Wax Trax building gets preliminary landmark designation

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks has approved a preliminary landmark recommendation for Wax Trax! Located at 2449 N. Lincoln, life and business partners Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher opened the WAX TRAX! records store in 1978. Their shared passion for music inspired the retail venture and their personal tastes, creative generosity, and willingness to take risks shaped the store into an international source of eclectic and ground-breaking music.

Meeting Criterion 1 for its value as an example of city, state, or national heritage, WAX TRAX! invigorated Chicago’s music scene. With bootlegs, imports, and hard-to-find records, cassettes, CDs, and videos, WAX TRAX! became an international retail destination. WAX TRAX! helped to shape the world’s perceptions of Chicago music. As the home base of the WAX TRAX! record label, the store at 2449 North Lincoln helped to launch industrial-dance music, what became to be known as industrial music, in the United States. 

WAX TRAX! opened at a time when society’s pendulum was swinging away from earlier decades’ idealism and freedom-focused liberation toward the New Right and nostalgic conservatism of the Reagan years. The store provided a rare refuge to outsiders and outcasts as a mecca and a meeting place for those most comfortable outside the mainstream. The arrival of WAX TRAX! in Chicago was monumental in terms of shaping Chicago’s music scene. WAX TRAX! was a favorite of director John Hughes in whose film's music played a key role.

The building also meets Criterion 4 as an example of exemplary architecture. WAX TRAX! is a neighborhood store and flat building with an unusually high degree of ornamentation. It is a rare, early example of the use of glazed-brick cladding applied to a small-scale building. The building maintains an original Renaissance Revival cornice with a “broken pediment,” swags between curved brackets, a highly detailed central panel, and four acroterion and an obelisk projecting above the cornice’s horizontal elements. Carved Bedford limestone elements on the building’s façade include prominent window hoods and sills, and a first-floor cornice with mascarons (human faces) which are rarely found on a store and flat building. 

The structure was built circa 1880s and re-fronted circa 1900 in white- and green-glazed brick. In the decades leading up to World War I, white-glazed brick and terra cotta took precedence over darker tones as the preferred cladding for dozens of skyscrapers built in the Chicago Loop. 

Meeting the Integrity Criterion, WAX TRAX! possesses sufficient integrity to convey its historic architectural and cultural significance. The building remains in its original location within a low-scale but dense commercial setting. Additions to the structure have been at the rear and are not visible so have not negatively impacted the structure’s integrity. The original storefront and windows have been replaced, but this is typical for commercial structures of this age and can be reversed. The building largely retains its character-defining features, materials, and overall design and therefore sufficiently conveys its historic significance.

Significant features of the building would be identified as all exterior elevations, including rooflines, of the building. With this preliminary recommendation approved, Landmarks staff will draft a detailed report before getting the Commission’s final recommendation. Once that is approved the proposed designation will head to City Hall to get approvals from the Committee on Zoning and full City Council.