Just look at this photo. Nine women in starched white uniforms face the camera. Dimly visible behind them are elaborate lighting fixtures, marble walls, and ornate plaster moldings and other ornamentation. Nurses at an old hospital, perhaps? Waitresses at a fancy hotel?
Nope. Meet the elevator operators of the brand-new Sterick Building.
When the Sterick opened at Third and Madison in 1930, no detail, it seemed, was spared from the $2.5 million landmark. The exteriors of the lower floors gleamed with Minnesota granite and Indiana limestone; upper stories were carved “artificial stone” capped with a green tile roof. Inside, the main lobby “rivaled the beauty of a Moorish castle,” said the newspapers, and a cluster of chandeliers cost more than $1,000 each.
