Hi, I'm Curia City's Jason Mark, and as we were getting ready for the holidays and looking through the archives, I found a story I wanted to share.

The building at 680 North Lakeshore Drive in Chicago Streeterville neighborhood is famous for a lot of reasons.

When it was completed in 1926, it was among the biggest single-use buildings in the world.

At one time, it was the home of Playboy Enterprises.

And for a short stretch beginning in the 1980s, it was home to a tiny but legendary club called

The Gold Starzardian Bar.

That's Curious City listener Dionne McGill,

and when he started a new job in the 680 building several years ago,

you noticed that on the ground floor there were these locked doors,

and painted on those doors in gold letters were the words

Gold Star Sardine Bar and the names of entertainment greats and jazz legends like Tony Bennett.

Liza Minnelli.

I'll make a brand new start of it's in all New York. And Lionel Hampton, just to name a few.

I'm a jazz fan, so I was really interested in it.

You know, Lionel Hampton and all of that.

So Dionne reached out and asked if we could tell the story

behind this short-lived but legendary music spot.

Reporter Monica Eng will do just that.

We'll also pump up your holiday cheer

by meeting a couple of the folks

who sell Christmas trees in Chicago parking lots.

It's all coming up after the break.

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