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Rotary General Secretary
Chesley Perry, in this article from page 38 of the December 1934 issue
of The Rotarian, describes the series of moves of the
Rotary offices. From sharing a steno with the Chicago club on La Salle
Street, to the new (for the time) offices at 35 East Wacker Drive, Perry
discusses the moves, the changes in staff size and amenities, and the
necessity to keep providing enough space for the work of Rotary
International. Subsequently, the Rotary offices were moved to Evanston,
Illinois, where they remain today.
Doug Rudman
Rotary
Grew and We Moved
By Chesley R. Perry
Secretary of Rotary
International
IT WAS a hot day in
Chicago in August 1910, the first Rotary convention was over and the
first Board of Directors was having its first meeting.
Having completed my work
as presiding officer of the convention I had returned to my office to
attend to my own business.
They called me from my
office and persuaded me to take the job of secretary of the organization
for at
 least
a few months. From Paul Harris' office, where we had been
carrying on the promotion of the convention, I brought a card file and a
correspondence file, and placed them on the top of my desk in my own
office in a building then at 189 La Salle Street, near Monroe
Street. The building has been replaced, and the number of the street has
been changed. That was the first office of what is now Rotary
International.
The second office was in
the First National Bank Building, at Dearborn and Monroe Streets.
By that time (January, 1911) the Chicago Rotary Club had decided to have
a club office. Rotary International (then Rotary National) joined with
the Rotary Club in sharing a small office in the bank building secured
at a nominal price. We also shared the services of one stenographer to
begin with.
We remained there until
late in 1912, when we moved into our own office of three small rooms in
what was then the Fort Dearborn Bank Building, at the corner of
Clark and Monroe Streets. Its name subsequently was changed. Our staff
now consisted of three or four people but the organization kept on
growing, and in another year, larger quarters were required, and there
were those who felt that our small back rooms were not in harmony with
the dignity of such an organization as Rotary international, which we
began to realize was to become a world-wide movement.
In 1914 we made our next
move, which was to some very fine quarters in what was then the Karpen
Building, at 910 S. Michigan Avenue. Later it became the Standard
Oil Building. There we had lovely, light offices, and so much of it that
our staff, which by that time had grown to about ten people, rattled
around in the space. But the organization still kept on growing; its
administrative activities increased, it began to function in several
languages. Five times we had to increase our space there. Separate space
had to be provided for THE ROTARIAN. During the nine years in the
Karpen-Standard Oil Building, the staff grew to a total of seventy-eight
people.
The purchase of the
building by the Standard Oil Company and the post-war increasing rental
costs drove us out in 1923, when, largely from a sense of economy, we
moved to the Atwell Building, chiefly occupied by a printing
concern, at the corner of Prairie Avenue and 20th Street, in an old
residential section. (Twentieth Street later became Cullerton Street.)
Rotary International occupied about two-thirds of the entire top floor. |
It was good space for work by our staff, but there was some
dissatisfaction on the part of Rotarians both in the United States and
in other countries over the undignified quarters which we had there, and
the distance we were from the central business section of Chicago.
During this period we began to meet increased demands upon us by
developing more systematic procedure and greater efficiency rather than
by increasing the staff.
 In
1928 we joined the trek to the new Wacker Drive, along the river taking
two floors in the newly erected Evening Post Building, at 211 West.
The name of this building was subsequently changed to The Times
Building. We began here with a staff of eighty-eight people (of whom
thirteen were working on THE ROTARIAN). Here we were in an
attractive location, with plenty of light; but we discovered that it was
a neighborhood of considerable noise.
 While we have made every effort to
keep down the number of persons on the staff, we have experienced the
same necessary increase of staff to keep up with the growth and
development of Rotary international, and, consequently, the need of
additional space. We now have 105 people (of whom twenty-three are
working on THE ROTARIAN).
 This situation has now
been met by our moving one-half mile eastward to the building at 35
East Wacker Drive, (on the extreme right) where we occupy all of the ninth floor and some
space on the eighth and tenth floors.
Here we have made a very
reasonable and economical arrangement as to rent and the management of
the building have been very generous in fixing up our quarters in the
style which they consider is befitting such an organization as Rotary
International. Here we have comforts and conveniences that we have never
before had, an attractive reception room, rooms for the various officers
and
 department heads, and for conference purposes, an adequate board
room, etc. Here we shall be in a better position to render service to
the board, the committees, the district governors, the commissioners,
and to club officers and committees.
Located
as we now are, within a block of Michigan Avenue and only four blocks
from State and Madison Streets, we hope that many more Rotarians will
pay us a visit when they are in Chicago.
The new offices of the
Secretariat and THE ROTARIAN are on the ninth floor.
Nighttime 35 Wacker Drive from a 1938 Rotarian -
Wolfgang Ziegler
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