A COINCIDENCE IN CHICAGO

By co-incidence, Ginsburg’s first Gurdjieff group meeting was held in the room where Margaret Anderson began her Little Review magazine in the Chicago Fine Arts Building at 410 South Michigan Avenue. This building is an old Chicago landmark, a 10-story office building housing mostly performing arts companies, such as music publishers, musical instrument makers, theatrical agents and the like, and two small theaters.

Ginsburg writes: ‘In the summer of 1997 Dorothy and I joined the Chicago Gurdjieff Foundation group. At that time they were holding a beginner’s study group in room 917 of the Fine Arts Building and we were regular participants. I immediately recognized the name of Margaret Anderson on the plaque by the door, but the curious thing was that neither any of the other participants, nor the study group leaders, seemed to know who she was or the historicity of The Little Review. At first I thought they were ‘putting me on,’ because I could not believe that no-one there knew of her history in the work. Later I became convinced that none of them knew anything about her. This small office #917 appears to be unoccupied at the present time (see photographs).

Margaret Anderson’s The Little Review was published here, circa 1914-17, and other ‘little’ magazines such as Dial and Poetry had offices in the Fine Arts, too. Architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Van Doren Shaw worked here (read more about Margaret Anderson on).