EXTRA: Let the 'height' loonies loose. We’re no longer No. 1 in U.S.A.!!!

Does anything really change because of the height ruling

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has made the decision that’s going to anger a lot of already irate people to the point where they’re going to pollute our space with their rhetoric.

They decided Tuesday that the proposed new World Trade Center IS taller than the Willis Tower. Without its decorative spire, the structure scheduled to open next year is 1,368 feet tall – less than the one-time Sears Tower’s 1,450 feet.

WITH THE SPIRE, World Trade will be 1,776 feet tall.

Like I wrote previously, I think the people who are getting worked up over this are being irrational. Both those New Yorkers who think their structure MUST be the nation’s tallest because it is a tribute to those who died at the site on Sept. 11, 2001, and those Chicagoans who think our city’s superiority is somehow put at risk by this move. What does New York have that Chicago would really want (other than a ball club with the history of the Yankees?).

Once the new World Trade opens, the Willis Tower becomes 10^th tallest in the world. Although it should be noted that the Petronas Towers in Malaysia that has been world’s tallest since it opened in 1996 was designed by the same Chicago-based architectural firm that gave us Willis (nee, Sears).
 

Kuala Lampur's Chicago connection

Perhaps that is our city’s claim to fame when it comes to ridiculously-tall buildings. That, and our being the home city of the board that made this official decision to begin with; one that really doesn't alter anything about the character of our home city that makes it a remarkable place to live on Planet Earth.

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Worrying about ‘tallest building’ status? We’re acting like batch of rubes

Do you want the ultimate evidence that the concept of “New York sophistication” is a myth?

I’d say we’re getting it these days from those New York interests who are arguing so intently to have the status of “tallest building in the United States” placed on the new World Trade Center that is soon to be complete.

OF COURSE, IF that structure (built on the site of the REAL World Trade Center that collapsed in flames from the impact of two aircraft hijacked by religious extremists in the name of Allah) gets the “tallest building” status, it means that the Willis Tower, our very own, will be diminished to second-rate.

There actually was time spent last week by the members of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat – which held hearings in our city to hear the arguments so they can reach a verdict in this extremely crucial (sarcasm intended) matter.

We had a lot of people get all worked up, thinking that their civic pride is somehow at stake. A classic Chicago vs. New York battle. Although anybody with sense realizes the ultimate Chicago vs. New York fight would be a World Series involving our cities ball clubs – and we’re behind (a win in 1917, losses in 1932 and 1938) in that department!

But back to buildings. As far as I can tell, it seems that the argument from New York amounts to the concept that the country’s tallest building MUST BE in that city, particularly since it is at the World Trade Center site.

IT WOULD BE evidence of our national supremacy that the tallest building would arise from the ashes of the bad memories of Sept. 11, 2001.

The ultimate Chicago victory over N.Y.

Except that anybody who believes that is just being ridiculous. If anything, I wonder if this nonsense-talk winds up trivializing the memories of what happened that day 12 years ago – perhaps even more than all the trivial nonsense emanating from Boston these days that desperately wants to believe that the Red Sox’ World Series victory this year was something the city was entitled to following the explosion at the Boston Marathon that killed a few and wounded many others.

Boston Strong!, my butt.


You have to admit, it's a bit much

Except that some of the talk coming from Chicago interests is coming across just as silly.
 

THE DEGREE TO which some people seem prepared to fight to ensure that Willis remains on top of the heap.

Personally, I think the greater blow to the building’s image was when it lost its long-time “Sears Tower” name (even though that’s what I still think of it as). “Willis” just brings up to many dinky jokes about the “Diff’rent Strokes” television show.

I still wonder if an “Arnold Tower” (about half the height of Willis) will someday be built a couple of blocks away.

For the record, I’ll concede the simple fact. It’s the decorative ornamentation atop the new World Trade Center that would give it a claim to “tallest” building. The top floor of Willis Center is higher in the sky than the top floor of World Trade.

YET I DON’T think it matters much. And I think the people getting worked up on both sides are being silly. Chicago won't have one less homicide this year, or one more baseball victory, if the "tallest building" status stays here.

Now if we really wanted to respond to this in a true Chicago style, we’d try to one-up the new World Trade Center. We’d find a developer who’d come in and build a new gigantic skyscraper that would put World Trade in its place.

Perhaps it could even top those skyscrapers being built in Arab and Asian nations that have the title of “World’s Tallest” building. THAT was the distinction that should have gotten people all worked up when Chicago lost it.

But I’m realistic enough to know that no one’s going to build anything like that anytime soon in Chicago.

"Tallest building" status won't change what happened here

 

IT JUST WOULDN’T be practical. It would create a heck of a lot more vacant office-space that would wind up going unused.

And harming our own local economy just to prove a point about tall buildings? That would make us look even more absurd than the Noo Yawkers who these days are obsessed about World Trade Center’s status in the nation.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not touching the battle of which city has the better pizza. I don't think that thin crust stuff peddled as New York pizza is anything special, but the whole concept of "deep dish" is a completely different foodstuff that really ought not to be compared to it on any level.

Did you spend the weekend in the dark?

As a reporter-type person, I fully appreciate the reason why the big headlines during the weekend related to the severe storm that pushed through the Chicago area Friday night were related to mass transit and the one-time Sears Tower.

The latter structure that for many years was the world’s tallest had some of its windows knocked out by the winds that reached speeds of about 70 miles per hour. That’s a lot of shattered glass on the streets of the south Loop (and around the area, depending on how far the high winds blew it about).

WE SHOULD BE thankful that no one who happened to be in downtown Chicago Friday night was killed or severely maimed by glass shards flying through the air.

There also were the delays in running the Metra commuter trains for people trying to get home during the Friday evening rush hour – which is when that storm that spread across the United States and has now worked its way to the East Coast managed to hit Chicago.

It was an inconvenience experienced by many as crowds trying to get on board delayed trains meant a human backup that must have been unpleasant to experience – particularly on a night when most people were just eager to get home following yet another week of hard work.

Yet I also realize that when most people recall this weekend, they’re not going to think of it as the time that glass flew through the air above the Loop. Nor will they think much about the delay they experienced in getting home Friday night.

IF ANYTHING, THEY’RE going to recall the conditions they found once they got home.

Because those storms managed to play havoc with the electrical power lines, which meant that many people got home to find they had no electricity. Some people had to endure the entire weekend without electricity.

Considering that temperatures also reached the high-80s at times, that meant no air conditioning.

Which means it was a miserable weekend for many.

NOW I HAVE to confess that I was lucky. Where I live, our inconvenience was minimal.

When those winds hit our area at about 4:30 p.m. Friday, they created a situation where electrical power kept fading in and out.

At the time, I was using my laptop computer to try to write a story for someone willing to pay me some money for my work. While my laptop had a battery that immediately kept it going continuously, my electrical “loss” was that the lights kept going on and off, and the device that gives me a wireless connection to the Internet kept starting and stopping.

Which meant that one moment, I had Internet access, while another moment, I did not. I had to wait about a half-hour before I was able to verify a couple of facts I was using to write a story.

I WAS LUCKY in that power never was lost for more than a few seconds, and after about a half-hour it quit misbehaving. I didn’t lose power. Some 555,000 customers of Commonwealth Edison can’t make the same claim

That is more than I can say for many Chicago-area residents, some 64,000 of whom still hadn’t had their electricity restored as of Sunday morning. ComEd officials said the utility company expected most of those to be restored by day’s end.

But there were some people who came home Friday night without electricity, and never got it back. Perhaps they had to leave for work Monday morning, wondering what they would come home to (even though theoretically, they knew it was likely it would be restored by then).

In my case, the closest I personally came to such a case involved my father, who lives in a nearby town but happens to be on a vacation trip with my step-mother. His house lost power at about 5 p.m. Friday and did not get it restored until 11 a.m. Sunday.

HE PICKED THE perfect time to be away from the house, which as far as I can tell did not sustain any other weather-related damage. He will return Monday having to do little more than figure out which items in his refrigerator went bad because of the forty-plus hours it endured without electrical power. Not that everybody in the Chicago area was lucky enough to be on vacation when the storm struck.

For those who couldn’t find a friend or relative to impinge upon, it must have been a primative weekend – on account of how dependent our society has become on having a steady source of electicity to keep us going.

They get my sympathies because I recall the time I experienced a lengthy power outage in my residence. But that was for about 19 hours – most of which was overnight while I slept. I’m sure the sweaty, clammy conditions I woke up in that morning without electricity were nowhere near as bad as what some people experienced this weekend.

Which is why I almost wonder if those stories emphasizing the Willis Tower windows went so far as to trivialize the weekend. It may be a significant building in Chicago (and the United States), but I doubt it had much to do with what most people experienced during the weekend.

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I feel fortunate to have (thus far) avoided tornadoes and other natural disasters

Even before I read the news reports this weekend, I knew that there would be something resembling disaster very near to us. I just didn’t know which Illinois towns would make the datelines.

It turned out to be Streator and Dwight, as serious tornadoes that cut through the Midwestern United States caused severe damage in multiple states besides Illinois.

WHAT GAVE ME my inkling was having the television on late Saturday. I was listening to it more than watching it, but the nasty buzz of the Emergency Broadcast System is not something that can be ignored.

Which is why I happened to hear the warnings with their computer-generated mechanized voice telling literally where tornadoes were being seen, and warning people in those communities to take shelter immediately.

At the particular moment that caught my attention, the tornadoes were headed east near Chebanse, a town on the Will/Kankakee county line right on Interstate 57. My gut reaction upon hearing this was to think, “it’s skipping Chicago.”

Because that point is literally what many people would consider to be the boundary between the Chicago metropolitan area and the rest of Illinois (although I am aware that Kankakee residents to the south are a part of the Chicago broadcast market).

WHICH MEANS THAT by thinking it was skipping by Chicago, I literally breathed a sigh of relief. That doesn’t mean I’m glad we didn’t suffer while people in Dwight did. It means that am fully aware of the fact that I realize a tornado is the great equalizer of the Midwest.

A powerful enough funnel cloud can devastate miles-long stretches of rural land, or take down a city block. It plays no favorites.

As much as some people like to tell tacky jokes about tornadoes that involve mobile home communities, I have always wondered how severe the wreckage and fatalities would be if a funnel cloud were to touch down at the northeast corner of Wacker Drive and Jackson Boulevard (otherwise known as the Willis Tower).

It doesn’t even have to be the tallest bulding in Chicago. Anywhere in “the Loop” would be bad. Depending on what time it would strike, the potential for carnage is significant.

FOR THE RECORD, modern-day downtown Chicago (as in the past century) has never had a tornado touchdown. The last recorded one in the area now considered downtown was on May 6, 1876, with 11 other tornado “touchdowns” taking place since 1870 within what we now regard as the city limits.

Which makes me wonder if we’re overdue. I know, you’d rather I focus on whether the Chicago Blackhawks can win the Stanley Cup Wednesday, or if they’re going to drag this out until week’s end. Somehow, I think those people on the fringes of Chicago now have something much more real to worry about than pro hockey.

It also does not help that I still remember being a reporter-type person writing copy for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago on Aug. 28, 1990 when a tornado with winds exceeding 261 miles per hour struck suburban Plainfield.

It remains the most powerful tornado to ever hit the Chicago area, although the people who live in that Will County community still remember it as the moment when 29 people were suddenly killed – and another 350 injured.

I STILL REMEMBER the wreckage and rubble that suddenly erupted, comparable to what cut across the border between metro Chicago and central Illinois.

It remains to be seen how quickly those communities will be able to rebuild. It may even wind up becoming a positive story in watching how this weekend’s tornado victims are able to rebuild their lives after losing everything (while being thankful for whichever friends and relatives survived uninjured).

But I also will admit there is a difference between my seeing this kind of wreckage firsthand, and actually experiencing it – which is something I have not yet done in my life (and would not mind if I somehow managed to miss out on that experience).

The closest I can recall is back when I was 12 and saw funnel clouds developing in the skies above where I lived then in suburban Lansing. I still recall the feeling of dread while sitting in the basement, wondering at what moment the “destruction” would hit.

I WAS LUCKY. The funnel clouds I saw didn’t touch down anywhere close to where I lived then. I had a fortunate feeling that disaster had somehow skipped by me.

Similar to how I felt late Saturday when I was at the far southern end of Cook County near the Cook/Will border – hearing emergency warnings telling me that just one county away, potential existed for people to suffer.

That is too close for my comfort.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: From the serious to the overly dramatic, this pair of videos help remind us of that day nearly 20 years ago when the Chicago area was hit with its most powerful tornado ever.