I am posting about the Father Time clock that Judith Arnold Barickman posted earlier, but without any location or history as the group policies state. The Clock is at 35 E. Wacker, formerly known as the Jewelers Building, facing the Chicago River. If you visit the northeast corner of the building the clock that at first glance looks a little like the Marshall Fields clock. That is, until you notice a creepy guy on top that looks like death but is really supposed to be Father Time. At night the clock is outlined in dark red lights, which makes it look even creepier. [THE BUILDING] Aside from the fact that its a beautiful building with a fancy dome on top of it, it has a very cool history. The best part of the building is the dome at the top. Right now its a private conference room and showroom for architect Helmut Jahn (he designed that awesome terminal at Ohare with the moving lights sculpture in the moving sidewalk corridor), but it used to be a restaurant called the Stratosphere Lounge. Aside from being very fancy, it was a Prohibition-era speakeasy operated by Al Capone. Movies love this building. Its the Gotham City Courthouse in Batman Begins, and in one scene Batman sits on one of the turrets. I havent seen it yet, but in Transformers: Dark of the Moon theres a giant robot battle on top of the building. Since this was originally a jewelers building, it had many different security features. One of them was a really extreme version of a parking garage. Since jewelers would carry their merchandise around with them, they were often in danger of being mugged. So, to make sure no one was attacked on the walk between the car and the office, jewelers just drove their car straight into the building! A car elevator would bring you to the floor you worked on and then drop your car off on one of the parking levels.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:48:43 +0000