Other Points Of Interest Facts
- exact address: 77 W Washington, Chicago, IL 60602;
- the building is a 173 meters (568 feet) tall skyscraper church home to First United Methodist Church of Chicago;
- completed in 1923 it was the tallest building in Chicago until 1930 when it was surpassed by the Chicago Board of Trade;
- the Sky Chapel (the smallest of the church’s 3 sanctuaries, situated below the steeple with seating for 30 people) was installed in 1952. It was a gift from Myrtle Walgreen in memory of her husband who founded the drugstore chain with their name (Walgreens)
- an 82 story mixed use skyscraper in Lakeshore East development;
- Aqua is, by this date, the largest project awarded to an American architectural firm headed by a woman: Jeanne Gang;
- the building will be the first one in Downtown Chicago to combine condos, apartments and a hotel;
- some of the balconies stretch out as much as 12 feet (3.7 meters) providing a wave-like facade to the building; this, of course, was intentionally designed; this together with the name Aqua were chosen to reflect the building’s location next to Lake Michigan.
- the complete name of the aquarium is John G. Shedd Aquarium;
- it is located in the Museum Campus, together with the Field Museum and Adler Planetarium;
- the Shedd Aquarium opened with its first exhibits on May 30, 1930 and was the first inland aquarium with a permanent saltwater fish collection; 1,000,000 US gallons of seawater were transported in 1930 by 20 railroad tank cars that made 8 round trips between Chicago and Key West;
- the aquarium was a gift to the City of Chicago by John G. Shedd, a retailer and protege of Marshall Field (Field himself was a benefactor of the Field Museum located in the same Museum Campus); unfortunately Shedd only lived to see the architect’s first drawings ; his widow, Mary R. Shedd was the one to cut the ribbon at the official opening ceremony;
- construction of the aquarium started on November 2, 1927 and lasted until December 19, 1929;
- with an annual average of 2 million visitors, the Shedd Aquarium was the most visited aquarium in the US in 2005 and the most popular cultural attraction in Chicago in 2007.
- the exact address of the center is 200 E Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60601;
- it has 83 floors and a height of 1,136 feet (346 m);
- the center was completed in 1973; at that time its name was Standard Oil Building and it belonged to the Standard Oil Company of Indiana later known as AMOCO and now part of BP;
- at the time of completion it was the tallest building in Chicago, surpassed a year later by the Sears Tower and in 2008 by the Trump Tower;
- also, when completed it was the world’s tallest marble-clad building (covered by 43,000 slabs of marble – Italian Carrara);
- when the Standard Oil Company of Indiana changed its name to AMOCO in 1985, the center was renamed the Amoco Building;
- The Blackstone Group bought it in 1998 and changed its name to AON Center in 1999; however, the AON Corporation would become the building’s primary tenant only in 2001;
- due to the fact that the marble used to sheath the building was thinner than what was previously used in the industry, in 1974, just a year after completion, one of the slabs detached and penetrated the roof of the nearby Prudential Center; from 1990 till 1992 the entire building was refaced at an estimated cost of over $80 million (well over half of the original cost of the entire building).
-the building occupies the entire block bounded by the Chicago River (on the North), Kinzie St (on the South), Orleans St (on the West) and Wells St (on the East);
- when it opened on May 5, 1930, the Mrchandise Mart was the largest building in the entire world;
- it was initially owned by the Marshall Field family;
- the building held the title of the largest building in the world in terms of floor space until 1943 when it was surpassed by the Pentagon
- from 1945 until 1998 the Mart was owned by the Kennedy family (Joseph P Kennedy Sr bought the building in 1948 for $12.5 million);
- the Merchandise Mart hosts an average of 20,000 visitors and tenants on a daily basis;
- the exact address of the building is 100 W Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60601;
- it occupies the entire block bounded by Randolph St (on the South), Lake St (on the North), Clark St (on the East) and La Salle St (on the West);
- it houses more offices of the State Of Illinois administration than the entire Capital of the State (Springfield);
- it was opened in May of 1985 and it was originally named State Of Illinois Center (which is why, to this day, many locals still call it The State Building); it was renamed in 1993 to honor former Illinois Governor James R. Thompson;
- the original plan required curved, insulated glass panels; they were considered extremely expensive and replaced by single-paned (non-insulated), curved glass panels; the result was a more expensive air conditioning system which raises the maintenance costs; however, during many hot summer days, the system can’t keep up with the heat (internal temperatures as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit have been recorded);
- the building houses a tremendous art collection starting with the “Monument With Standing Beast” sculpture by Jean Dubuffet which stands in front of the center.
- it is a 60 story skyscraper finished in 1969;
- the exact address of the building is 10 S Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60603;
- the building was previously known as Bank One Tower; the name changed after Bank One’s merger with JP Morgan Chase on October 25th, 2005
- together with its plaza, Chase Tower occupies the entire block bounded by S Clark St, S Dearborn St, W Madison St and W Monroe St;
- if you look carefully you can spot the “CHASE” sign on top of the building in “The Dark Knight” when Batman is shown standing on top of Sears Tower.
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