Postcards from Our Past
Office of the Provost & Executive Vice President

The Chicago Campus of Roosevelt University is centered in Adler and Sullivan's famous Auditorium Building, opened in December 1889. Home to the beautiful 4,200 seat Auditorium Theater, the building also functioned as a 400-room luxury hotel for several decades and, as these postcards reflect, represented the urbanism and modernity of Chicago to sightseers and visitors from around the country. Roosevelt University bought the building in 1947.

(to see both sides of the cards, click here)

Descriptions from the cards:

CHICAGO'S VAST HOTEL: The Auditorium fronts upon Lake Michigan and with its Annex is the most stupendous building of its kind in America. In addition to a grand hotel of ten floors it contains a theatre with 7,000 seats. From the Tower Observatory an extended view of the city may be had. The site is one of unsurpassed grandeur and exclusiveness in a city such as the second city of the United States.

AUDITORIUM HOTEL, CHICAGO. Situated on Chicago's most fashionable Boulevard. Unobstructed view of Grant Park and Lake Michigan. Unrivalled as a summer and winter hotel. Within five minutes walk of the post office, the leading theatres and business centers. Recent improvements made at a cost exceeding $300,000.

(From the archives of the Provost's Office)