JOHN KOWALSKI: “Hi there, folks. I’m currently at Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, looking up at the spectacular Water Tower Place.”
On October 20th, 1975, Chicago’s Water Tower Place opened its doors. Containing a “vertical mall,” Water Tower Place combines both retail and residential space. In this Quarter Quell themed special broadcast, I ventured to Chicago’s Magnificent Mile for a closer look at the city’s famous architectural feat.
[natural sound: Magnificent Mile/Sound walking down the Magnificent Mile]
Walking down the Magnificent Mile toward Lincoln Park, you’ll see a variety of grand skyscrapers looming over the street. Behind the historic water tower looms a large white skyscraper, one end of it being some 8 stories tall, the other end an 859 foot tall mass of marble and concrete. Other skyscrapers along the Magnificent Mile feel somewhat warm and welcoming. Water Tower Place, in stark contrast, feels imposing and cold. Walk inside, and the feeling only slightly ebbs. Upon entrance, you’ll find yourself walking up two grand escalators, flanking a cascading series of fountains. At the top of these lies the main section of the mall.
Hi there folks, So currently I’m inside Water Tower Place, and I will tell you it is quite spectacular. There’s a gigantic atrium, inside of the main mall and it just leads, I think, what is that seven stories up from the ground floor? It’s really quite impressiveIt is actually eight stories tall. And that glass atrium? It houses elevators that allow a birds-eye-view of the space as you travel between floors.
Grand as it was, what stuck with me most about the space was how dead it felt. For a main mall of the Magnificent Mile, I’d expected the Tower to be bustling with people. Instead, many floors were rather empty. Arthur E. Osborne “Vice-President and General Manager of the Marshall Field’s stores in the Chicago area said at the opening of the mall in 1975 ‘We’re just as excited about this as anything we’ve ever done. There are wall-to-wall people.”
Stores have been closing in the mall, like Macy’s in 2021, and Sephora in 2024, very different from 1976 when every retail space was fully leased. In fact, the mall now feels somewhat like a relic of a time long ago, of a different era.
Despite modern woes, the architecture of the building maintains a distinctiveness in 2025 as it did in 1975. The white starkness of the building, while cold, is also sleek and modern, minimalist in its characteristics yet decently aged compared to buildings of a similar variety in other U.S. cities. Water Tower Place remains a significant and recognizable part of the Chicago skyline, and will remain so for a long time.
[natural sound: Magnificent Mile/Sound walking down the Magnificent Mile]
For WNUR News, I’m John Kowalski.
