Brick and heavy timber warehouses on wide diagonal streets, and First Avenue where Purple Rain filmed on location.
What North Loop looks like
Six to eight storey brick and heavy timber warehouses fill about sixty two structures across seven blocks, most in the Chicago Commercial style with segmental arched windows and cast iron trim. Some blocks run to Italianate and Richardsonian Romanesque fronts instead. The streets sit at roughly forty five degrees to the rest of the city grid, following the river rather than the numbered avenues beyond it. Washington Avenue runs through the middle of them as the main thoroughfare.
At North and First Street, the Safe Storage building keeps its arched wall openings and a painted sign running the length of its side wall. A few blocks over on Third Street, the old Sherwin Williams warehouse fronts the sidewalk with a stone portico and carved lettering over the door.
At , several produce warehouses were combined into one brick building to Cass Gilbert's design, enclosed in brick by 1904. The 1897 warehouse at still has rail tracks in its basement, laid for loading freight cars straight off the street.
First Avenue, on the edge of these blocks, was built in 1937 as a Greyhound bus depot. It is now a music venue, its black walls covered in silver stars and its marquee reading First Avenue and Seventh Street Entry, with one star painted gold near the entrance.
Shot in North Loop
Purple Rain filmed inside and outside First Avenue in November and December 1983, using the club as itself rather than dressing it as anywhere else. Prince's management paid the venue $100,000 for the shoot. The production gave the club its patch panel and dimmer packs.
Purple Rain, 1984
First Avenue
The club interior and exterior on screen are the real First Avenue, filmed on location rather than a set. Its black walls carry more than four hundred stars honoring performers, mostly silver. Prince's own star is repainted gold. Street View
What North Loop can double for
LoDo in Denver, Colorado
LoDo's red brick warehouse blocks along Wazee and Wynkoop Streets went up in the same decades as North Loop's own. Coors Field sits right at its edge the way sits at North Loop's, close enough that the ballpark's architects built it low and matched the district's brick and stone trim. LoDo's warehouses run taller and its streets wider in places, so keep the frame on one block face rather than a full intersection to hold the match. Try searching red brick warehouse block now.
The Third Ward's cream city and red pressed brick warehouse fronts cover about ten blocks in the same Chicago Commercial and Italianate styles as North Loop's own rows, built in the same decades. Milwaukee's brick runs paler and more uniform than North Loop's mix, so a tighter, desaturated frame holds the match better than a full block in color. Try searching cream brick warehouse block now.
Fulton Market's brick and heavy timber warehouses, with their loading docks and cobblestone streets, are the same building type and roughly the same period as North Loop's own blocks. Fulton Market's core runs narrower and taller than a North Loop block, so a side street away from Fulton Street itself holds the match better than the main strip. Try searching brick loading dock street now.
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