Murphy Building

155 West Congress – Murphy Building – Steel-frame six-story brick and terra cotta commercial building (1903). The building was constructed for businessman Simon J. Murphy both to house manufacturing enterprises to whom space would be rented and, in the basement, a steam power and heating plant that would not only power the building’s uses but also provide steam heating for a substantial part of the business district. The red brick façade of the Late Victorian building is divided into six bays marked by broad piers in the second to fifth stories and large brackets in the bracketed and modillioned main cornice. In those stories the two end bays contain paired windows on each floor, while the four inner bays each contains a triple set of double hung windows. At the fifth floor level a shallow segmental arch with keystone caps each window bay, and a decorative metal detail was placed at each pier between the arches. A denticulated terra cotta belt course separates the fifth and sixth stories. The windows in the sixth story are double-hung segmental-arch-head singles. The roof is flat. The first floor retains its basic configuration, with an entry in the center of the left-hand five bays and an arched entry at the right, but the finishes are non-original and include mid-twentieth century grey granite bulkheads and center entrance surround. The western entrance, once that of a restaurant called the London Chop House, is finished in white marble panels surrounding a large inset arched entranceway. During a renovation, the Murphy and adjoining Telegraph Building were joined together to share a continuous floor plate and elevator core. The building was constructed for Simon J. Murphy (see significance statement) and originally known as the Murphy Power Building. It initially housed a small power plant in the basement that provided power for business operations renting space in the building and also electric power and steam heating for buildings in a nearby service area. The 1903 directory shows the building then housing shoe and cigar manufacturing operations in addition to printing businesses. Succeeding directories through the later 1910s list primarily printing and publishing businesses.