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Thank you. Thank you very much.
January 8, 2009. Elvis impersonator Pete Tidd selects a scarf from assistant Thomas Adamson while performing in a contest at Dick’s Last Resort. The 36-year-old Lyons native won the contest and $500 and then left the building.
(Click on images to view larger versions.)
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January 9, 2009. With Marina City looking on, Odette Yustman fights the spirit that is slowly taking possession of her. She stars as Casey Beldon in the Rogue Pictures horror film The Unborn. Christy Lemire of Chicago Sun-Times called it an “unintentionally hilarious horror film.”
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February 20, 2009. A drawing, made from a patio on the 29th floor of the east tower using a special curved easel to create a realistic panoramic rendering, is on display at The Field Museum. Mounted on a tripod, the easel has a concave metal grid that holds a large piece of curved drawing paper. A plaster head-cap helps keep the artist’s head stationary. Twins Ryan Oakes and Trevor Oakes invented the drawing method in 2004.
(Above left) Trevor recreates a view of Wacker Drive from a balcony at Marina City. (Above right) The finished artwork.
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March 10, 2009. The Marina City branch of JPMorgan Chase is one of three banks robbed in Chicago by a man the FBI nicknames The Red Line Robber. At about 3:12 p.m., the man entered the bank, approached a teller, and displayed a real-looking toy gun. He announced a robbery and got $4,388 but as he left the bank a security dye pack activated, scattering cash on State Street. He still got away. The FBI believes he is the same man who robbed the Marina City branch on December 5, 2008, also at about 3:15 p.m. There were no injuries in either robbery. On August 29, 2009, surveillance photos released to the media led to the arrest of 44-year-old Lance Dennie, who was charged with seven counts of bank robbery, though suspected in nine robberies of banks, all located close to stops on the CTA Red Line. He was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison.
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Memorial Day marchers take first steps in front of Marina City
May 25, 2009. Carrying a large American flag, marchers take the first steps in the Chicago Memorial Day Parade. The parade started at State Street and Wacker Drive in front of Marina City. Attracting about 10,000 spectators, it is considered one of the largest Memorial Day parades in the nation.
(Left) Members of the Korean War Veterans Association march in the parade in front of Marina City.
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It’s a small city: 3D model of Chicago
on display at Santa Fe Building
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June 13, 2009. Marina City and 999 other downtown buildings are represented in a detailed scale model of Chicago on display at Chicago Architecture Foundation. Chicago Model City is part of the centennial celebration of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago that was an important influence on how the city developed. The 25 x 35-foot exhibition fills the atrium of the Santa Fe Building, Burnham’s former headquarters, located at 224 South Michigan Avenue. The scale of the models is one inch for every 50 feet, making Sears Tower nearly three feet tall. Columbian Model & Exhibit Works, Ltd., a Chicago company, created the models using specialized software and a then-outrageously-cutting-edge 3D printer.
(Above left) Looking west down Chicago River toward Marina City. (Above right) Closer view of Marina City with 330 North Wabash at left.
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July 1, 2009. A four-foot version of Marina City – constructed of 12,000 LEGO bricks – is on display at the Museum of Science and Industry. Along with about 15 other LEGO structures, the Marina City model is part of the ART + Science = Architecture exhibit. Adam Tucker, an architect and certified LEGO professional, completed the Marina City model in 2008. It made an appearance at Looptopia on May 2, 2008, and was displayed at Brickworld, a large exhibit of LEGO structures, in June 2008. Says Tucker, “It’s my hope that by seeing my work, children of all ages will be inspired to go home and create something themselves, to think outside the box, to think about a new way of doing things or looking at the world.”
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July 19, 2009. Construction starts on a new laundry room on the 20th floor of the west tower. During construction, west tower residents must walk over to the east tower to do laundry. In addition to a new laundry room in each tower, the $435,000 project will give residents a fitness room in the west tower and a meeting room in the east tower. Milan Construction Company of Chicago is the project’s general contractor. The new west tower laundry room opened on September 4, 2009. By October 23, two ascent trainers, two cycles, and four treadmills were installed in the fitness room next door. The west tower was chosen for the fitness room because, according to property manager David Gantt, there was more support for it from west tower residents.
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September 22, 2009. Marina City is bursting at the seams with vegetation in a vision of 22nd Century Chicago for the Burnham Plan Centennial. In a plan by Chicago architect Dirk Denison, the streets of Chicago are an interconnected grid of green spaces for urban farming and leisure use. A “multi-functional grafted crystalline mesh” spans the city, providing public transportation and distributing energy from a variety of sources, including wind, solar, and “metabolic heat harnessing,” or the harnessing of heat from waste decomposition. With the automobile infrastructure antiquated throughout the city, the parking ramps at Marina City would be converted to hanging gardens. The design is one of eight proposals on exhibit at the Chicago Tourism Center.
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November 3, 2009. Dino Soldo, who played keyboard and wind instruments for Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, releases a music video shot at Hotel Sax. The video, Clarinet, was shot in a hotel suite to promote a new CD called The Hotel Suites.
“When trying to do things on the road,” says Dino, “sometimes the best location is where you’re standing.”
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November 12, 2009. About 450 people pay to see former president Bill Clinton speak at Marina City’s House of Blues. Many in the crowd wait two hours for Clinton to speak for 33 minutes, starting just before 10 p.m. Early estimates were that between $150,000 and $300,000 was raised. Tickets to the event cost $150. The price of admission to a VIP reception started at $1,500.
Clinton was in Chicago to promote his new Millennium Network that invites people age 45 and under to get involved in the work of the Clinton Foundation. “You can change the world,” said Clinton. “There is always going to be a gap between what the government can provide and the private sector can produce. You got to step into it.”
The event included a performance by the Chicago-born rapper, Common.
Photos by Steven Dahlman, Dirk Denison, FBI, Ryan Oakes, Trevor Oakes, Rogue Pictures, Dino Soldo, and Adam Tucker.
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