#53: DANK Haus
DANK Haus was my final stop on the 2015 Open House Chicago (it was a long weekend y’all; it’s taken me three months to write about it!). German stuff goes on here. Language classes. Beer steins being emptied, probably. Maybe dancing with lederhosen?
According to the flyer, the building was originally erected as a hotel in 1927 but was purchased by the Deutsch-Amerikanischer National Kongress (DANK) in 1967 to house their Chicago North chapter and preserve and promote German culture, heritage, and language.
There’s nothing too remarkable about the interior. There is a really nice hall, with a full-scale bar area where many a bier has been and will be drunken. There’s a museum where you can learn things like the fascinating fact that Germans and Irish staged something called the “Beer Riots” in 1855 when the mayor of Chicago forced the bars to close on Sundays. One person died, so…probably not as fun as it sounds!
Many people come to the building for German language classes, but a smaller group comes for the Schlaraffia Club, a sort of social club. The room where they gather is basically owls everywhere, owls everywhere. Guess they’re into that (also, I think apparently schlaraffia means owl). An old man with a heavy accent told me to take this picture:
DANK Haus German American Cultural Center 4740 N Western Ave Chicago, IL 60625
