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January. Helping to illustrate “what’s hot and necessary,” Marina City is on the cover of the January 2010 issue of CS. To lead in to its annual assessment, the Chicago social scene magazine climbed to the roof of theWit hotel and looked northwest.
“We wanted to shoot our cover at the VIP table that juts out over the city,” explained editor-in-chief Korey Karnes-Huyler, “but those photos didn’t work, so my photo editor [Greg Gillis] and the photographer tried some different angles. This was the favorite of my boss.”
Photo by Anthony Tahlier
Click on images to view larger versions.
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March 21. The outdoor running season starts in Chicago with thousands of competitors running south on State Street past Marina City. The Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8K Run attracted more than 25,000 participants. The winner was John Kemboi, age 19, of Kenya, who finished his first United States competition in 23 minutes, 39 seconds. Tera Moody, age 29, of Colorado Springs, finished first among the women.
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March 26. Scaffolding goes up above and around the glass enclosure housing parking cashiers at Marina City. The scaffolds will protect the dome as work on Marina City’s massive exterior concrete moves to the inner sides of both towers.
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April 7. If you have ever wondered what Marina City would look like depicted in Chocolate Bourbon Cake with alternating layers of Raspberry Buttercream and Chocolate Truffle Ganache, this is your lucky day. This 25-inch-tall (including the numbers) cake was created by Laura Springfield, Paris Levin, and Amy Beck of Amy Beck Cake Design, and took about 16 hours to make.
“The cake portion was the base of the cake, made to look like the landscape that surrounds Marina City,” explained Amy. “The cake was covered in fondant and the little trees and planters were also fondant with royal icing piping to make the trees and bushes look more realistic.”
It was made for Clarence Ekstrom, age 90, a former project manager for McHugh Construction who helped build Marina City.
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April 8. Chicago fire fighters and police officers compete to see who can eat the most Buffalo wings in a race at Marina City’s Dick’s Last Resort. CFD personnel won the event, which raised $10,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Illinois. More than 300 people attended the event, emceed by radio personality Erich “Mancow” Muller and Dr. Ian Smith of VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club. Helping to judge the wing-eating contests were Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and 14th Ward Alderman Edward Burke.
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April 8. Marina City appears in a transit ad for Harrington College of Design. Harrington student Martina Josimovska not only shot the photo for the ad that appeared in CTA trains and buses throughout Chicago but got an “A” for it.
Photo by Martina Josimovska
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May 7. Waiters in loud jackets at Smith & Wollensky pose with Vincent Falk and Jennifer Burns (center) at a party following the Chicago premier of Vincent: A Life In Color. The documentary about Falk was shown at Gene Siskel Film Center on North State Street.
“We’ve been working on this film for five years,” Burns told the crowd after the film’s sold-out first showing, seen by 197 people, “and all I ever wanted to do was get it into Chicago, and we finally got it into Chicago. And now people can actually put a real person to the face, to the suit.”
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May 12. A sad day at Marina City. 28-year-old John W. Cooper, a law student from Michigan, ended up on the roof of the west tower, where according to Chicago Police he jumped at about 9:48 a.m.
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May 15. Iker Gil and Julie Michiels, architects and newly married, show off their one-bedroom west tower condo unit to a project that is documenting residents and residences at Marina City. The images will eventually be used in a publication and an exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago.
Photo by Andreas Larsson
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May 19. Marina City resident Vincent Falk performs for the luxury cruise vessel Chicago’s First Lady. Five days later, Falk underwent a glaucoma procedure at University of Illinois Medical Center. A cornea transplant in 2008 resulted in some improvement to his vision.
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May 24. A new Subway opens at Marina City. From the time the building permit was approved, it took less than two months to transform the long-vacant space at the base of Marina City’s west tower into a fast-food restaurant. Much of the work involved connecting plumbing and utilities to the semi-hexagonal unit, which had not been used since 1988, when it was a Dollar Rent-A-Car location. (Above right) The space in July 2009.
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May 25. A film crew prepares a large movie light on Wacker Drive for a film directed by Ron Howard. A scene was shot at Marina City’s Smith & Wollensky restaurant for The Dilemma, which starred Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Kevin James, Queen Latifah, and Channing Tatum.
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June 5. Zombies in search of BRAINS walk past Marina City on a two-hour march that took the voodoo spirits from Millennium Park to Daley Plaza and then back to Grant Park. As the group marched, they shouted, “What do we want? BRAINS! When do we wants them? BRAINS!”
Photo by Kirstie Shanley
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June 11. New carpet, baseboards, two types of paneling, darker colors, and brighter lights greet visitors to the 20th floors of both towers at Marina City. The renovation, which cost Marina Towers Condominium Association $17,500, included new 24-foot-long lighting fixtures in each elevator vestibule, with limestone and a mirror along the walls. (Above right) The same east tower hallway in August 2007.
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July 10. Jerome Teigne, a freelance videographer, shoots from a west tower balcony toward the site of the 1915 Eastland disaster. A crew was at Marina City to capture video for a long-running series on French public television. On July 24, 1915, the S.S. Eastland was docked at the Clark Street Bridge with more than 2,500 passengers when it rolled over, killing more than 800 people including 22 entire families.
The balcony belonged to Betty Hogeorges whose father, John McFarlane, was one of the first police officers on the scene and helped with rescue and then recovery efforts.
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July 25. During a break in filming, people walk past an intergalactic war zone recreated on Wacker Drive for Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The northeast turret of 35 East Wacker Drive has fallen. Cars are wrecked. A bus is burned. Debris litters Wacker Drive near Wabash Avenue and Marina City. Filmmakers were in River North from July 15 to September 2 and it was awesome.
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August 7. Victoria’s Secret lingerie model Katsia Zingarevich poses on the LaSalle Street Bridge for a television spot that was directed by Michael Bay, in town to also direct Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The bridge was closed on August 7 and 8 so that Zingarevich and fellow supermodels Erin Heatherton and Candice Swanepoel could shoot a holiday-themed commercial. The crew also filmed at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House on North Wacker Drive.
“Our holiday campaign had a certain requirement to be fairly epic at this point,” said Ed Razek, Chief Marketing Officer of Limited Brands, the company that owns Victoria’s Secret.
Video by Victoria’s Secret
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August 29. A scene for a television spot for the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze is filmed on the 19th floor of the west tower parking ramp at Marina City. Civic Hunting Season was one of four 30-second spots produced by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco. The spots were voiced by actor Tim Allen. The first commercial in the series premiered in September.
Video by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
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September 13. Marina City provides the timely location for this entry by a Chicago photographer in a contest promoting the television show Mad Men. Leilani Wertens, a graduate student of photography at Columbia College in Chicago, was trying to win a walk-on role on the Emmy-winning series set in 1960. Sponsored by American Movie Channel and Banana Republic, the contest, Mad Men Casting Call, asked fans to submit original photos that have “the best Mad Men style.” Though Wertens could not be reached for elaboration, the photo appears to be a self-portrait, taken from the plaza at AMA Plaza.
Photo by Leilani Wertens
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October 10. Thousands of less-than-elite runners stream past Marina City 22 minutes into the 2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon. The winner was Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya – again. He won his second consecutive Chicago Marathon in two hours, five minutes, five seconds. Crowds lined both sides of State Street, seen here from the Chicago Skyline Terrace at Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel. Liliya Shobukhova of Russia won her second straight women’s title. Officially, 38,132 runners started the race.
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October 22. A year and $1 million later, workers finish a very tall project to repair concrete on Marina City’s towers, at one time the tallest structures made of reinforced concrete. From a suspended swing stage scaffold, concrete restoration experts Juan (left) and Jorge (right) perform maintenance to a balcony on the 37th floor of the east tower.
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November 19. Residents at Marina City have a model floor on which to preview proposed changes to the 79 other floors. Units on the 53rd floor of the east tower have new doors leading to a new hallway and elevator lobby. The doors have new doorknockers and peepholes, installed at a lower level to accommodate shorter residents. Above each door is a new light fixture. Cobalt blue carpeting now encircles the core of the model floor.
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December 17. A rescue helicopter hovers over the frigid Chicago River, looking for an elderly man who jumped from the Dearborn Street Bridge. The helicopter had been flying in the area when Chicago Fire Department was alerted to a person in the river. Divers from the helicopter were able to pull the man to the south bank. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition but survived. Thomas Grether, a customer service representative from Minnesota, captured video of the rescue from Dick’s Last Resort at Marina City.
Video by Thomas Grether
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Photos by Steven Dahlman except where noted.
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