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emk544 t1_j1e00pq wrote

Don't mean to be pedantic, and this is a beautiful shot, but the current Wanamaker building was actually built around 1910. The original building, the "Grand Depot," was built in 1876. John Wanamaker replaced that original building piece-by-piece on the same site in the first decade of the 1900s. My source is a combination of Wikipedia and the fact that I've been to the roof - there is a cornerstone up there inlaid with John Wanamaker's name and the year the building was completed.

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RainyReese t1_j1ee7ms wrote

When I was a little girl, my mother would bring us kids downtown at Christmastime when downtown was somewhere to go as a special outing for holiday cheer and take us to the Wanamaker Building. We never bought anything but it was huge and decorated so extravagantly and this photo brings back memories.

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haroldhabanero t1_j1f5umh wrote

This is awesome, nice work. Reminds me of a Guy Billout piece

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cheviot t1_j1gqurw wrote

This building used to have a beautiful entrance from the Market-Frankfort line, but all that was destroyed when the lower level was removed in the 1990s and replaced with a parking garage.

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explorewithdora t1_j1h04v3 wrote

Yo yo, former worker at the cafe in the lobby. Not sure if it's still open since this was 2019, but there is a connection between the BSL concourse into the building. It's not exactly nice down there, but the stairs up into the lobby are quite grand.

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aarrtee t1_j1hab2n wrote

another winner from u, dude.

bravo.

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cheviot t1_j1ip7ko wrote

When you exit 13th street station on the south side of the EL you come to a set of locked glass doors. Inside are two stairways leading up and a locked door in the middle of a large sealed up opening straight ahead. Straight ahead used to lead directly into The Wanamaker Building. That doorway straight ahead now leads to parking level 2.

The stairways leading up go to one of the north entrances of the Wanamaker building (and possibly to the long closed 13th St Station mezzanine)

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