Mather Tower

Art by: Chris Hytha

**Story by: ** Mark Houser

Thirty years after Chicago curtailed its skyscrapers with a strict height limit, a 1923 zoning ordinance let towers exceed the 264-foot cutoff as long as they occupied no more than a quarter of the lot. This telescoped highrise took advantage, soon welcoming sightseers to the city's highest observation platform. Under the original plans, visitors could have waved to other sightseers on a twin tower about 100 feet away, but the second on Michigan Avenue never got past the drawing board.

Owner Alonzo Mather, from the same family as Puritan preacher Cotton Mather, built a company that manufactured and leased railcars for transporting livestock. The well-traveled tycoon also proposed building a bridge across the Niagara River from Buffalo to Canada, with turbines suspended in the surging current underneath to supply electrical power. Permitting delays dissuaded Mather, but a bridge was eventually constructed there, flanked by a Canadian park named after him.

Once prized by artists, ad agencies, and design studios for its abundant natural light, the tower is now a hotel, and its marble lobby staircase gleams almost as brightly as the new cupola. Weather and wind made the original structurally unsound, so it was removed in 2000 and a replacement was plunked on via helicopter.