Cool Building Wednesday: Trump Tower

Cool Building Wednesday: Trump Tower

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(photo by Lee Bey)

I just noticed—really noticed—Trump Tower in recent weeks.

It’s not that I hadn’t been aware of the building. I had been. Acutely so. I was part of untold early design meetings about Trump Tower when I was deputy chief of staff to Mayor Daley in the early 2000s. And then I worked for SOM, designers of the tower, after leaving the mayor’s office and was an in-house adviser on the project. While at SOM, I was there with Donald Trump, Bill Rancic and seemingly half the world in 2004 when the wrecking crew took the first swings the building that previously occupied the site—the old Chicago Sun-Times building where previously I’d spent almost 9 years as a journalist. Believe me: I was all too aware.

The media hype during the building’s construction made me overlook Trump Tower. All the endless one-liners about Donald Trump’s hair; Chicago writers being oh so clever by working in some variation of Trump’s‚  TV show tagline, “You’re fired” in to darn near every story or headline. The breathless “Donald Trump is in town!” reportage—you’d have thought Dash Riprock had come to Mayberry or something. Not to mention the seemingly daily reports on that spire Mayor Daley wanted—and got…kind of---atop the building. I grew weary of all that. And I took it out on the tower.

That’s over now, though. I now see a subtle, good-looking tower. It doesn’t command the skyline the way Willis Tower or the Hancock does,‚  but it is there; its glass face nicely picks up the moods of both sky and river. The building is exceptionally well-done along the riverfront, where a tiered promenade allows views and access to the river. I now see what I had missed. And I like.

(photo by Lee Bey)

(photo by Lee Bey)

(photo by Lee Bey)

(photo by Lee Bey)