No one’s lying down in front of a bulldozer yet, but Friends of the Three Arts Club, an informal group of neighbors, former residents, and supporters of the 94-year-old institution at Dearborn and Goethe, are making a last-ditch effort to halt what they see as an imminent disaster. They say plans the city has approved to “restore” the club by converting its upper floors to apartments and installing a public arts center on the lower levels will destroy both its architectural integrity and its unique mission as a communal residence for women in the arts. They’re blaming mismanagement, a wayward board, and Chicago’s aldermanic stranglehold on zoning for turning an estimated $3 million landmark restoration into a $24 million mistake. Musician and dancer Maria Cernota, a former resident and onetime board member, says the club fought off a similar assault by would-be developers 25 years ago. This time, she says, “they’ve hijacked our organization.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The Three Arts Club was founded in 1912 by Jane Addams and 31 women from the city’s moneyed elite–a roster that included names like Armour, Dick, Hutchinson, McCormick, and Ryerson. Its purpose was to provide a home and club for women studying the arts, modeled on similar clubs in other American cities and Europe. Its Byzantine building, designed by Holabird and Roche, opened in 1915, with three floors of dormitory rooms for about 100 women and an elegantly flowing main floor that included a library, tearoom, open courtyard, and dining room where residents took breakfast and dinner together daily. Over the years more than 11,000 artists–many of them studying at local universities or serving internships at cultural institutions–have made it their home away from home, benefiting from the opportunity to mix with women from other artistic fields.
The plans also call for excavating under the courtyard to create a 100-seat basement theater that will be occupied by Timeline Theatre Company, one of two “anchor partners” invited to share the facility in what’s being touted as a return to the club’s “mission to support the study of music, theater, and visual arts.” The other partner is the Sherwood Conservatory of Music, which will open a Three Arts outpost offering individual and group music lessons.
