If you were a Bloomie’s Chicago customer at the River North store, you won’t be hugely surprised when you walk into Bally’s new pop-up casino in the 111-year-old Medinah Temple.
Bloomingdale’s saved this massive Moorish Revival architectural fantasy (at 600 N. Wabash) from demolition when it opened a store there in 2003, restoring the dome-topped brick exterior, while gutting and transforming the inside.
But if your memory of this landmarked building goes back to the time when it was home to the annual Shrine Circus (as well as a headquarters for the Shrine organization, the bizarrely branded but once-ubiquitous philanthropic club also known as the “Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine”), you’re in for a surprise.
The old Shrine circus, like the orientalism of its sponsoring group, was a product of its time. Its flaws, including cultural appropriation and animal abuse, are obvious in the rearview mirror, and should have been then. But for its audiences of clueless kids, the circus was also thrilling: the big caged jungle cats going through their paces (the trainer daring to enter the cage and turn his back on them!); the elephants on parade (glamorous, scantily clad women perched atop!); the human cannonball (hurtling across the 4,200-seat amphitheater!); the clowns and contortionists; and, most of all, the dazzling aerial ballet performed at a breathtaking height on (and off!) the flying trapeze.
The scene inside the old building is still mesmerizing, but unrecognizable. The amphitheater has been replaced by a throbbing, multilevel arcade, populated with acres of glowing, beckoning machines—robots all—primed and ready to boogie down with you. If you’re over 21, an ID is all it takes to get in, the staff is welcoming, and if you want to register as a member, they’ll start you off with some free games. The doors open at 8 AM and close at 4 AM; take a seat, push a button, you’re a player.
When I dropped in at noon, five days after the September 9 opening, attendance was sparse. The rationale for a downtown casino has always been that it’ll draw tourist dollars, as opposed to sucking up money residents would otherwise spend at existing businesses (or on feeding their families). Maybe that’ll happen at night and on weekends, but if I had to guess about these relatively few lunchtime gamblers, most of them of a certain age, I’d say they were also mostly locals.
The only thing that looked familiar inside was the domed ceiling, with its ring of stained glass windows. To turn the old structure into a functional department store, Bloomingdale’s (which left in 2020) had created a completely new, four-story interior, with an atrium offering a dome view from every level. It now houses nearly 800 slot machines spread over the three upper levels; 50-some table games (roulette, blackjack, etc.) on the top two floors, three restaurants (only one was open at lunch), and a couple bars. A lower level is visible from the atrium, but off-limits to customers. Peering down there, I spotted artist Shawn Michael Warren taking a paintbrush to the wall.
Warren was born and grew up in the Chicago area, graduated from the American Academy of Art, and spent an inspirational term studying the old masters in Florence, Italy. His virtuosic body of work has often focused on American history as experienced by people of color. But in this piece, a mural commissioned by Bally’s that will stay with the building after the temporary casino closes, he’s paying homage to Chicago’s rich architectural legacy and the venue’s circus history. Taking shape directly on the wall was a representation of the original blueprints for the building, which Warren noted was designed by Chicago architects Harris Huehl and Richard Gustave Schmid, along with what looked like a nascent couple of elephants, a big cat, a large fez, and—sailing right out of my memory—an airborne young woman on a flying trapeze.
Warren says that image came from a vintage poster. He expects to finish the mural this week.
Meanwhile, news of the casino opening drew some backlash abroad, where the name “Medinah Temple” has been taken by some to mean a religious facility. A casino in a former mosque could be sacrilege. But Medinah Temple has never been a religious facility or a sacred space.
I called CAIR-Chicago to ask about this; here’s what executive director Ahmed Rehab said: “This was never a mosque, but it’s a place with Islamic inscriptions on a building in the style of Islamic cultural design. A lot of people consider gambling to be antithetical to religious values.”
So, should the inscriptions be removed? I asked. “That’s going to be impossible in my opinion because it’s a historic landmark building, and I believe this casino is temporary,” Rehab said.
“I don’t believe these inscriptions are Quranic,” he continued. “They’re not from the holy scriptures; they’re from Arabic texts, and I believe the meaning of them is ‘There is no winning without God.’ So ironically, it’s an interesting reminder. Gambling is something Muslims consider to be predatory, because mostly it’s poorer folks that suffer, losing their hard-earned money for the prospect of hitting something big, which hardly ever happens. It’s not something Muslims do; it’s something in our faith considered against our values.”
“I’ve received hundreds of emails and calls about it,” Rehab said. “I think if the inscriptions can be covered in a respectful manner during the period of the casino’s operation, that would be ideal. But ultimately, it’s the gambling culture that hurts families that offends me as a Muslim, more than that this is happening in this particular building. Our faith is about substance more than symbolism, and here the substance is the havoc that is wreaked on the lives of people who fall into gambling addictions.”