IN: The Merchandise Mart (or the Merch Mart, or the Mart) is a commercial building located in the downtown Loop, of Chicago, Illinois, United States. When it opened in 1930, it was the largest building in the world, with 4,000,000 square feet (372,000 m2) of floor space. The art deco landmark is located at the junction of the Chicago River's branches. The building is a leading retailing and wholesale destination, hosting 20,000 visitors and tenants per day as of the late 2000s.

Wholesale showrooms occupy 50% of the usable floor space, and the Sultan of Brunei once spent $1.6 million at the Mart to furnish his entire palace, claiming the location was the only place where the task could be completed in one week. Select showrooms are open only to wholesalers, with others accessible to the general public. Unlike stores with traditional shelf and rack displays, entire usable rooms are created, providing consumers an opportunity to compare form and function between applications and manufacturers. A portion of the stores offer items for purchase singly or as a collection, while others offer design services, preservation, renovation, or installation. In addition to being a resource for architects and decorators, the Mart also has featured award-winning designs as selected by the American Institute of Architects. Catering to suppliers, on-site firms specialize in providing professional services for market research projects.  In 1931, Marshall Field and Company lost five million dollars, followed by eight million in 1932. The wholesale division was greatly reduced and Field's reduced its space in the Mart from four floors to one and half. The Mart continued to display the latest trends in home furnishings within the showrooms and trade shows. The company recovered late in the decade, but did not return to all previously occupied space.  In 1942, L. L. Skaggs formed a partnership with three other men and named the partnership the Owners Service Company, hence Osco. The headquarters moved from Waterloo, Iowa, to the Merchandise Mart.  A retail shopping area, named The Shops at the Mart, opened in 1991 and includes apparel shops, beauty services, bookstores and newsstands, financial services, telecommunication services, travel services, specialty food and wine stores, photo services, a dry cleaner, shoe shine stand, and a food court. A U.S. Post Office is located on the first floor and a FedEx location is on the second floor.  The Apparel Center houses the 521-room Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza River North hotel, the offices of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago campus of the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago, as well as the Chicago office of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency. GoHealth occupies 93,000 square feet (8,600 m2) on the 5th floor of Merchandise Mart, the Potbelly Sandwich Works' corporate offices are located in the tower. Motorola Mobility moved its headquarters to the Merchandise Mart in 2014.

What other businesses does it house?

OUT: Chicago campus of the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago, as well as the Chicago office of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency.


IN: Cabaret is a 1972 American musical drama film which was directed by Bob Fosse and which starred Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey. Situated in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931, under the presence of the growing Nazi Party, the film is loosely based on the 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret by Kander and Ebb, which was adapted from the novel The Berlin Stories / Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood and the 1951 play I Am a Camera adapted from the same book. Only a few numbers from the stage score were used for the film; Kander and Ebb wrote new ones to replace those that were discarded. In the traditional manner of musical theater, called an "integrated musical", every significant character in the stage version sings to express his or her own emotion and to advance the plot.

Roger Ebert gave a positive review, saying: "This is no ordinary musical. Part of its success comes because it doesn't fall for the old cliche that musicals have to make you happy. Instead of cheapening the movie version by lightening its load of despair, director Bob Fosse has gone right to the bleak heart of the material and stayed there well enough to win an Academy Award for Best Director." Variety says: "The film version of the 1966 John Kander-Fred Ebb Broadway musical Cabaret is most unusual: it is literate, bawdy, sophisticated, sensual, cynical, heart-warming, and disturbingly thought-provoking. Liza Minnelli heads a strong cast. Bob Fosse's generally excellent direction recreates the milieu of Germany some 40 years ago." Jamie Russel from BBC.com reviewed: "The first musical ever to be given an X certificate, Bob Fosse's 'Cabaret' launched Liza Minnelli into Hollywood superstardom and reinvented the musical for the Age of Aquarius."  Pauline Kael wrote a review applauding the film: "A great movie musical. Taking its form from political cabaret, it's a satire of temptations. In a prodigious balancing act, Bob Fosse, the choreographer-director, keeps the period--Berlin, 1931--at a cool distance. We see the decadence as garish and sleazy; yet we also see the animal energy in it--everything seems to become sexualized. The movie does not exploit decadence; rather, it gives it its due. With Joel Grey as our devil-doll host--the master of ceremonies--and Liza Minnelli (in her first singing role on the screen) as exuberant, corruptible Sally Bowles, chasing after the life of a headliner no matter what; Minnelli has such gaiety and electricity that she becomes a star before our eyes."  In 2013, film critic Peter Bradshaw listed Cabaret at number one on his list of "Top 10 musicals", describing it as "satanically catchy, terrifyingly seductive ... directed and choreographed with electric style by Bob Fosse ... Cabaret is drenched in the sexiest kind of cynicism and decadent despair."

What is an x certificate?

OUT: