Courthouse Place, also known as the Cook County Criminal Court Building, is a Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...

-style building at 54 West Hubbard Street

Hubbard Street

Hubbard Street is a road in Chicago, Illinois named for early settler Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard. Where Hubbard Street passes over the Kennedy Expressway, the Expressway enters a tunnel made up of surface streets known colloquially as "Hubbard's Cave." Hubbard Street has three distinct sections....

 in the Near North Side

Near North Side, Chicago

The Near North Side is one of 77 well-defined community areas of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located north and east of the Chicago River, just north of the central business district . To its east is Lake Michigan and its northern boundary is the 19th-century city limit of Chicago,...

 of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. Designed by architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 Otto H. Matz and completed in 1893, the build stands on the prior location of a public market. The structure housed the Cook County

Cook County, Illinois

Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...

 Criminal Courts for 35 years, and was the site of many legendary trials, including the Leopold and Loeb

Leopold and Loeb

Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb , more commonly known as "Leopold and Loeb", were two wealthy University of Michigan alumni and University of Chicago students who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 and were sentenced to life imprisonment.The duo were...

 murder case and the Black Sox Scandal

Black Sox Scandal

The Black Sox Scandal took place around and during the play of the American baseball 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banned for life from baseball for intentionally losing games, which allowed the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series...

. Newspaperman Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...

 and Charles MacArthur

Charles MacArthur

Charles Gordon MacArthur was an American playwright and screenwriter.-Biography:Charles MacArthur was the second youngest of seven children born to stern evangelist William Telfer MacArthur and Georgiana Welsted MacArthur. He early developed a passion for reading...

 based much of their 1928 play, The Front Page

The Front Page

The Front Page is a hit Broadway comedy about tabloid newspaper reporters on the police beat, written by one-time Chicago reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur which was first produced in 1928.-Synopsis:...

, on the daily events in this structure. Other authors of the Chicago’s 1920s literary renaissance that used the fourth floor pressroom include Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...

, Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...

, and Vincent Starrett

Vincent Starrett

Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett , known as Vincent Starrett, was an American writer and newspaperman.- Biography :...

. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on November 13, 1984 and later designated a Chicago Landmark

Chicago Landmark

Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...

 on June 9, 1993.

In 1929, the Criminal Courts left the 54 West Hubbard Street location, and the building was then occupied by the Chicago Board of Health and other city agencies. After poor alterations and years of neglect, the building was acquired by Friedman Properties, Ltd in 1985. The property was restored and refurbished as “Courthouse Place,” an office development later expanded to include the restoration of other surrounding historic buildings.

One of the principal tenants of the building today is the law firm Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott

Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott

Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott LLP is a Chicago and Denver-based law firm founded by Fred Bartlit, Jr., Phil Beck, Skip Herman, James Palenchar, Don Scott, and Mark Ferguson in 1993. The firm is a spin-off of Chicago-based law firm Kirkland and Ellis...

.

This is also the new headquarters for the Chicago Alternative Energy company "Revolution Environmental" and advertising agencies LKH&S and Colman Brohan Davis.