James M. Flanagan, from his office in Evanston, wrote to Donald A. Tarkington, of the law firm of Novack and Macey LLP, and Douglas J. Kurtenbach of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and copied Cook County Circuit Court Judge Richard L. Curry. Donald Tarkington (far left) and Douglas Kurtenbach.

Curry, who in 1985 upheld laws banning night baseball games at Wrigley Field, was in 1988 presiding over Continental Savings Bank’s lawsuit against Ellison Trine Starnes, Jr., whose Marina City Associates still owned the commercial property at Marina City.

On April 25, 1988, Flanagan told the attorneys that a curved stairway leading from State Street down to the skating rink was collapsing. “Due to the condition, both accesses to this stairway have been secured off.”

Replacing the stairway would cost $17,717, the equivalent of $35,433 in 2015.

On July 9, 1988, it was ductwork that had collapsed. Flanagan was going to spend $3,904 to have the fallen section re-installed and secured.

The worst was yet to come. On August 5, 1988, on the third day of temperatures in the 90s, two more air conditioning units broke in the 16-story office building, bringing to at least four the number of units in need of repair. In his August 13, 1988 letter, Flanagan blamed the heat, humidity, and “constant usage without long-neglected deferred maintenance” of the air conditioning units.

The unlucky tenant was Air Canada in Suite 1100, losing air conditioning in a conference room and a “studio theatre lobby.” Hayes Boiler & Mechanical was told to make emergency repairs to one unit in Suite 1100 plus whichever of three other broken units “would be the least expensive to repair.”

The office building lobby was sweltering, too, but Flanagan could offer only fans, “as it is far too costly to repair the air conditioning units serving this area.”

(Click on an image above to view the letter.)