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September, 1972: Diary Entry |
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May 29, 1972: At the Indianapolis 500 |
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Return to Index for 1972 |
About a month after I moved to Chicago, I made a Saturday afternoon visit to the top of the John Hancock Building.
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The project, which would become the world's second tallest building at opening, was conceived and owned by Jerry Wolman in late 1964. The project was financed by John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. Construction of the tower was interrupted in 1967 due to a flaw in an innovative engineering method used to pour concrete in stages, that was discovered when the building was 20 stories high. The engineers were getting the same soil settlements for the 20 stories that had been built as what they had expected for the entire 99 stories. This forced the owner to stop development until the engineering problem could be resolved, resulting in a credit crunch. The situation is similar to the one faced during the construction of Waterview Tower at 111 West Wacker. Wolman's bankruptcy resulted in John Hancock taking over the project, which retained the original design, architect, engineer, and main contractor.
The building was one of the first mixed-use skyscrapers in Chicago. While even residential towers have commercial space on the ground floor, the Hancock Center allocated the first 43 floors to commercial and office space. These, due to the pyramidal structure of the tower, were the largest floors. From the 44th to the 92nd floor, the building is a residential tower. From the 93rd floor to the top, the building is again commercial, with some offices but mostly restaurants and the 95th floor observation floor (which is where I went this afternoon).
One of the most famous buildings of the structural expressionist style, the skyscraper's distinctive X-braced exterior shows that the structure's skin is part of its "tubular system". This is one of the engineering techniques which the designers used to achieve a record height; the tubular system is the structure that keeps the building upright during wind and earthquake loads. This X-bracing allows for both higher performance from tall structures and the ability to open up the inside floorplan. Such original features have allowed the John Hancock Center to become an instant architectural icon.
The building's first resident was Ray Heckla, the original building engineer, responsible for the residential floors from 44 to 92. Heckla moved his family into the building in April 1969, before the building was completed.
I have already walked by the site of the Sears Tower, which is under construction about three blocks from the office building where I work for Continental Bank. It will be taller, and its observation deck will be higher, but it isn't scheduled to be completed for another year or so.
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The John Hancock Center was constructed under the supervision of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, with Colombian-Peruvian chief designer Bruce Graham and Bangladeshi structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan. When the building topped out on May 6, 1968, it was the second-tallest building in the world and the tallest outside New York City. It is, of course, the tallest building in Chicago.
The following was written in 1979 when I printed many of my slides to create actual photo albums:
NOTE:
I can tell you from my vantage point in 1979 that the John Hancock Center didn't remain Chicago's tallest building for long. In 1973, it was surpassed in height (albeit by only eight feet) by the new Standard Oil Building (which was under construction when I visited the 95th Floor in 1972. By another measure, though, it retained its title when you go by number of stories. Even though the Standard Oil Building was eight feet taller it had 17 fewer stories. The reason for the discrepancy is that office floors are "thicker" than residental floors, and the Standard Oil Building has no residential floors. I can also say that only a year after that, the Sears Tower will become Chicago's tallest building, measured both by height in feet and number of floors.
The John Hancock Center is home to several offices and restaurants, as well as about 700 condominiums. It also contains the highest residence in the world. The building was named for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, a developer and original tenant of the building.
From the 95th floor restaurant, diners can look out at Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observatory has a 360° view of the city, up to four states, and a distance of over 80 miles. Residents take expresss elevators from the lobby to the 44th floor sky lobby where they transfer to elevators that serve just the residential floors. The sky lobby floor hosts the residential concierge desk, and various other services for residents. It also features the private health club for residents, which features America's highest indoor swimming pool.
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My first picture (at left) looks east out over Lake Michigan to Navy Pier. Navy Pier, the far end of which you can see in the upper left of the picture, is an entertainment area, with bars, a small amusement park, and other facilities. On the way out the pier, there is a separate area to the north that is home to one of Chicago's wastewater treatment plants (which you can see on the artificial peninsula just north of Navy Pier itself. Lake Shore Drive is down below just a couple of blocks east of the Hancock Center.
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The prominent building right in the middle of the picture is Lake Point Tower, a high-rise residential building located on a promontory of the Lake Michigan lakefront in downtown Chicago, just north of the Chicago River at 505 North Lake Shore Drive. It is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. It rises somewhat apart from the urban cluster of downtown Chicago. Located adjacent to Navy Pier, the building is the only skyscraper in downtown Chicago east of Lake Shore Drive.
Completed in 1968, the 70-story Lake Point Tower is approximately 645 feet tall, and was the tallest apartment building in the world at that time. It is an exclusive address; because of its location it has enviable views of downtown Chicago even from its lower floors, as no other buildings can be built anywhere close to it. Chicago currently has a moratorium on any private construction east of Lake Shore Drive.
You can see Lake Shore Drive this side of the tower as it crosses the Lake Michigan outlet of the Chicago River. Lake Shore Drive then turns west for a few blocks and then south again all the way down to South Chicago. This section, known locally as the "S-Curve", has become familiar to me even in my short time here. At almost any time of day, the sharp curves slow traffic on "LSD" (as the Drive is also known) to a crawl most times of the day. In this picture you can also see the Chicago Yacht Club and the beginnings of Grant Harbor, where many private boats are moored.
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Navy Pier opened to the public in 1916. Its original purpose was to serve as a dock for freights, passenger traffic, and indoor and outdoor recreation; events like expositions and pageants were held there. During World War II, the pier became a training center for the U.S. Navy; about 10,000 people worked, trained and lived there. The pier contained a 2,500-seat theater, gym, 12-chair barber shop, tailor, cobbler shops, soda fountain and a vast kitchen and hospital.
In 1946, as the Navy was winding down from its mission, and Navy Pier became underutilized. By 1959, when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened, most shipping traffic had moved to more modern facilities at Lake Calumet. As I am taking these pictures today, Navy Pier, while an interesting place to vist with various events held during the year, plans are afoot for a total renovation of the facilities, and the Chicago Tribune is championing a project to turn the Pier into the major attraction it will, in fact, eventually become. I, myself, have not been there yet. It's not really hard to get to, although it is best visited on foot as parking is limited and expensive, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
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Behind the Standard Oil Building you can see Grant Park and Grant Harbor. South of the park is Chicago's "Museum District", home to the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Planetarium. Out in the lake to the east is Chicago's downtown airport- Meigs Field. (Chicago has two other airports- Midway Airport and O'Hare International- and a number of private ones.) Further in the distance is the McCormick Place Convention Center and the south side of the city. The Loop is to the right.
I might just mention that if you were to look at this same view today, it would be entirely different- so much so that I think it would be interesting for you to see how much things have changed. So I went online to find the nearest approximation to the photo I took in 1972 but taken close to the time I am creating this page in 2019. I got pretty close, and the difference is dramatic:
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What you really can't see among all the new buildings, is that the building east of LSD in my picture isn't there anymore. It was torn down when Lake Shore Drive was re-engineered to get rid of the S-curve. This opened up even more land area for new buildings, and Chicago developers have taken good advantage of it. The whole area is now known as the New East Side. I can date the picture on the right because the Vista Tower, which began construction in 2017 is not visible this side of the Standard Oil Building (now called the Aon Tower). At 101 floors, it is now close to topping out and has become Chicago's third-tallest building.
Let's look more southwest, now, and again contrast Chicago in 1972 with the Chicago of 2016 (or thereabouts).
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In my picture from 1972, the Standard Oil Building (under construction) is at the left. The most prominent building in the middle of the Chicago Loop is the 60-story First National Bank Building. (Continental Bank is not nearly so tall, and is hidden by FNB.) To the right of the FNB building, you can see the Sears Tower just beginning to rise behind another Chicago building; its the tower with the cranes on top. When completed, the 110-story Sears Tower will not only be Chicago's tallest, it will be the world's tallest. If you look at the more current view at right, the new supertall structure is the Trump Hotel and Tower, currently Chicago's second tallest building. And you can see a myriad of other new, but shorter, buildings. You can just barely pick out the First National Bank.
I took one more south-view picture, more expansive than the others, and again I want to contrast it with the view today:
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As you can see, while there has been lots of new construction in and around the Loop, it is the development of the New East Side that has transformed the city.
But now let's walk over to the north side of the Hancock Center Observatory to see the view up the lake shore. The first picture I took was by getting as close to the window as I could and pointing the camera down as much as I could to the north end of Michigan Avenue where it turns into Lake Shore Drive at the southern end of the Gold Coast, a row of very high-end residential buildings that line the lake shore from here about a mile north to where Lincoln Park begins. In the intersection that you will see below, if you are traveling north on Michigan Avenue you can either take an underpass onto the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive (it is an expressway from here about ten miles north to Hollywood Boulevard) or you can go onto the surface street in front of the Gold Coast buildings; it is a bit confusing, as this street is also called Lakeshore Drive.
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Again, I have tried to match the past and current views, with the current one coming again from Google Maps in 2019. First, look at my picture at left. Just north of the Hancock Center is the "Playboy Building"; with the magazine and club headquarters being the major tenant. There is also a Playboy Club here. At left, is the 44-story 100 East Walton apartments; the building, with its distinctive rooftop pool, was completed earlier this year. At the corner of Oak Street and Lake Shore Drive is the 1000 Lake Shore Drive Plaza condominium, a 50-story residential tower.
You can pick out these same buildings in the current view at right, except for 100 East Walton; that skyscraper is entirely hidden behind the new 900 North Michigan building that was completed in 1989. This 66-story building is among the dozen tallest Chicago buildings. It was developed as a mixed-use building- in effect, a vertical shopping mall. Currently, the mall occupies the lower eight floors, there are offices up to the 20th floor, and then nine floors of condos. The luxurious Four Seasons Hotel occupies the middle floors (30–46) of the tower, while floors 47–66 contain 106 luxury condos.
Just north of that new building is the new One Magnificent Mile, a mixed-use high-rise tower completed in 1983. It contains upscale retailers on the ground floor, followed by office space above that and luxury condominium apartments on top. The 57-storey building was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and at the time of construction was the tenth-tallest building in Chicago.
 1972 |
(Picture at left) This is the view north that I took today, in 1972. This is the area called "The Gold Coast", which is a reference to the solid row of very, very exclusive apartments, condominiums, and a couple of private residences. This wall of buildings, from Lincoln Park on the north to Oak Street on the south, have tremendous lake views.
(Picture at right)
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Here is an interesting factoid. If you look in the upper left corner of the current view, you will see three highrises in a diagonal across that corner of the view. I did not know it now, but late next year I will be moving into the middle one; it was just being completed this year. The story of how I came to move there is a story for Album Year 1973.
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I thoroughly enjoyed my trip up to the top of the John Hancock Center. It is the tallest building I have ever been in, and the highest I have ever been in a building of any kind. The future, though, will see me in much, much higher buildings, but that's a story for another time. I'd never even heard of Dubai in 1972.
You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
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September, 1972: Diary Entry |
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May 29, 1972: At the Indianapolis 500 |
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Return to Index for 1972 |
