Slot Machines for Bars in Printers Row, Chicago

History

Printing firms built beside Dearborn Street Station, completed in 1885, and the Encyclopedia of Chicago says the area became the Midwest's printing center. Huge plants rose at the south end of Dearborn Street and Plymouth Court for Donohue in 1883, Donnelley in 1897 and Franklin in 1914. Giants like Donnelley built their success on catalogs, magazines, maps, phone books and textbooks, mostly printed for publishers outside the region, and Block Club reports that raw materials came in through the station while finished books, newspapers and magazines went out the same way.

Printing businesses began relocating in the 1960s, the landmark file says, and railroad operations at the station ended in 1971. Developers began turning buildings such as the Donohue Building into lofts in the late 1970s; the City landmarked the station in 1982, and by the mid-1980s it was a commercial center. The 500 through 800 blocks of South Dearborn, Federal and Plymouth became a Chicago Landmark district in 1996.

The last printer in Printers Row was leaving for suburban Elk Grove Village, CBS Chicago reported in July 2018.

The area today

Block Club describes the neighborhood as stretching from Ida B. Wells Drive to Polk Street and from Clark to State. The Encyclopedia of Chicago puts its heart on two blocks of Dearborn between Congress Parkway and Polk Street, where the Duplicator Building (1886) and the Pontiac Building (1891) are examples of the First Chicago School of Architecture. The big plants at the south end of Dearborn and Plymouth Court are decorated with bas-reliefs and mosaics of printing's history. Dearborn Station, at 47 W. Polk, still stands, and the plants around it were rehabilitated for commercial and residential use. The Red Line's Harrison station, at 608 S. State, connects to seven CTA bus routes.

Bars and restaurants here

Block Club reported several changes here in 2025. A bar opened at 723 S. Dearborn in June, named partly for a health encyclopedia printed at the press once housed there. A Lincoln Park cafe opened a second location at 715 S. Dearborn that spring, with a larger dining room than the original and breakfast sandwiches added. At 47 W. Polk, the station's address, a chain bar closed abruptly in March, and by December a new bar was slated for the space. If your room is on South Dearborn between Ida B. Wells Drive and Polk Street, the Printers Row Lit Fest, announced for its 41st year in 2026, takes over that stretch of Dearborn each September.