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The Medinah Temple and Tree Studios building manufactured lots of vices," Friedman recalls. "It was made up of people who were down on their luck. Most of the buildings were vacant and derelict." The neighborhood (at the time called North Loop) was known as a red-light district, with adult bookstores and peep shows. When Marina City opened in 1962 just north of the Chicago River with its twin 64-story "corn cob towers," it was billed as a "city within a city" — much like the Marshall Field & Co.-built Merchandise Mart that opened in 1930 with a massive 4.2 million square feet— which kept those who lived and worked in the respective buildings from exterior elements. secluded It wasn't until the 1970s that things started to change—but slowly. "A new culture of people came of age who were a little less constrained by what was, and were more defined by what could be," says Mark Falanga, president of Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc., from his fourth-floor suite. "It took some great vision to look at old manu- facturing buildings and redefine the environment in which people here worked and lived." "It took some great vision to redefine the environment in which people here worked and lived. "—Mark Falanga The building that housed Tree Studios was built in 1894. After the death of his father in 1970, a 21-year-old Friedman inherited an "old rooming house" on Clark and Hubbard. A plethora of code violations forced him to tear it down, but it captured Friedman's attention, and he quickly purchased a vacant 40,000-square-foot building across the street with a $4,000 down payment. But he struggled to find tenants and was forced to fill the buildings with artists and photographers who paid rent in the form of artwork and photographs of Friedman's young family. "I started seeing an opportunity in these old buildings because of what I saw being demolished," says Friedman, who later was named the chairman of the City of Chicago Landmarks Commission under former Mayor Richard M. Daley for his preservation work of historic buildings in River North. When Gordon Sinclair opened his namesake restaurant at 500 N. Clark St. (now Naha restaurant) in 1976, Friedman had an epiphany. "I had peo- ple pulling up who had never been here in the past," he says. "All I had before were drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes. All of a sudden I was actually seeing people who had money in their pockets." Soon after, Friedman started courting restaurants to join the neighborhood. "Remember, back then, restaurants and bars weren't sexy," he says. "They were the orphans of any real estate developer because they were notorious for odors, insects, and for people not paying rent." It was also in the late 1970s when real estate mogul Daniel Levin, founder and chairman of The Habitat Company, tried to get financing for the posh East Bank Club, originally dreamed up as a pair of residential buildings on either side of a large health club. "They told me I was crazy," Levin says. Along with his partner, Jim McHugh, they rescaled their vision into the high-end, 450,000-square-foot health-club facility that now has 10,000 120 MIchIganaveMag.coM