2,000' Sisters

Not to be outdone by Christopher Carley's Fordham Spire, the Chicago Tribune reports that Paul Beitler and LR Development are proposing "a futuristic, tweezer-shaped broadcast tower looming 2,000 feet over the lakefront...At the top would be several floors for restaurants and an observation deck, and at the base would be a 400-car garage." Designed by supertall maestro Cesar Pelli, the design "isn't Buck Rogers architecture. It's Duck Dodgers design, utterly daffy, a cartoonish version of tomorrow," according to Blair Kamin.

As I posted about months ago, the Fordham Spire is within spitting distance of my office window. Now if I walk to the other side of the office, the broadcast tower would grace that northerly skyline. These two proposals are less than one city block away from each other. Notably, the broadcast tower (aka the "Tweezer" and officially called "Tall Tower" by the creative powers that be) sits directly west of Lake Point Tower across Lake Shore Drive. Lake Point Tower is such a beloved building that until these two proposals, no tower in the Streeterville area could break that building's height. At 645', each tower would more than triple it.

Pardon the crudeness of this graphic, but I couldn't help but fashion a photomontage envisioning these two 2,000 ft neighbors. My eyeball guesswork may even err on the shorter side when compared to this official photomontage. Click image for larger size.



Update: Lynn Becker raises some good points.