It's such a treat to take the elevator to the top, and walk down the staircase- taking in the beautiful leaded glass windows, and the sounds...the wonderful aural "collage" of sounds :: of a Singer practicing her scales, a violinst warming up for a concerto, and so many other notes, floating through the space.
I just hope that its new owners- THE infamous owners of The FlatIron Building on Milwaukee North (the same ones that wanted to put artists on the internet, in real time- the same as people peer in on College coeds)...treat the building and its long time tenants with all the love and respect that they and the building so deserve.

White-knuckle elevator ride, yes! I loved this building from the first time I played in piano recital on the top floor at age of four; even then the building's architecture, both grand and understated, fascinated me. I used to stare at the ceiling mouldings before going up for my performance. The sounds permeating the halls were wondrous. What great memories. I need to go back.

When I bailed on my engineering career at the phone company and went back to school to get an interior design degree, the only school in the state that was FIDER accredited was Harrington Institute, up on the fourth floor of the Fine Arts Building overlooking Grant park, and I got just as much out of the physical setting as I did from the classes.

A few years ago, Harrington was assimilated by an arts-school collective, and it moved to a shiny, soulless new building in the West Loop, thus depriving a new generation of interior designers of the chance to see firsthand that old buildings don't need to to be 'updated' with new finishes & color schemes to be completely functional. They don't even need to be restored, for that matter. All they need is to be respected & decently maintained.

This place is an island of calm & order & a kind of civility that is fast disappearing as once-elegant Michigan Avenue mutates into just another boring strip of franchise outlets.