Talk:Marina City

Hotel Chicago Downtown, Autograph Collection
Missing from this page? It was built as part of Marina City and should be included in the article.

current state
I edited this page to include some information on the current state of marina, and add what I think is a more attractive picture - I hope everyone agrees.


 * Sometime after it was converted to condos, I heard that the parking garage was in need of repair, and the owner was bankrupt, leaving the apartment owners above without a solid foundation (I don't know if the garage was owned by the condo association, or an outside company). Obviously they didn't let it fall over, does anyone know how they resolved it? -Rbean 18:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I live at Marina City, and also edited the article with information regarding the pending loss of much of our northern and (remaining) western views. I can add the history of the building's bankruptcy as well, but that information can be found in detail (if anyone else wants to work on this) in the transcript of the 1990s interview with Bertrand Goldberg available from the website of the Art Institute of Chicago. Also, it's the main branch of the Chicago River we overlook, there isn't an "east" branch. (MDoyle, 24 May 2006)

changed the text regarding the AIA award. It won the award because of its expressed structural design... not in spite of it. 10 Oct. 2006

cultural references section
Is this building featured in the movie 'I, Robot', next to the US Robotics building? If so perhaps it should be in the cultural references section.

Inspiration
These towers inspired the construction of The Sentinels in Birmingham, England, however, I don't know where to put this sentence in the article. There is a reference in The Sentinels article to support this. So can someone give me a little help?- Erebus555 17:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thematically it would fit after the "first urban post-war high-rise residential complex in the United States" bit, but I think that position might be too central to include such derivatives. I removed the bit about the Augsburg tower for similar reasons. Maybe the article needs a section "Buildings inspired by Marina City"?.
 * For the meantime I included a link to The Sentinels in the "See Also" section, next to the link to the Augsburg Hotel Tower.
 * --BjKa (talk) 09:44, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Another wiki image available
ChicagoBuildings1004.jpg is another image of MC available for this page. Speciate 23:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

who commissioned?
Can someone please help me? I understand that this bulding was commissioned to be built and paid for by the Union Janitors funds. Can anyone tell me who commisioned it to be built? 07:28pm, 25 February 2008 (UTC)DStiffin

65-stories?
The towers have 60 inhabitable floors and there's a so called "5-story elevator & physical plant penthouse" - I object to the word penthouse, while possibly technically accurate it is misleading. I'd replace it with the world "area" unless someone has a better suggestion. Obviously the elevator core is part of the height of the building but I don't see how it possibly counts as 5 stories unless there is some technical rule about this. It doesn't seem 5 stories tall. The elevator doesn't go up any further than "61 roof deck" but the roof usually doesn't count as a story of the building. Erickaakcire (talk) 19:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Apartments versus condominiums
Since the building has been switched from rental apartments to condominiums, would it be a good idea to replace the word apartment with the word unit in describing the floor plan? Using the word apartment seems confusing. --JeremiahJohnson (talk) 18:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

"Marina" Name Origins
Where does the name "Marina City" come from? Obviously there is a marina now, under the towers, but my question is: has one already been there before the towers were built? At what point in the design process did the marina become a part of the plans for the building complex? At what point was the name "Marina City" stuck on the project, and what was the name of the building/area/plot before? --BjKa (talk) 10:07, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

50 years later
The TEN HOMES episode of the TEN THAT CHANGED AMERICA series (Dan Protess 2016) features Marina City as an important building in the history of US architecture. Please add information to the article about how things turned out, half a century later. Is the building still in good condition? Do people like living there? Does the building have many more years left, or is it getting to the end? How has the price/value of the living units varied over the life of the building?-71.174.185.30 (talk) 13:30, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

marinacity.org is arguably the world’s first and most comprehensive record of Chicago landmark Marina City. I’d like to offer it as a free resource to Wikipedia editors for information about Marina City, past and present. The history section contains more than 100 stories and more than 600 images and it is continuously updated. Steven Dahlman (talk) 15:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Reasons for recent changes… -While residents were living in the towers at the time, Marina City was not “completed” in 1964. Photographs from 1964 show much of complex still under construction, and this is what people who lived at Marina City at that time recall. However, there was no definitive hand-off date by the construction contractor. Interpretations vary but the consensus appears to be that the site as originally planned was completed no later than 1968. -Marina City occupies more than half of an entire city block but if you look at a Google Map of 300 North State Street, you’ll see Museum of Broadcast Communications and Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse take up about one-quarter of the block. -It’s not clear what was meant by “which include five-story elevators.” The towers each have four passenger elevators and one freight elevator. -The Chase bank branch at Marina City closed in 2014. -I inserted the name of the union, as it was known then, that invested in Marina City.Steven Dahlman (talk) 01:25, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

File:Marina City, Chicago, Illinois, Estados Unidos, 2012-10-20, DD 01.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Marina City, Chicago, Illinois, Estados Unidos, 2012-10-20, DD 01.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 9, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-08-09. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 02:09, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051217122931/http://www.architechgallery.com/arch_info/bodies_of_work/goldberg_marina_city.html to http://www.architechgallery.com/arch_info/bodies_of_work/goldberg_marina_city.html

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Views
Would anybody object if I remove this entire section? I was going to update or remove some parts about things that happened over ten years ago, but then I realized that very little of it is still relevant, due to the proliferation of tall buildings around it. There are at least eight buildings taller than it within three blocks. I would guess that a third of the section is no longer true at all. But there are no citations, so it's hard to say whether any of the rest of it is true. And is it really necessary to state that you can see far from a tall building? -Freekee (talk) 04:15, 4 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I removed the following text. I'll see if I can find a home for the images. -Freekee (talk) 02:57, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

To the south, the towers overlook the main branch of the Chicago River with a commanding view of the Chicago Loop beyond it. To the west, the towers offer views of the division of the Chicago River between its north and south branches, the Merchandise Mart, the Willis Tower, and the vast westward expanse of the city. To the north, the towers face Chicago's River North, Old Town, and Gold Coast neighborhoods and the northern neighborhoods of Chicago as they extend toward Evanston. To the east the Towers afford a view of the eastern terminus of the Chicago River, Lake Michigan, Navy Pier, and Grant Park.

From the condominium floors, on a clear day it is possible to see office buildings abutting Interstate 294, located more than 20 mi to the west. On spring and summer nights, the towers also have a view of illuminated Wrigley Field during evening baseball games, 4.5 mi to the north. Many of the views from the towers will be obstructed due to new construction in the immediate future. After more than 40 years of unimpeded north and northwest views, in spring 2006 construction began on vacant lots immediately northwest of the towers at the intersection of North Dearborn and West Kinzie Streets for separate projects, including a mid-rise hotel and a high-rise office building, which is expected to partially obscure views from Marina City in these directions. Also in 2006, site preparation began on a high-rise office building west of Marina City at North LaSalle Street and the Chicago River which, when completed, will eliminate the unimpeded view of the western horizon from Marina City's uppermost floors and roof decks.


 * I have rearranged the images into two galleries. The early photos are in the History section. More recent photos are in a gallery under the Current Use section. -Freekee (talk) 03:07, 15 September 2019 (UTC)