CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A historic hotel in Chicago's South Loop celebrated the arrival of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Monday.
The Blackstone Hotel, known as the “Hotel of Presidents,” has a replica Oval Office set up in its lobby for the DNC this week, complete with presidential stationary.
The installation serves as a tribute to the 13 U.S. presidents who have stayed at the hotel, including Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.
It was a suite inside the hotel — where Republican leaders met in 1920 to nominate Warren G. Harding — that inspired the political term “smoke-filled room.”
“As [Harding] exited the suite, the door opened up and smoke came out of this, because obviously everyone was smoking cigars and cigarettes, and one of the Tribune reporters wrote … ‘Out of a smoke-filled, Mr. WG Harding …’ and the story went along,” said Pierre Giacotto, the area managing director of Sage Hospitality's Premier Collection.
The DNC was last in Chicago in 1996.
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