Mecca Flats was an apartment complex in Chicago completed in 1892 and originally built as a hotel for visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition.
Portions of the building's basement floor were unearthed in 2018 and subsequently displayed by IIT's architectural school, which is located in S.R.
[1] The Mecca Flats was originally seen as a building for the rich since it was initially constructed to serve as housing for the visitors of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.
[6] Knowledge about the design of the Mecca Flats is limited because only black and white photographs survive, making it impossible to know what the exact appearance of the complex was.
It is assumed that most, if not all, of the building was decorated with similar vibrant colors because the basement tile matches the same pattern as the flooring in the court.
The construction work being done at Crown Hall was suspended so that a team of historians and urban archaeologists can excavate a portion of the remaining tile.
These artifacts will be installed in a permanent exhibit dedicated to the Mecca Flat at the Graham Resource Center once the tiles have been properly preserved.
[7] Aspiring author Gwendolyn Brooks was once a worker for one of the residents at Mecca Flats and she started delivering goods door-to-door.
Brooks's writing also included narrative about the bleak time period at the Mecca Apartments when the complex was used as a tenement for poor and mostly African-American residents.