Historical Notes 7-15 W. Downer - The Sherer Building, built 1910
The stunning Sherer Building shares the street with its sister across the street, the Metropolitan Business College. A currently blocked arched tunnel runs under Downer Place connecting the two buildings. Architecture Samantha Oulavong
courtesy of the City of Aurora:
Aurora-born architect, Eugene Malmer, designed the early twentieth century commercial building. Malmer graduated from East Aurora High School and the Art Institute of Chicago; he designed several buildings in the Aurora area from 1903 until 1918. There are many unique features to the triangular shaped Sherer Building: the two-story circular bay window overlooking the Fox River, white glazed brick, decorative glazed terra cotta and second-story Chicago-style windows. Notice the multi-colored terra cotta “S” at the parapet. In recent years, the building went through a series of renovations, including façade repair, extensive cleaning and tuck pointing; new signage and awnings were also installed. Last year, a Mexican restaurant in the building closed without fanfare. An insurance agent and a dentist currently occupy ground floor spaces with the remaining spots for lease.
History courtesy of the Aurora Historical Society:
made the north end of Stolp Island useable for business. The association filled in the old swimming hole on the island’s north end, built the east Galena Boulevard bridge from the island to the east side, and platted out Stolp Avenue north of Downer Place. The association built the Aurora Hotel, Aurora’s first large, modern hotel, in 1915-1917. Their improvements also paved the way for the construction of several buildings on the island’s north end: the Sylvandell Entertainment Palace, the old Beacon-News Building, the Leland Hotel and the present Waubonsee building, formerly Block & Kuhl. But first came the Sherer Block. It was constructed to have leasable office space and had the typical tenants of the day, with a lot of turnover. Its first tenants included a pair of attorneys, a real estate agent and the Aurora Mausoleum Association run by the Healys of Healy Undertaking. From the 1920s through the 1940s, there was a number of tenants (as well as several vacant offices). About 1930, four physicians occupied the building. Other tenants over the years included bookkeepers, dentists and insurance agents. The longest-term tenant was clinical psychologist, Harold Harris, who came in the mid-1950s. He operated the Aurora Psychological Center there for four decades (the name changed to Aurora Center for Psychological Services in the late 1980s). After Harris’ death in the mid-1990s, his wife, Beatrice, continued to run the office as Aurora Clinical Psychology until the end of the 1990s. From the 1970s through the 1990s, Harris’ psychology office was usually the only tenant, with most of the other office space vacant, except for a brief period in the late 1970s and early 1980s when businesses like Colonial Appliance, Fair & Company Realtors and the Christian Science Reading Room were also in the building.
The building was originally known as the “Sherer Block” because “block” was the common designation for a substantial business building. Joseph Stolp Sherer (1867-1941), a lifelong Aurora resident and the grandson of pioneer Joseph G. Stolp, built the block. Sherer was also his grandfather’s main heir and the administrator of the Stolp estate. In his youth, Sherer was originally in the pharmacy business, associated with well-known druggist, Thomas W. Sanders, who was later mayor of Aurora from 1911 to 1915. Sherer then got into the construction business. He was one of the partners of the Island Improvement Association, which Fall 2009
Downtown Auroran
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