Courthouse Place, also known as the Cook County Criminal Court Building, is a Richardsonian Romanesque-style building at 54 West Hubbard Street in the Near North Side of Chicago. Designed by architect Otto H. Matz and completed in 1893, it replaced and reused material from the earlier 1874 criminal courthouse (the same location of the trial and hangings related to the Haymarket Affair). The complex included the Cook County Jail and the hanging gallows for prisoners sentenced to death. The current structure housed the Cook County Criminal Courts for its first 35 years, and was the site of many legendary trials, including the Leopold and Loeb murder case, the Black Sox Scandal, and the jazz age trials that formed the basis of the play and musical Chicago. Newspaperman Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur based much of their 1928 play, The Front Page, on the daily events in this structure. Other authors of the Chicago’s 1920s literary renaissance that were employed in the fourth floor pressroom include Carl Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson, and Vincent Starrett. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 13, 1984 and designated a Chicago Landmark on June 9, 1993.
