Its name appeared prominently, along with James McHugh Construction Company, in a sign on the east tower. Documents refer to Marina City as a “joint venture” between McHugh Construction and Brighton Construction. But if McHugh and Brighton started as equal partners, they finished Marina City with decidedly lopsided fates.
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(Left) Close angle of south-facing signs on the east tower parking ramp during construction, including the sign at top for “James McHugh Const. Co.” and “Brighton Const. Co.” |
One company would parlay its experience building Marina City and become one of the largest general contractors in the United States. The other would all but fade from history, its founder – though wealthy and a close friend of Mayor Richard J. Daley – serving time in a federal prison, then dying at the age of 56.
While initially involved with Marina City in some way, Brighton Construction Company did not leave behind evidence that it managed the project day-to-day. People who did work on the project, every day, can only speculate on the reasons for this. McHugh emerged as the de facto general contractor. The children of Brighton co-founder Thomas J. Bowler dispute this. They say calling McHugh the sole general contractor is unfair, and that Marina City was their father’s “proudest accomplishment.”
Brighton Construction Company was founded by Thomas Bowler, the company’s chief executive officer, and his brother, John Bowler.
Thomas grew up on the south side of Chicago. He was 17 when he got his first job in construction, doing tuck-pointing. Later, he was a commissioner of the Metropolitan Sanitary District, now known as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. He owned a chain of restaurants in Chicago, including The Club on 39, on the 39th floor of what is now Kemper Building, located on Wacker Drive diagonal from Marina City.
Brighton’s construction projects included the Dan Ryan Expressway, the Chicago Skyway (part of Interstate 90 in Illinois), and a large concrete parking garage at O’Hare International Airport.
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Thomas Bowler had four sons and nine daughters, three of which were fraternal triplets. They lived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 83 miles northwest of Chicago, in a lakefront home renovated by Bowler in the mid-1970s. An annual summer party at the home made the Chicago Tribune’s “Tower Ticker” column at least once.
(Left) 1962 photo of Thomas and Shirley Bowler and the three sons and seven daughters they had at that time. |
There was a time when McHugh and Brighton were of comparable size. Brighton got the Dan Ryan Expressway and Stevenson Expressway projects because, said Thomas Bowler’s son, Patrick Bowler, “McHugh did not know how to do road construction.”
“Dad was way ahead of them at that time,” said Patrick.
For the Marina City construction project, Brighton supplied workers, according to Thomas Bowler’s daughter, Cheryl Bowler Schrager.
“My father’s workers did iron work, carpentry, and cement work,” recalled Schrager in 2016. “They were the laborers that Jack McHugh needed.”
Workers were assigned to Marina City for “days or weeks at a time, depending on what was needed.” It was a demanding work schedule, she said, and employees, supplied by Brighton, worked around the clock. They were paid, according to Schrager, by the McHugh-Brighton partnership.
Family members insist Marina City was an equal partnership between McHugh and Brighton. They point to a 1969 lawsuit, in which both Brighton and McHugh are named as defendants, as the most compelling evidence. Brighton was a co-defendant in two other Marina City-related lawsuits, as well, along with James McHugh Construction Company, Marina City Building Corporation, and Bertrand Goldberg Associates.
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Naming Brighton to the Marina City project may have been a political favor. Brighton was general contractor “in name only,” said the project manager in 2010, and Thomas Bowler, according to Clarence Ekstrom, “had nothing to do with the project.”
(Left) Clarence Ekstrom on Wacker Drive in front of Marina City in 2010. |
Still, they did have a large sign on the east tower.
“Mr. McHugh would absolutely not have allowed a sign with another contractor,” argues Cheryl. “Had my father not died at the age of 56, [McHugh] never would have taken full credit.”
In 1977, at the age of 53, Thomas Bowler was convicted for his role in a bid-rigging scheme on the $45 million Stevenson Expressway construction project. He served 16 months in a federal prison. He was also convicted of bid-rigging on a $3 million runway project at O’Hare International Airport.
Cheryl says her father “took the fall for many contractors because the federal government wanted to remove Mayor Daley. They told my father, ‘If you give us the information we want about Mayor Daley, you have nothing to worry about.’ My father had information about all of those contractors and did not say a word.”
The company later changed its name to Brighton Building and Maintenance Company.
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