The Rookery Building

The Rookery Building on South LaSalle Street is recognizable by its heavy, ornate facade of red brick, stone, and terracotta, which incorporates Romanesque, Venetian, and Moorish design motifs. Completed in eighteen eighty-eight by architects Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root, the structure is the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. It was built on the site of a temporary city hall that appeared after the Great Chicago Fire. That earlier, ramshackle building became known as the rookery because of the pigeons that flocked to its exterior and the local reputation for corrupt politicians inside.