• Construction start: 1965
• Construction finish: 1969
• Designed by: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
• Cost: $95,000,000
• Renovated: 1994-1995: Lower level and garden plaza renovated by Hiltscher Shapiro
• Type: Skyscraper
• Stories: 100
• Maximum Height: 1,506 feet / 459 meters

• Height to tower roof: 1,106 feet, six inches.
• Height to penthouse roof: 1,127 feet.
• Height to top of east antenna: 1,506.25 feet.
• Size at base: 47,000 square feet
• Size at top: 17,000 square feet
• Steel used: 46,000 tons.
• Designed by: Bruce J. Graham and Fazlur R. Khan
• Developer: Jerry Wolman
• Elevators: 42
• Stairs from the lobby to the observation deck: 1,632.
• Light tubed on the 99th floor: 555. It takes 40-50 hours to change the tinted sleeves over the tubes by hand.
• Parking spaces: 750.
• Office floor space: 897,000 square feet
• Retail floor space: 171,800 square feet
• Observation deck floor space: 17,400 square feet
• Commercial address: 875 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611
• Residential address: 175 East Delaware Place, Chicago, Illinois 60611

• 1965: Plans for the John Hancock Center are announced.
• 1969: Construction is completed.
• 1972: The Hancock Center is surpassed by the Standard Oil Building (now the Aon Center) as the tallest building in Chicago.
• 1973: The residential portion of this building converts from apartments to condominiums.
• June, 1988: Plans are announced to replace the sunken plaza in front with a three-story glass-enclosed shopping mall.
• November 11, 1981: Stuntman Dan Goodwin climbs the outside of the building. It takes him six hours to get to the top.
• 1989: The mall plan is scuttled by residents and critics.
• May, 1997: The 94th floor observatory reopens after a $2.5 million renovation.
• December 18, 1997: Comedian Chris Farley dies in his home on the 60th floor.
• March 9, 2002: Three women were killed when a scaffold broke apart in high winds and rained debris on the street below, crushing two cars.
• August 10, 2006: WLS Television reports the John Hancock Center could be sold.
• 2007: This building is sold for $383 million.

• This was formerly the location of a surface parking lot.
• At the time of its completion, this was the tallest building in Chicago, surpassing the Daley Center.
• There is a public observation deck on the 94th floor. It is 1,000 feet above Michigan Avenue.
• The restaurant on the 95th floor of this building was formerly called The 95th. It is now The Signature Room.
• One section of the observation deck is open to the outside, but is still screened in.
• The Hancock Center has 2,800,000 square feet of space.
• 47 floors of the Hancock Center are residential. It is like a city unto itself, and people do not have to leave the building. The people who live there have their own post office, supermarket, day care center, shops, full-sized swimming pool, library, gym, and other amenities.
• Because the building is tapered, homes on different levels have different amounts of space even if they have the same floorplan.
• The most coveted views are to the North, overlooking Lincoln Park, and where there is less noise from the city.
• The second-most popular view is to the West over the suburbs and spectacular sunsets, followed by the South view of the city.
• East views are least popular, especially on higher floors, because the blue lake melds with the blue sky and there's not much to see other than blue.
• Some Southern views are problematic because they overlook the roof of Water Tower Place. Residents complain that it's like having a parking lot outside their windows.
• At the time it was completed, this building had 720 apartments. That number has been reduced as various units were combined to make larger homes.
• *The residential portion of the building has three elevator banks. One for freight, one for passengers, and one for emergency evacuations.
• This building and others surrounding it were erected at the location of the first City of Chicago cemetery. While all of the graves were supposed to have been moved to the former cemetery in what is now Lincoln Park construction in the area still turns up the occasional body.
• Before the 2009 switchover to digital television the Hancock Center's two masts carried the transmitting antennae for ten TV stations and five backup TV transmitters.
• The Eastern mast is the taller of the two. It is 1,503 feet and three inches from the ground to the tip.
• For decades the Signature Room, the restaurant at the top of the Hancock, would keep its wine in a wine cellar -- literally. Even though the restaurant is on the 94th floor, wine was kept in the basement and brought up as needed. All of the wine was moved upstairs around 2000.
• The studios of WLUP Radio are in this building.
• The studios of WUSN Radio are in this building.
• The Hancock elevators are billed as the fastest in America, climbing 95 stories in 40 seconds.
• Famed architect Mies van der Rohe once designed a skyscraper for this plot, but it was never built and today's John Hancock Center took its place.
• The women's bathrooms at the 96th floor bar are routinely named the best in the city, in no small part because of the view.

• On a clear day it is possible to see Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
  
• The garden plaza in front of the John Hancock Center once had a public ice skating rink.
  
• Though not visible from the outside, many of the residences in this building have screened-in balconies known as "sky terraces."
  
• Comedian and actor Chris Farley died in this building. He lived in 6002 (60th floor).
  
• The residential portion of the building is its own election district. People who live here can vote without going below the 44th floor.

• Both the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center have observation decks. The John Hancock Center has the better view, so if time or money are precious you can skip the Sears Tower.
• Long lines form for the observation deck in the warmer months, so it is worth your while to buy and print tickets in advance on the internet so you can jump to the head of the line.
• You must go down to go up. The entrance to the observatory is below ground. There are plenty of signs directing people down to the entrance, but some people find it hard to believe that they would need to descend stairs when their goal is 1,000 feet above their heads.

• The building's signature cross braces, each 18 stories tall.

• When this project was proposed there was fierce opposition because it would increase traffic in the area.
• Critics panned the design as reminiscent of an oil derrick.

• "It is, without a doubt, the best super-tall tower in town."

  -Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1996

• "The Hancock... looks mighty great from afar, and mighty dorky from the main entrance... Up close, the Hancock is all warts. The south lobby... looks like a Prague train station... The Grand Avenue subway is about as nice and it has gum machines... The north lobby, where people go to live in this thing, is as jolly as a marble-clad boxcar on a siding in Kansas City."

  -Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1988

• A diagram of what's on the two massive antennae on top of the John Hancock Center

There are eight comments.

  I like how it makes the skyline stand out that much more when it's design is trapezoidal. Just think, this was Chicago's first super-tall skyscraper. Sadly, it will be the city's 5th tallest building by 2012.

Brent Kampert - Saturday, October 18th, 2008 @ 3:12pm  

  The observatory of Hancock have bette. view then sky dack of Sears Tower. If you haven't possibility to visit bouth, choose Hanckock.

Vistex - Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 @ 12:23pm  

  These are the highest residences in the world -- for now, at least.

Cris Novak - Saturday, May 24th, 2008 @ 2:29pm  

  This is classic Chicago. It's what makes people proud to be from the midwest. It shows that anyone who considers this to be nothing more than a "flyover state" is really just ignorant.

Aaron Burger - Saturday, May 24th, 2008 @ 12:41pm  

  I haven't been in this building in about 7 years, but the last time I was there, I was at the bar on the 96th floor late at night. The view was breathtaking, and Navy pier looked so beautiful lit up. It was unforgettable.

Dave - Monday, December 31st, 2007 @ 2:31pm  

  I love what this building evokes. It's stance and positioning to the north give it a certain air of authority, like a sentinel watching over the city. The forced perspective and exoskeletal-like exterior give it a menacing look. With all that communications hardware up top there's a certain (fictional) military aesthetic at work here. It's like if Darth Vader ever built himself a skyscraper this would be it. I'd like to see firms come up with more structural innovations like SOM did with this building and push architecture in different and even more interesting directions.

Aurelius - Thursday, October 11th, 2007 @ 11:12am  

  I'm from NY, but I truly think Chicago is the city of innovative archtecture - way beyond NYC. Chicago is not afraid of moving into the future with ground-breaking, spectacular heights and designs. It was mind blowing when I was a kid, seeing photos of the Sears Tower and Big John. That's what got me hooked into being an Architect. Don't get me wrong, the Chrysler Building is still one of my favorites, but Big John, because of its straight forward disign and angles (looking like a Texas oil rig emerging into the middle of a congested skyline) is an amazing look! It has such great views from the top; in my opinion, they're the best in Chicogo.

Digital Junkie - Monday, July 23rd, 2007 @ 2:46am  

  The John Hancock building (Big John) is my view every day. I could choose the lake, turn toward the Sears Tower or watch the Trump Tower being built, but there is something imposing about the John Hancock that literally "trumps" the other buildings of Chicago.My favorite build anywhere and I been to lots of big cities. NY, HK, KL, all have claims but Chicago is the king.

Travis Hill - Monday, April 3rd, 2006 @ 4:38pm