Tuscany to Hometown Chicago

A recent trip back to my hometown of Chicago was a welcome change-up from my everyday environs. One can grow bored of a Tuscan medieval town where life rolls when one is not on vacation here. I make it point to escape the confines of the old city walls where my home is to take a walk in the countryside traveling in any direction, toward the Arno which flows closeby or toward the hills in the direction of Chianti.

I digress though. Chicago was cold and windy on this visit, fairly typical for April weather. Aside from the flurry of visits packed into three weeks, we generally spend exploring downtown where we have a home (when renters aren't in residence): the glorious Marina Towers, two iconic mid-century buildings designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg, aka, the corncob towers, a moniker mostly eschewed by locals. Our condo was passed down to my sibling and I by our late father who, when he was a young man working downtown, would pass them on his way to work hoping that, one day, he'd live there, too. When he purchased one in 2002 after our stepmother had passed, it became his weekend pad. He was a Chicagoan through and through and wanted to be closer to the city where he'd grown up. When we launched our production company, we became his tenants and grew to love the area, the accessibility to nightlife, restaurants, museums, and great public transportation. Our view takes in the iconic Chicago sign on State Street and the Magnificent Mile is steps away. Prices are higher than they are in the suburbs though the million dollar views adequately compensate.

Anyone who's visited the city remarks on the spectacular architecture. This is the home of the Chicago School of Architecture straddling the late 19th and early 20th centuries when steel structures came into vogue, propelling Chicago at the forefront of skyscraper construction. Marina City are not the tallest among them, they're 60 stories high, but they're undoubtedly among the photographed structures in Chicago, easily recognizable worldwide. (Hey, those are the corncob buildings!).

Some years' back we were contacted by a photographer asking if they could take a picture of our unit to which happily agreed though we had tenants at that moment. The photo is is included in a sweet little volume along with others of residents posing in their units (there a large number of architects and mid-century modern devotees who live in the Towers), some fully rehabbed and some original. The original kitchen cabinet colors included pink, yellow and, I believe, powder blue, perhaps the worst color for an interior in my modest opinion. About a decade ago the Art Institute of Chicago did a retrospective on Goldberg's most iconic building — the Institute is the guardian of his archive — which I sadly missed though I hope they'll be another. Still, we have many of our own stories to tell. In the 1960s, when my family and I lived on the city's northside, my father happened to stop by the office of an alderman he knew who had a large format photo of old Mayor Daley gazing from the rooftop of City Hall with Marina City in the background still clearly under construction (Marina City opened in 1963 and was completed in 1967, conceived as a city within a city with all the services one would need, including a bowling alley). We dragged that image around from house to house and out to California when we moved there in '76 and my parents dragged it back to Chicago when they moved back a decade later. It hung in their garage for many years and, after Dad bought a condo there, it was properly framed and hung on the wall of the open living/dining room (the previous owner had gut rehabbed the unit to create an airy space; the original units have small galley kitchens with a pass-through window into the living room). In 1967, National Geographic ran a feature story on Marina City. On that issues, cover, the Towers are resplendently illuminated by thousands of white lights strung along the gracefully curving balconies.  A 1964 ad that ran in LIFE magazine advertised one-bedroom rentals for $115/month.  For curiosity's sake, you can see rental units available and condos for sale on the on-site realtor's website.

Portions of Marina City were designated a Chicago landmark in 2016. We have a robust association and the rules are many. For example, lights strung on the balconies must be white to create a cohesive exterior look. Naturally, if you're caught throwing anything off the balconies (which does happen) you are subject to a hefty fine. And Air B&B's are strictly verboten. Because of its downtown location, chock-full of bars and eateries, it makes sense to have tighter security measures because anyone can wander into the downstairs lobby. One of the perks of having the condo is that we've filmed here before. I personally have filmed some scenes here for a TV crime documentary and we've rented the condo out to another production company for the same purpose. It's not something you'd want to do everyday as parking is costly and loading in and out tricky. Bar none, our tier has one of the most coveted views starting from the east, Lake Michigan, the Loop and downtown, all the way out to the West Loop and the suburbs beyond. In the 23 years the property's been in our family, we've taken countless photos from the balconies and from street below. For me, the best vantage point to take a low-angle shot of the Towers is at Wacker and State.

I adore everything about these buildings. The condo's smart layout, the vibe, the views. I've been contemplating this for years but I hope it's one of the documentaries my company gets to make as a tribute to the visionary Bertrand Goldberg and Chicago's own mid-century modern style amidst the city's other architectural styles from Art Nouveau to Greystone to Brutalist to Modern, function as a harmonious whole. We truly consider ourselves lucky to call it a piece of home and our family's history.