Ontario Street.
It is currently the temporary home of Bally's Chicago casino, while the $1.7B permanent location is being constructed nearby. [1]
The building originally housed an ornate auditorium, seating approximately 4,200 people, on three levels. The stage floor extended a considerable distance into the auditorium, and the seating was arranged in a U-shape around it. The auditorium contained an Austin Organ Company pipe organ (opus no. 558), installed in 1915, with 92 ranks, a 5-manual fixed console and a 4-manual movable console (added in 1931). Among the many events that took place in this venue was the annual Shrine Circus. Additionally, WGN-TV used the Medinah Temple for The Bozo 25th Anniversary Special (telecast live September 7, 1986).
The fine acoustics of the Medinah Temple's auditorium made it a favorite site for recording. Many of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's most famous recordings from the late 1960s (for RCA with then-music director Jean Martinon) through the 1980s (for Decca with then-music director Sir Georg Solti) were recorded there. The music to Fantasia 2000 was recorded at the Medinah Temple auditorium from 1994 to 1996.
The auditorium also contained a five-manual, 92 rank pipe organ, Austin Organs Opus 558, installed in 1915. The instrument was the first five-manual instrument built by the firm and one of the largest in the city. It was controlled by a five-manual gallery console and a movable four-manual console. [2] In March 2001 the City Council approved funding to remove the organ for eventual donation to a non-profit organization. [3] It was donated to a church in Old Mill Creek, Illinois but was never installed due to the prohibitively high cost of re-assembly. [4] According to the Organ Historical Society database the instrument is no longer extant. [5]
In late 2000, the Medinah Shriners left the building. The exterior was restored, while the interior was gutted and rebuilt [6] It was designated a Chicago Landmark on June 27, 2001. [7] as Bloomingdale's Home and Furniture Store, which opened in 2003. In June 2019, Bloomingdale's parent company, Macy's, sold the building to Chicago developer, Al Friedman. The store closed in September 2020, for redevelopment. [8]
On May 5, 2022, it was reported that the Medinah Temple would be renovated as a temporary home for Bally's Chicago casino, which had been approved by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The proposal was approved by the Chicago City Council in December 2022 and the Illinois Gaming Board in September 2023. [9] [10] The temporary casino opened on September 9, 2023. It is expected to remain at Medinah Temple until the casino's permanent location in the River West neighborhood is completed in 2026. [11]
The Salt Lake Assembly Hall is a building owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which sits on the southwest corner of Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. It has seating capacity for an audience of approximately 1,400 people.
A theatre organ is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s.
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Mathias Peter Møller, commonly known as M.P. Möller or Moeller, was a prolific pipe-organ builder and businessman. A native of the Danish island of Bornholm, he emigrated to the United States in 1872 and founded the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Company in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, in 1875. The city of Hagerstown, Maryland, took notice of Möller's early successes and induced him to move his business there in 1881 to help make it a viable business center in Western Maryland. The company remained in business in Hagerstown until 1992, with hundreds of employees at its peak and a lifetime production of over 12,000 instruments.
The symphonic organ is a style of pipe organ that flourished during the first three decades of the 20th century in town halls and other secular public venues, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has roots in 19th-century Europe, and is a variation of the classical pipe organ. It features expanded capabilities, with many pipes imitative of orchestral instruments, and with multiple expressive divisions and organ console controls for seamlessly adjusting volume and tone, generally with electric organ actions and winding. These expansions let the organist approximate a conductor's power to shape the tonal textures of Romantic music and orchestral transcriptions. These organs are generally concert instruments as opposed to church organs. The symphonic organ has seen a revival in the US, Europe and Japan, particularly since the 1980s.
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Medinah is an unincorporated community in the state of Illinois and is a northwest suburb of Chicago, located in DuPage County. It is neighbored by the three villages of Roselle, Itasca, and Bloomingdale along old Chicago-Galena highway between Route 19 and 20.
Austin Organs, Inc., is a manufacturer of pipe organs based in Hartford, Connecticut. The company is one of the oldest continuously-operating organ manufacturers in the United States. The first instruments were built in 1893 with the Austin Patent Airchest, and many remain in fine playing condition to this day.
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The Schoenstein Organ at the Conference Center is a pipe organ built by Schoenstein & Co., San Francisco, California located in the Conference Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah. The organ was completed in 2003. It is composed of 160 speaking stops spread over five manuals and pedals. Along with the nearby Salt Lake Tabernacle organ, it is typically used to accompany the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Schoenstein & Co.'s president and tonal director, Jack Bethards, describes it as "an American Romantic organ" that is "probably more English than anything else."
Shryock Auditorium is an auditorium located on the campus of Southern Illinois University Carbondale in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. The auditorium was named for the university's fifth president, Henry William Shryock, who died inside the building just before a student convocation on April 13, 1935. The auditorium is a focal point for musical performances and distinguished lectures in the local area.
Hinners Organ Company was an American manufacturer of reed and pipe organs located in Pekin, Illinois. Established in 1879 by German-American John Hinners, the firm grew through several partners, becoming Hinners & Fink in 1881, Hinners & Albertsen in 1886, and Hinners Organ Company in 1902. In the 1920s Hinners established a subsidiary, the Illinois Organ Supply Company, which mass-produced parts for Hinners and other firms. Business declined in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, changing technology, and increasing competition. Hinners became a service company in 1936 and closed in 1942.
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The Chicago Casino Proposals is a request for proposals made to the City of Chicago, for the first permanent casino within city limits. There were 5 original proposals. After vetoing 2, there were 3 remaining after the first round of selections. This included the Bally's Tribune site, the Hard Rock International One Chicago site, and the Rush Street Gaming 78 neighborhood site. On May 5, 2022, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that the Bally's Tribune site was the choice as the location for a city casino.
Bally's Chicago is a casino and entertainment venue temporarily located in the Medinah Temple Building, and a planned casino resort that will be built on the North Branch of the Chicago River in Chicago. In May 2022, then Mayor Lori Lightfoot approved Bally's Corporation's bid to construct a casino complex in the city. The complex will be located in the city's River West neighborhood, near Grand Avenue, Chicago Avenue and Halsted Street. The plan was approved by the Chicago City Council in May 2022, and a State of Illinois gambling licence was issued in 2023. The resort is expected to begin construction in 2024, and open in 2026. Demolition of the old structure began in August 2024.