My memories of Chicago's Standard Club

Or as everyone knows it now, the migrant shelter at Jackson and Plymouth

By the time I was born, my maternal grandparents were retired.  They turned over their house in Streator, Illinois, and  the clothing store they owned a block away on Main Street to my uncle (one of my mother’s older s brothers). And they made a life of visiting friends and relatives around the country.

They visited Chicago a lot to see my parents and me.  (My brother wasn’t born yet.) They had other grandchildren in California, as well as friends and other relatives there, too. And they also had tons of friends and relatives in other states like Florida and Missouri. Sometimes they took me with them on their many sojourns. And I got to know their friends and relatives, too.

For a time, they kept a makeshift apartment at the Standard Club of Chicago—to stay in while they were visiting us.  There weren’t that many overnight guest accommodations at The Standard Club. Just a few on the upper floors. Their “apartment” was actually two guest rooms put together; one room, the “bedroom,” had a bathroom; and the “living room,” had a little kitchen where the bathroom would be if it was still a regular guest room.  

My grandmother never cooked in Streator; she was too busy “working in the store,” as she always said.  She loved it. And she never learned how to cook.  But she did make toast in her little kitchen at the Standard Club—in the oven!  And for all other meals, they went out.  And sometimes came to our apartment in Uptown for dinner.  My grandfather loved my mother’s cooking, especially when she made leg of lamb, even though she didn’t know much more than my grandmother.  But she tried.  And she had some meager success.

I used to stay at the Standard Club with my grandparents frequently. When they were ensconced there at 320 S. Plymouth Court.  And sometimes I would go to school from there in the morning.  My grandmother would make sure I got on a CTA bus that took me to the Gold Coast and on to the Bateman School at Astor Street and Burton Place.

It was a bit seedy around the Standard Club back then (as it still is).  But I totally loved “The Club,” as Josie and Arnie (my grandparents always insisted that all the grandchildren call them by their first names) always called it.  It was so sophisticated, so regal, and yet so comfy—and so much fun to run around in. The food was delicious.  And the special events were the best. Like at Christmas when Santa came with presents for all the kids who had friends or family that belonged.

I loved just sitting and watching my grandfather just sitting and reading the paper in the lounge while smoking a cigar. I loved visiting the ladies’ room, as well.  It was so luxurious, but not over the top.  Just super comfortable with anything a woman (or a little girl) could want.  

I also loved looking out my grandparents’ 9th floor Standard Club windows that faced west and into the windows of the Monadnock Building across the street. I’d spy on old men at desks with goose head lamps, while wearing green eye shades and white rolled up shirtsleeves. I wondered what they were scribbling with their pencils.  Corrections to their accounting?  Revisions on a novel?  Legal notes for a big case coming up at the old downtown criminal courthouse?

But my very favorite thing at the Standard Club was riding the elevator up and down for hours with Mary, the elevator operator—as I recall a Dorothy Kilgallen lookalike—who didn’t mind at all.  She seemed to really like my company, my little stories and the questions I asked her that allowed her to tell me interesting stories.  I rode with her as much as I could.  And she taught me many lessons without even realizing it.  Like what she got out of making the elevator go up and down.  Besides a salary.  She made friends, she got tips, she heard stories and even some gossip.  And she got to know me.  She seemed like she was very happy.

After years of traveling my grandparents finally settled in Las Vegas. But my grandparents’ Club membership was not cancelled for many years. My grandmother told me to go there anytime and eat and relax.  I did that a few times.  But when I didn’t anymore, she cancelled the membership.

When I was in my 40s, I went to law school directly across the street from the Standard Club on Plymouth Court—and many of my classes had windows that faced it.  I daydreamed about the old days there many times.  And when I actually became a lawyer I became a member of the Chicago Bar Association, which was also across the street from the Standard Club—and when I was at meetings and programs there, I often looked out the windows and thought of the past.

I met Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and her mother at a talk and book signing at the Standard Club—for lawyers only many years ago. She talked about her childhood; and I though of my childhood memories that took place right in that very room.

In recent years, I attended many events there. Luncheons, legal seminars, and even a few parties given by the Edgar Miller Legacy—because in the Standard Club bar there was a set of murals Miller did depicting the Chicago fire (that are now at the Art Institute of Chicago).

Friends with Standard Club memberships also invited me for lunch over the years.  And even friends who came to visit from out of town who belonged to clubs that had reciprocal memberships at the Standard Club took me there and I would reminisce with them about when my grandparents kept an apartment there.

But times have changed. And while the Standard Club is still a club, it sold its renowned and memory-filled building a few years ago. And a part of my past with it. 

It was recently turned into a migrant shelter. With as many as 700 migrants sheltering there at any given time.  Migrants must be living in all the rooms of the club—from banquet halls to dinning rooms, to meeting rooms to the indoor swimming pool area.  And even the little hotel rooms/apartment that I so loved so many years ago. I would love to get in there to see how it all works.

I’ve been down there a number of times recently as it’s only few blocks from my house.  I talk to the migrants in broken Spanish and they answer back in broken English.  Hard to exchange much information that way.  Cop cars keep watch there with their blue lights flashing.  The migrants seem nice—the ones I’ve talked to are mostly from Venezuela.  I’ve heard that some don’t like to leave the park across the street at night and that some have been arrested.

I suspect since the migrants mix with the unhoused and the drug dealers in that city park, that there could be trouble.  The migrants can’t work until they win their case for asylum.  So I suspect it may be tempting to become “employed” by an unsavory sort while waiting for their hearings, or not attending their hearing at all—and not taking a chance of losing. And just disappearing into…whatever.

Every time  I pass the Standard Club, I feel sad that this is how it all ended up.  And when I look at the migrants all around the building, conversing nicely with each other, or possibly making business deals with people they shouldn’t, I keep wondering one thing: What would Mary think?