Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom will celebrate it’s 100th anniversary in 2026 and has been a gem of the city’s Uptown neighborhood on the North Side for that entire run.
Funded by brothers Andrew and William Karzas to help legitimize public dancing, they hired architects Ralph D. Huszagh and Boyd Hill to create its ornate stucco façade, wild balconies, and grand arched windows.
For it’s unique interior the brothers tapped John Eberson, a movie palace to mimic a courtyard of a Spanish palace the brothers had visited and were inspired by.
“The Aragon was modeled after the Aragón palace in the Alhambra,” William’s son, Andy, told legendary Chicago author Studs Terkel in 1963.
read more at: Setlist.fm
