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Behind the Scenes

10/15/2012

 
at Open House Chicago.
The Chicago Architectural Foundation inspires people to discover why design matters, by offering behind the scenes access to 150 of the city's greatest spaces and places.
I took advantage of a weekend off from the paint store,  and my Kiddo and I suited up to brave the rain and explore. One of our stops was The Oriental Theatre.
Picture
The Oriental Theatre has come full circle, from the height of acclaim in the 1920s, to the depths of neglect in the 1980s, and back to the spotlight again for the millennium.
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The theatre's style is  a mixture  of influences and elements from what was then known as the "Oriental" part of the world - India, Indonesia and Tibet.
Picture
The unusual décor includes a court of East Indian royalty, as  well as various molded plaster creatures such as griffins, monkeys, buddhas, and elephants.
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Restoration artists went to work patching, painting, gilding and glazing, using 4000 gallons of paint, 62,500 sq.ft. of aluminum leaf, and 12,500 sq.ft. of gold leaf for the restoration in 1996.

And since it's almost Halloween, here's a spooky story about The Oriental. The spot where theater now stands was originally where The Iroquois Theatre once stood, on December 30, 1903 there was fire that was considered the deadliest theatre fire in US History, at least 605 people died as a result. Many visitors to the theatre have reported hearing loud footsteps and faint screaming inside the theatre. It's also said that the alley behind the theatre is haunted by the ghosts of people who tried to use the fire escape to get away  from the fire but fell six stories to their death because the fire escape  itself had never been built.



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