Chicago magic Center 19 West Randolph

Gordon:

Great Job!

I have a quick question: Is there a reference to the original Magic Lounge on Cermak in Cicero?

That's where Marshall Brodien worked for "The Godfather" until it was turned into a strip club.

Harold Rossiter 323-325 W. Madison Chicago (a music store that also sold magic and had a magic catalog)
Thurstons brother, Harry lived at 526 S. State st

I didn't see the Burlingame names mentioned
Charles (Hardin) was in Englewood and Chicago.
There was a cupola other Burligmames in the Chicago area with different names. I'll look them up.

Robert Wassermann Chicao
Herman L. Weber "Namreh's New Magic" Chicao


EE. M Vernelo 282 Michigan Ave (1880s)
United Buying Association

US Trick and Novelty Palatine, Ill
Union Book & Novelty Palatine, Ill (1890s)

Theobold Novelty Co. 1880s Chicago

I gotta go feed my animals.........

Thanks, Spartacus. A couple of those actually are on the map already. Some are clearly not, and I'd love to have a source. So yeah, if you have a good reference please do let me know. You definitely have a number of interesting places that others haven't mentioned. Thanks for your help.

Roterberg was at what is now 120 W Illinois in 1898. The 26 N Class St you mention sounds the same as 26 N Clark (345 N Clark today), which was the location in 1893. I have some street renaming charts, but not immediately at hand. I'll check. A location at 48 Vine tho, that sounds completely new. Can you shed more light on that?

Thanks! See George Banning's Magic Lounge http://www.chicagomagicstudio.com/map/locations/337.html

That sounds like the place you're referring to.

Interesting about the N. Clark St. addresses. The second time I ran away from home (at 15) was to Chicago. I stayed in a hotel called the Wothington on N. clark st. 75cents a nite. I pan handeled in the day time. Around the corner on a cross street was a chili place where I ate bowls of chili to stay alive. It happened to be next to a police station. Eventually the cops caught up with me and sent me back to Texas. This was in 1953. Clark street at that time was skid row. Have no idea what its like today. But I got my first taste of what it meant to be down and out and living on skid row.
Addresses are from the catalogs themselves and Sperbers catalog and I'm a molehill of magical knowledge. (history buff mostly learned from catalogs)

Briggs Magic Shop 4058 Maypole Ave. Chicago (R. Harry Briggs) from a Sherms catalog with Briggs stamp on the cover. Possibly late 1920s

Thanks, again, Spartacus. Wow, great story about your youth. Clark street is not skid row today by any means.

Thanks for the street number for Harry Thurston. I only had general area location for his apartment and business. See Palace of Illusion. http://www.chicagomagicstudio.com/map/locations/347.html

No mention of Burllingame yet because I haven't come across a street address. The ads I've seen so far just list a box number.

Charles Burlingame has an Englewood, Ill. and a Chicago address. I'll go through my stuff and see if I can come up with addresses.

There is also a Ralph Sylvestre which is a pseudonym for a Hardin J. Burlingame (maybe a brother) also in Chicago and there is another

Bamberg, Jasper (Burlingame) #8 Wahbash Ave and P.O. Box 851 Chicago

and there is another Burlingame with a pseudonym, I'll try and track that down.

ok it turns out the other name is Sid Macaire which is also a pseudonym of one Hardin J. Burlingame. He has a catalog titled "Sid Macaire's Descriptive Catalouge of Entirely New and Superior Wonders (1900)
and another "The Art of High Grade Prestidigitation" also with a date of (1900)

Ok, lets see if we can make sense of this.
Hardin J. Burlingame operated 3 business at one time:
Charles L. Burlingame (mfg if apparatus and illusions)
Ralph P. Sylvestre & Co. (stage mindreading and fake mediums)
George L. Williams & Co. (for the general public.

So, it looks like the P.O. Box 851 and 8 Wabash Ave. Chicago is the address for all of the above Burlingames.
"Burlingame took lessons from David Tobias Bamberg (Okitos father)and used the stage name "Jasper Burlingame" while performing in Chicago"

http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/H._J._Burlingame

No clue to where the Sid Macaires name comes into all of this but there is a catalog with his name on it, and there are separate catalogs with the other mentioned names.

Thanks, Spartacus. 8 Wabash Ave would be in the 2nd street renumbering, but I don't have that key handy. For now, I'll add it to the Map with a note about it needing to be refined.

If you can find a reference to 48 Vine for Roterberg, I'd appreciate it. That part of the city was more residential at that time period so it might be his home. It would be about 1315 Vine in today's grid.

Charles Burlingame in Englewood, Ill is at 5800 La Salle Street.

48 Vine St. was Roterbergs very first catalog. The 26 North Class St. was Roterbergs #2 catalog;
After that 145 Illinois St is on the #3 catalog and that is dated 1894. The Illinois street address goes to the #7 catalog.
The #8 Roterberg catalog is dated 1904 with the new location at 176 Ontario
#9 catalog has 177 Ontario (which would be across the street)
#10 catalog has 151 W. Ontario. This address goes up to the #15 catalog, that is dated 1916.

#16 and there after is 145 Illinois
He sold the store to Felsman in 1916.
So it seems Roterberg moved back to the 145 Illinois address after moving around
or
sources say, Roterberg started out doing mailorder before opening a store so the early addresses may be his home addresses. Interesting to know if you can find a Class street in old Chicago.

PS I know the guy who has the # 1 & 2 catalogs. If you want to contact, PM me.

Just added Signor Barnello's home to the map: http://www.chicagomagicstudio.com/map/locations/377.html

Thanks for the Roterberg details! I'm very happy to have this, it will take me a bit to catch up on the site though.

It could be that the Ontario street addresses, as well as the first two, could be mail order/home addresses. Roterberg was well known for the 145 Illinois/Palmer House store. Seems odd that he would start out at Palmer in 1894, move around and then go back in 1915/16.

A bit of background on Roterburg. After he opened his store, he later set up three different entities and locations. August Roterberg was at 176 Ontario St. selling wholesale only. R.W. Reed handled the mail order with his store at 67 La Salle St. I.F. Halton was at 148 La Salle with the store front operation and lessons taught by Harry Jansen (Dante). This information is from the October 1908 Sphinx. There are photos of the the principles named above.

Halton left Roterberg and opened Halton and Jansen at the 148 La Salle location in or about March 1909. It was not a friendly split as various mud slinging ads appeared in the Sphinx. A very attacking ad of Roterberg (thought unnamed it is clear who they are talking about.) appears in the December 1909 Sphinx. The catalog # 11 listed them as suppliers of Roterberg apparatus. This catalog I saw in the Ken Klosterman collection. By Catalog 12 in September of 1909, they had moved into larger illusions primarily. Later, by Feb 1910, Halton and Jansen had opened a branch store 2510 W. Madison St, and advertised that all the items in catalog 10 & 11 were being made by them at that location. They still had the La Salle Location open downtown. Roterburg had closed his wholesale shop run by R.W. Reed and everything went through Halton and Jansen.They ran a promotion for the largest purchaser of products between February and September 1910, would get a glass line trunk free, Second largest would get a packing case escape. The third largest would get fre $10 of merchandise from catalogs 10 or 11. By May 1, 1911, Halton and Jansen were in receivership. Jansen had left selling props to perform in Europe. He left Halton to sort out the mess, When a considerable amount of inventory suddenly "vanished" a federal court appointed a receiver to take charge of all the properties. On June 7, 1911, an auction was conducted and most of the magic apparatus was bought by Roterberg. LeRoy had been cheated out of royalties on the deal and never forgave Jansen. Later in England, LeRoy tried to make many of the Halton and Jansen props in his own shop.

John G. Hauff were at 324 N.Western Ave, Their 1913 catalog is almost identical to Halton and Jansen #12. The same catalog cuts and almost identical descriptions in every case. This would lead one to believe that they bought out the assests of Halton, Jansen and LeRoy after the receivership. Servais LeRoy had joined the group towards the end. It is not known how long they remained in business.

This information came from ads in Sphinx and William Rauscher's fine book on Servais LeRoy.

Geez, what a mess. No wonder it is so hard to untangle. Thanks for the insight and references, Richard.

Richard - Thanks again. I've updated a bunch of locations thanks to the info and trails you gave me to follow. I tracked down an ad for Hauff that shows him in business in 1921, by the way, so he lasted at least that long. See http://www.chicagomagicstudio.com/map/locations/387.html

So I'm thinking that Roterberg's location on "Class St" is a misprint, and the actually address was on "Cass St." There was a Cass street in pre-fire Chicago. Can anyone confirm other places where Class is used, which would shoot holes in my typo-theory? (General Cass was a War of 1812 figure, and there's even a Cass County elsewhere in Illinois.)