In October 1964, there were five UHF television channels assigned to Chicago and WFLD had one of them, channel 32. Field Communications, which owned WFLD, Chicago Sun-Times, and Chicago Daily News, announced plans to construct a one-million-watt TV station at Marina City. It was their second application – the first one, for channel 38, was withdrawn. WFLD went on the air at 7:00 p.m. on January 4, 1966. Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet hosted the opening ceremonies. At the time, there were television sets in 2.5 million homes in Chicago, but only 823,000 could receive UHF. Still, in a 1966 Sun-Times article, WFLD was called the “Station of Tomorrow.” (Left) Statue of Irv Kupcinet on Wacker Drive near Marina City.

The station was still on the top floor of the Kemper Insurance Building at 20 North Wacker Drive (now known as Civic Opera Building), but WFLD eventually moved to Marina City. In the December 16, 1967, Chicago metro edition of TV Guide, for the first time, the address for WFLD Channel 32 was listed as Marina City.

It took several months after the announcement to build the studios at Marina City. According to Dave Dillman, who worked for WFLD from late 1965 to 1971, the concrete floors of the television studios had to be re-poured to make them more level. During this time, some shows were aired from the National Design Center, using a television truck parked on the marina level.

Studio 2, a smaller studio, was equipped first, followed by Studio 1, the larger studio. (Right) Main entrance to the building where WFLD-TV was located, from a 1981 video produced by Mike Leiderman.

“For a while when we needed to do productions in Studio 1 we parked the small [black and white] remote truck on the freight elevator and directed from there,” recalled Dillman in 2014. “That was fine until I was directing a show one day and the pneumatic elevator burped and dropped the truck and all of us on board a few inches. Did the rest of the show standing up.”

The UHF television station was located at Marina City from 1967 to 1986, starting out in the office building where Hotel Chicago is located today, but soon moving to the theater building now occupied by House of Blues. The station was on the second and upper floors, above the movie theaters that closed in 1977.

Today, WFLD is a five-million-watt station owned by Fox Broadcasting Company. Its transmitter is located on top of John Hancock Center.