By Ed Lowe
Senior Writer
The River North Association (RNA) held its annual Spring Fling at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza last night. RNA named its Restaurants and Business of the Year at this highly anticipated event.
This year's winners include the designation as New Restaurant of the Year. The winner is Japonais, located at 600 W. Chicago Ave. Selected as the Restaurant of the Year is Harry Caray's, 33 W. Kinzie St. For those readers who might have been in Outer Mongolia at the time, Harry Caray's attracted national attention when it exploded the infamous baseball in front of their establishment recently in hopes that the Cubs curse would be broken and that Chicago's hapless team might go on to the World Series.
RNA also designated the 125-year-old Kroeschell Engineering as its Business of the Year. Kroeschell is a firm with deep roots in Chicago's history, having been founded in 1879 by four sons of German immigrants. It's one of the few Chicago businesses of that age to retain the original founder's name. In 1906, the company designed the first air cooling system for a major building and installed it in the then-new Congress Hotel.
After a series of family changes, two brothers were awarded a contract for the installation of air conditioning in the new building that became Tribune Tower in 1934. They have installed air conditioning systems in some of the world's largest ships, including the U.S.S. Arizona and the U.S.S. Lexington. Kroeschell is headquartered in the heart of River North at 215 W. Ontario St.
Speakers at the event included Benet Haller of the City's Department of Planning and Development and Jim Law from the Mayor's Office of Special Events. Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) introduced the speakers.
The evening's keynote speech was given by Charlie P. Reiss, senior vice-president of the Trump organization, who discussed the plans for the 90-story, mixed-use building to be built on the site of the Sun-Times building at Wabash Ave. and the Chicago River. This tower, scheduled to break ground in 2005, will alter the City's skyline.
The River North Association represents more than 450 businesses and residents in the area bounded by the Chicago River on the south and west, and by Division St. on the north and Wabash Ave. on the east. The area boasts the highest concentration of restaurants and entertainment venues in the city. It's also home to the art gallery community identified as SuHu because many galleries are on Superior and Huron streets. |
