Stevens Hotel, Michigan Blvd, Chicago, IL, 1952

About this postcard

A tall red-brick hotel block with stone trim and a rooftop pavilion rises behind a screen of trees on Michigan Boulevard, the name "The Stevens" lettered across the facade. The card advertises 3,000 outside rooms, each with bath, and a spot opposite Grant Park that keeps guests near the Loop but away from downtown noise. Its Boulevard Room offered fine cuisine, dancing to famous orchestras, and a full-hour musical comedy revue. The Stevens opened in 1927 and was billed as the world's largest hotel; Conrad Hilton bought it in 1945 and gave it his own name, though the printed view still carried the older one. The sender, signing himself Grand Pa, wrote on June 30, 1952, about 100-degree heat in Chicago to family in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.