Restoration efforts chug along at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre
Major renovations at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre are expected to wrap by the fall of 2027, according to published reports.
Crews are now working to restore the atrium and the skylight, which is made up of 108 stained-glass panels. Crews told the Chicago Sun-Times the renovation will let sunlight come through the stained glass for the first time ever.
Speaking to CBS News Chicago's Noel Brennan in August, Auditorium Theatre chief executive officer Rich Regan said the stained-glass windows had not been touched at all since 1967.
The renovation project has also provided some unexpected entertainment. When workers removed a section of seats to put up scaffolding, they found what the audience left behind decades — even centuries — ago.
The treasures include a Chicago Herald newspaper from 1889, and old programs from shows like Ballet Russe dating back to 1936, when one could buy a Buick for the cost of what is now a monthly car payment.
There was also a seat to see the New York City Ballet at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, October 31, 1967 — the very first show staged after the Auditorium Theatre reopened following another renovation effort.
The Auditorium Theatre, at 50 E. Ida B. Wells Dr. downtown, opened on Dec. 9, 1889. The building was a crowning achievement of iconic architects Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, with none other than Frank Lloyd Wright working as a draftsman, the theater notes.
A 2015 CBS Chicago guide by writer Melanie Falina noted that the Auditorium Theatre was the tallest, largest, and heaviest building constructed in Chicago when it was completed.
"Utilizing load-bearing masonry walls, the Auditorium Building reached new heights, quite literally, and also incorporated some of the first hydraulic elevators making it possible to make it all the way up to the 17th floor of the tower with minimal physical exertion," Falina wrote. "The building was made so well in fact, that in the 1930's when it had fallen into disuse and disrepair, it was determined that it would be 'too expensive to destroy.'"
The Auditorium Theatre was taken over by the City of Chicago during World War II and used by the United Service Organization as a servicemen's center, Malina wrote. The stage was converted into a bowling alley.
Roosevelt University purchased the Auditorium Building in 1946. The theater was closed through the rest of the 1940s, the 1950s, and most of the 1960s, but a renovation project in 1967 brought it back to life. The theatre reopened to the public with that performance by the New York City Ballet, performing George Balanchine's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
The Auditorium Theatre noted that in its early days, it hosted presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and political figures such as Booker T. Washington and Ida B. Wells.
Since the 1967 reopening, the Auditorium Theatre has hosted Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Ray Charles, and Pink Floyd on their "Dark Side of the Moon" tour in 1972 — the year before the iconic album came out. The theater has also hosted musicals such as "Les Misérables," "Miss Saigon," and "The Phantom of the Opera;" Broadway legends such as Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, and Sarah Bernhardt; and even Fred Rogers, for a "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" live show back in the 1980s.
