In Chicago

Steam shovels began pecking at Chicago soil last week on the spot where the La Framboise family traded with Indians nearly a century ago. The conservative Chicago Daily News, household necessity for 440,000 people, had ordered for itself a new house of steel and Indiana limestone. It will rise 25 stories along the west bank of the Chicago River--a neighbor of the new Union Station. It will have a public plaza on which fountains will play and perhaps a few trees will grow. Under the plaza and one corner of the building will run the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. But railroad service will not be interrupted during construction of the News' house. Holabird & Roche are the architects. Cost is estimated at $8,000,000. Upper stories will be rented as offices.

Two years ago, after the death of famed Editor Victor F. Lawson, the News was bought by Walter A. Strong and a group of Chicago businessmen. The new house will contain a Lawson Memorial Room, panelled with carved oak taken from the Lawson residence on Lake Shore Drive.