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The Pittsfield Building: A Jewel In The Heart of Chicago

If you’re middle-aged and happen to have grown up in Chicago, then you most likely have paid at least one visit to the Pittsfield building at 55 East Washington Street.

For years, the art deco and gothic designed 38-story building was the home to doctors, dentists and jewelers, who served millions of Chicagoans’ health needs and retailed and wholesaled fine jewelry in the Loop district known as Jeweler’s Row.

Constructed in 1927 from a design by Chicago architectural firm, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the building was initially owned and commissioned by descendants of Marshall Field and named in honor of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the city where in 1852, at the age of seventeen, Field first found employment in the dry goods business. Eventually he would become the wealthiest and most powerful businessman in the city of Chicago, before passing away in 1906 at the age of seventy-one.

The exterior of the Pittsfield Building is notable for its setbacks at the 22nd, 35th and 38th floors. Setbacks were required by a 1923 Chicago building code ordinance. Terra cotta detail adorns the building façade and the building’s interior had a gross area of 515,280 square feet and 392,647 square feet of leasable space.

Upon entering the building, visitor’s eyes are immediately drawn to the ornate gothic ceilings and beautiful metal work that exists throughout the entryway. Entering further, the visitor will pass ornate brass elevators and enter into a five-story-tall atrium, originally intended to host small shops. The atrium area blends a Mediterranean flavor to the gothic design as the eyes sweep upward, taking in the curved railings, ornate chandeliers and stunning sconces which adorn the area.

A part of the atrium’s main floor is given over to garden seating for the Pittsfield Café, an out of the way restaurant frequented mostly by locals and one of the few remaining spots in Chicago’s Loop where a great breakfast can be had at anytime of day.

It was in the atrium area that the Chief Engineer caught up with Mark Folan, who for the past year and a half has served as Chief Engineer of the Pittsfield Building for his employer, Anchor Mechanical Services. Along with Stationary Engineer Joe Malloy and Stationary Engineer Trainee Sean O’Connell, Mark handles all the day-to-day maintenance and house calls within the commercial space of the building.

Mark explained that about 8 years ago, Pittsfield Development LLC purchased the Pittsfield building. That group then sold a portion of the building to another development group that, two years ago, renovated the 13th through 21st floors and converted these floors into student housing. Fornelli Hall is managed by U.S. Equities and has a separate entryway and elevator banks off the main floor of the building. According to Nikki Gatto, an Owner Representative, the hall presently houses students attending Roosevelt University and Robert Morris College in the downtown area.

Mark also told us that floors 9 through 12 are now being converted in an expansion of Fornelli Hall which will eventually provide housing for up to 450 students from various colleges and universities in the downtown Chicago area.

Mark said that presently, plans call for keeping commercial space available in the building tower and on lower floors of the building, which remain predominantly occupied by jewelers and medical professionals.

We followed Mark to the lower level engineering space of the building, enjoying our ride in the original cabs of DC powered freight cars. Upon our exit in the boiler room, we immediately spotted the remains of an old condensing turbine and dynamo that was used in the building’s early years to produce direct current electricity from coal fired high-pressure steam boilers.

Having been one of the many older buildings in Chicago’s Loop that utilized the now abandoned underground tunnel system for delivery of coal and hauling ash, the Pittsfield was victim to the great Chicago tunnel flood in 1992, which crested at the 39 foot level in the building.

Building mechanicals include two, 350 HP Kewanee fire tube boilers with Webster burners; one, 200-ton Trane reciprocating chiller; and one, 300-ton cooling tower. Fornelli Hall residences all have their own in-unit HVAC units.

Building steam pressure modulates from .5 to 2.5 psig, depending on temperature demand and the five air handling units which service the main lobby, interior corridors and tenant spaces from the lower levels to the fifth floor.

Building controls are pneumatic and a transducer is used to accommodate the I/Net building control system. Pneumatic Shone sewage ejectors, operating at 55 psi, discharge wastewater from the lower levels to city mains and two 4,500-gallon potable water storage tanks on the 39th and 23rd floors provide gravity fed water to tenants.

A native of Edison Park, Mark began his engineering career at CCH in Riverwoods, Illinois and at the Household Finance building campus in Prospect Heights, Illinois. When he isn’t taking care of the Pittsfield, Mark enjoys golf and running.

As we toured the building, Mark pointed out some of the newer amenities being added for students like the student lounge in the basement area. He also related some historical trivia about the building like the private, male only club that existed in the lower level of the building, which served lunch and cocktails to tenant members.

Mark introduced us to Connie Rasmussen, the General Manager of the building who graciously welcomed us and described the major renovation that had taken place in 2004, which cleaned the building exterior and restored the ornate interior ceilings of the buildings main floor. Twelve of the building’s fourteen elevators were also modernized during the 2004 renovation project.

As we toured the original commercial space inside the building as well as the newly renovated student housing area, we were not oblivious to the fact that the Pittsfield Building epitomized the transformation taking place throughout the Chicago Loop area. The building seems to honor the past at the same time it is welcoming a new and exciting future.

Clearly one of the city’s brightest jewels, the Pittsfield Building has a long and bright future in store as it transforms itself to cater to the needs of a new generation of city dwellers while preserving the best memories of its glamorous past.

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