Marina City

Marina City is one of my favorite buildings in the city mostly because it's some kind of child's dream building, something sort of imagined for fun, nothing you really believe would get built. But in 1959 architect Bertrand Goldberg drew up the corn-on-the-cob shaped twin buildings and they were finished in 1963. Another reason I love this structure is that when they decided to build it on the Chicago River at State Street, there was already a railroad running right there so they weren't allowed to buy the land but managed (as only Chicagoans could) to buy the air above that land. The towers were built on a raised platform cantilevered (HOVERING!) above the tracks. I don't know how this was done and I'm not going to ask. I'm really hoping to go inside this building sometime and will need to go in ignorant bliss. Thank you ever so much. And wait! Awesomeness abounds when it comes to Marina City. When it was completed,it was advertised as a a city within a city (it is both residential and commercial). Imagine: you never need to leave home to have a good time! (Though I am going to guess that getting out of your pie-piece shaped apartment might become important). It came stocked with a theater, bowling alley, grocery, parking garage, clothing stores, swimming pool, gym, ice rink, restaurants and, you guessed it, a marina. (And let's not forget-a RAILROAD). Anyhow, the hard-to-make-out photo is of the marina at the base of the building and some of the parking etc. (I'm short!) But I also include the cover of the Wilco album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which shows the tops of the towers.