Book documents the vibrant Chicago offices of Ebony and Jet
A new book presents Barbara Karant's photographs of the Chicago headquarters that housed Ebony and Jet magazines. The 11-story building opened in 1972 at 820 S Michigan Avenue and was the first downtown tower commissioned by a Black-owned company. After Johnson Publishing Company sold it in 2010, preservationists and historians worked to document its distinctive interiors.
The book, 820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of the Johnson Publishing Company, an American Icon, combines Barbara Karant’s images with a foreword by Deborah Willis and essays by Cheryl Finley, E James West, and Carla Williams. The 11-story building at 820 S Michigan Avenue opened in 1972 as the first downtown high-rise built for a Black-owned business.
After Johnson Publishing Company sold it in 2010 as advertising revenue fell, Karant—then teaching at Columbia College Chicago, which bought the property—photographed every floor from 2013 until it became luxury homes in 2017. Its library contained over 6,000 volumes about African and Black history and culture.
The book may help preserve public memory of a landmark Black media headquarters and its design legacy. Historians, architects, designers, and readers interested in Black cultural history could gain access to interiors that are no longer intact. In Chicago, it may deepen appreciation for sites tied to Black enterprise and creative life. It could also inform future preservation efforts by showing how photography and scholarship can document meaningful spaces before redevelopment changes them.