12/06/2021
Forum Hall 324 East 43rd Street
Built in 1889, the oldest hardwood-floor ballroom in Chicago sits at the corner of 43rd Street and Calumet Avenue. In the 1930s and ‘40s, it was a popular jazz venue with more dancing space than most nightclubs on “the Stroll.”
“I remember specifically that one of my first gigs was at the Forum Hall,” said Milton, the “Dean of Jazz Bass Players,” who would go on to tour with Cab Calloway and Dizzie Gillespie after meeting them here in Chicago, according to An Autobiography of Black Jazz by Dempsey J. Travis. “We used to play for a percentage of the gross receipts and I would carry my tuba and fiddle on the streetcar to that gig, which wasn’t very far from my house,” Milton said. Nat King Cole and Floyd Campbell played here, too, and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, the ballroom hosted a popular dance class.
After a brief appearance in the 1973 film The Sting,, the Forum was shuttered and forgotten. In 2011, the city was a few days away from demolishing it when a Bronzeville organization called Urban Juncture stepped in to buy the building. It plans to convert the Forum into a mix of retail, hospitality, gallery, and performance space.
Once a bastion of jazz greats, many grand venues in and around Bronzeville have shuttered. These buildings hold on to some of that history.
