Most high-rise apartments being built in the city were in areas such as Lincoln Park, north of downtown. Urban construction stagnated. The Prudential Building (now known as One Prudential Plaza), completed in 1955, and Inland Steel Building, completed in 1957, were the first buildings constructed in the Loop, Chicago’s central downtown area, since the Great Depression.

The federal government was investing more than $3,000 for every person living in the suburbs and about $85 per person in the city. And while the city received round-the-clock services, it must have seemed like it was only being used 40 hours a week. Teeming with office workers during weekdays but deserted nights and weekends.

Still, there was evidence that people did want to live downtown. A 1959 survey by the Real Estate Research Corporation of inner-city housing needs concluded that demand would increase for apartment space within walking distance of the Loop. Single people and small families of middle and upper-middle incomes would need at least 10,000 apartments in the next ten years. At least 39,000 apartments would be needed in the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, William L. McFetridge, president of the Building Service Employees International Union (now known as the Service Employees International Union), was concerned about his union members not being able to get jobs in the suburbs. He wanted to persuade people to live in town, where wages would be higher.

“Marina City from the start,” said McFetridge in 1963, “was planned as a model of how modern living facilities can be provided in the heart of a great city as a means for strengthening and maintaining the central business district as a vital part of a growing metropolitan area.”

(Left) William L. McFetridge (center) in the early 1950s, posing in front of a labor display with (left to right) George Hardy, David Sullivan, McFetridge, William Cooper, and unidentified. Photo by Ransdell Photo. Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.

McFetridge wanted to invest his union’s pension fund not so much in stocks and bonds, but in something progressive – something that would help people. When he mentioned this to Charles R. Swibel, a real estate developer who was Mayor Richard J. Daley’s unofficial ambassador to the unions, he suggested the union invest in housing. Specifically, housing for working people.

With money to spend, and wanting to spend it on public housing, the union, in a Chicago tradition going back 88 years, would look to a young architect to dream up the right project.