I went downtown for a meeting with colleagues today, and after that, took a stroll. Temps were fairly chilly, but still above freezing. I wandered over to State Street, near the storied Chicago Theatre.

“The Chicago Theatre was the first large, lavish movie palace in America and was the prototype for all others,” asserts the theater web site, though I know there are other claimants dating from the decade before. Still, there’s no doubt that the Chicago was a palace among palaces.

“This beautiful movie palace was constructed for $4 million by theatre owners Barney and Abe Balaban and Sam and Morris Katz and designed by Cornelius and George Rapp,” the site continues. “It was the flagship of the Balaban and Katz theatre chain.”

I’m assuming that means $4 million in hefty soon-to-be Coolidge dollars (Harding dollars?), since the palace was completed in 1921. I ran that through an inflation calculator and came up with the modern equivalent: $68.7 million.

After reading the following paragraph, I decided I need to take a closer look at the theater sometime, even though I’ve seen it many times. That’s because I never knew about the French connection and especially the stained glass.

“Built in French Baroque style, The Chicago Theatre’s exterior features a miniature replica of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, sculpted above its State Street marquee. Faced in a glazed, off-white terra cotta, the triumphal arch is sixty feet wide and six stories high. Within the arch is a grand window in which is set a large circular stained-glass panel bearing the coat-of-arms of the Balaban and Katz chain — two horses holding ribbons of 35-mm film in their mouths.”

That’s not quite what photos of the stained glass depict, at least not “film in their mouths,” but never mind. Note also the Municipal Device — the Chicago Y — just over the marquee.