Tiki Room, Chicago, IL (bar)

Name:Tiki Room
Type:bar
Street:61 E. 24th St.
City:Chicago
State:IL
Zip:60616
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
Intact building with signage. Looks like it has been shuttered for a long time.

Anyone know anything about this place? I haven't been able to find anything. Photo taken today.

TT

I've been looking for info on this one for a few years now - best guess I have is that is was just a ghetto dive bar.

This neighborhood has been extremely rough for quite a few years...

I didn't want to be so quick to dismiss this place. It's across the alley from the former offices of the Chicago Defender newspaper. I also remembered from before, there was a high-quality sign on the fence to the parking lot on the corner to the north that read Chicago Defender and Tiki Room Parking. Drove by yesterday and that sign is gone. Maybe there was some connection? Maybe it was just a bar where the newspaper folks hung out? You gotta have one of those, right? Either way, it seems doubtful the paper would associate with the likes of a ghetto dive bar. Perhaps you should check with the paper, James, since you have a legit reason to do so. They do list an archivist on their webstie.

Next, I did a search on Chicago Defender + Tiki Room and found out the "famous" Tiki Room building is for sale for $1.8 million:

http://www.loopnet.com/Listings/[email protected]

Somebody should dust off their letter of credit and get in for a showing and do some urban archaeology. Heck, there's a lot of new development right there on Michigan Avenue, and the McCormick Place expansion has crept within a block of it...

TT

..i have actually been inside this place years ago, about 2000,2001....for about 6 months, it was used as a rave location and after hours party place...the doors didn't open til midnite...it was totally illegal....these people were not supposed to be in there which is why it got busted in a few short months.....you had to enter through a side door after being checked out by the bouncer...you had to know someone to get inside and since i worked in the bar industry for awhile, i basically knew everyone.....inside, was ahuge dance floor with a large thatch covered circular roof with about 12 bamboo posts holding it up....there was evidence of old fountains (that no longer worked) but the rock walls formation and basins were intact....there were some glass float lamps left over from the original place and some netting....there was also a broken tiki by the door inside....nothing in there was salvagable at that time....but back in the day this place probably rocked....remineded me of the kona kai at the marriot..they also had that thatched circular hut in the middle of the bar but the one here seemed twice as big.....it was a sad scene to hear all that hip hop trance music inside with all these hootchy mammas writhing on the dance floor.....it got real raunchy in there as everyone was loaded by the time they got there and they partied well past 10 a.m....it was only open like that on saturday nights....then it closed once again......never heard anything about it till someone resurected this place from the dead in this thread.....hope this info helps alittle....

Still there.

According to the current realtor's website, nelsonhill.com this property is under contract along with some adjacent properties. This includes the Chicago Defender building, which the realtor calls the "Former historic Illinois Automobile Club building." It's 2400 S. Michigan Ave., part of the quasi-historic "Motor Row" which has some very old car dealership and related buildings, and is seeing some slow development.

TT

In the late 70s this was the home of Black Independent and World Cinema Exhibition. It was done by a small collective of people lead by a guy named Peter Blue, who was a member of the LA Rebellion filmmakers at UCLA. Google it.

Gone.

I think what really did this place in was someone else getting its website domain name.

Mr. Floyd: I googled it. Interesting stuff but I failed to find Peter Blue or the Tiki Room connection.

TT

Wow. The whole three-story building is gone. According to Googlemaps, sometime between October 2014 and July 2015.

On 2015-09-24 13:12, Tonga Trader wrote:
I think what really did this place in was someone else getting its website domain name.

HAHAHAHAHA

On 2015-09-25 07:35, Loki-Tiki wrote:

On 2015-09-24 13:12, Tonga Trader wrote:
I think what really did this place in was someone else getting its website domain name.

HAHAHAHAHA

Ok, I read this yesterday, but didn't get it until just now. Sobriety is a terrible thing, I tell you...!!