CHICAGO | Marina City | 587 FT / 179 M | 61 FLOORS | 1962
 

Marina city is a corncob-shaped building that is all Resi and was once the tallest all resi building in the world.
It has also been called the city within a city because it has a Gym,Theatre (now the house of blue's), Swimming pool, Ice rink, bowling alley, Several stores and restaurants and.... you guessed it! A marina.
Those facts are from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_City


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...inacity466.JPG

This Pic is also from wiki.

home sweet home.

i live on the 33rd floor of the west tower. these are truly some of the coolest, funkiest, most future-forward residential skyscrapers anywhere in the world. it is a privilege to live amongst and within such fantastic modern architecture.

These buildings have a special significance for me, since as a kid we used to visit a friend that had moved there shortly after they were built. Quite a thrill for a 10 year old! Don't remember what floor, but her apartment face east. They were ultra modern then, and even though lost in sea of newer buildings, they still make a powerfull statement today!

Thay are very nice towers.
its cool how they have there own marina.
hay steely dan since you live there if you wanted to could you buy a boat and put it in the marina? or something.

i love these buildings... I'm pretty stoked because this weekend I'm visiting Chicago and will be staying in the Amalfi Hotel and if google maps is correct, that hotel is right across from these awesome buildings. :tup:

Some pics I took last October:

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...MarinaCity.jpg

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...arinaCity5.jpg

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...arinaCity3.jpg

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...oRiver17-1.jpg

These are not my favorite buildings in Chicago but I understand that the concept of the "city within the city" could be innovative for the end of the 50's , I don't know many things about architecture and urbanism but this concept make me think about Le Corbusier's Unités d'habitation in Marseille or Firminy (very close to St etienne) with the on-site facilities too: school, stores, library, swimming pool, day care center... Am I wrong if I make this parallel? :shrug:

i don't know what kind of wait list there is for slips down in the marina, there are only spaces for 2 dozen or so boats, so i'd assume that those slips are in extremely high demand and are thus very, very pricey.

and in any event, i don't have the money for a boat right now, and even if i did i sure as hell wouldn't buy a power boat, i'd only being interested in a sailboat, which, given all the of the bridges on the river, would be impossible to keep at marina city's docks.

Oh! I thout that people who live there get free space in the marina or something.

ha, there's nowhere near enough slips in that tiny marina for that. like i said, the marina might have slips for 2 dozen or so boats, whereas there are over 950 units between the two residential towers of marina city.

Here's a couple of pix I took like half way up it.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...P/DSC00620.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...P/DSC00622.jpg



And at the very top

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...P/DSC00641.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...P/DSC00642.jpg

steely dan
wow
thats alot of people since there are about 2 or 3 people per unit. or more. or less.

I've never much cared for the designs themselves, but I do like the 'city within a city' concept that these towers have. They're very innovative for their time though. All in all a pair of good iconic buildings.

I love the design. It's not really sleek or anything special but the design is great to me. The balconies make it even better.

just in case anyone is curious what the buildings look like on the inside, here are some pics of my unit and some pics from my balcony.

http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/4...terior1pe9.jpg

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/7...terior4wa6.jpg

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/2261/view4nv5.jpg

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/2038/view1gf3.jpg

Wow
nice place!
great views!

Steely Dan,

We were in town about a month ago and stayed across from Trump at Hotel 71 (great hotel in my opinion) nearly across from Marina City, and most mornings having breakfast the bakery downstairs i was wondering about the parking. Does everybody in the building back into their spots - just because it's convenient, or is that a rule for parking? I never once saw a car nose first in a spot.

Just curious.


....great city, can't wait to come back!

:previous: Dan, has the glass always been like that? Or have they replaces it over the years? it looks very modern, the thing is that from the streets, you can barely see the glass, becuase of the balconies. And one last question, how do you go about parking? OMG, i would not love to park at the 19th floor, i would vomit or something, or think im going up the mountain in Colombia!!:haha: Still, your apartment/condo looks amazing, very modern, and the views you have are just ones to kill for.!!:notacrook:

all parking in marina city's garages is strictly valet only, meaning that no one from the general public is allowed to park their own car on the parking ramps. the valets who park the cars have obviously found that it's easier to back into the spaces as opposed to pulling into them head first, hence why you always see the cars parked in backwards.






i think the glass is original, but i really don't know as i've only lived here for a year and a half. i suppose it's possible that at some point in the last 40 years the glazing has all been replaced, but the window system - the mullions, sills, heads, etc. - all look original to me.





as i told Biff, all parking in the garages is done by valets. also, i don't own a car, so the functional practicalities (or lack thereof) of the garage have never concerned me.

Good Lord, I'm jealous. :irked: And I for one also think these buildings are awesome and unique.

Alright Steely Dan, not that I expect you to disclose all this, but how old are you, what do you do, and how much for the place? I am seriously green with envy because I as a young 20-something fresh outta college would kill to get a pad like that in a nice urban area. :(

Steely dan

Are there any families that live there because that place of yours looks a little to small for a family.

I bet they do valet parking because of that 70's action movie where there is a car chase in the garage (the Hunted?). Don't pull in nose first, you'll fly right off the edge into the Chicago River! Steve McQueen wannabes...:haha:

• Video Link

there really aren't many families with children who live here. the vast majority of residents are young singles, childless couples, or retirees. my unit looks small because it is small. it's a 500 sq. ft. studio with a 175 sq. ft. balcony. it certainly ain't large, but it's more than enough for me; i've never really been a "stuff" person and i eschew the accumulation of pointless material possessions.



i'm a bachelor in my early 30s, i work as a project manager, and i bought the place for $165,000 in october of '06.

Actually!
people have driven a car off marina city.:haha:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfmYwpRVvj0
Take a LOOK!!!
It was for a allstate commercial

Steely Dan, you have a great place!

Why no picture of you sitting on the couch? :)

Steely Dan nice pad! You have a huge deck though you should use it.

I'm seriously jealous Steely, sick place.

Vanman's right, get a Lazy Boy out on the balcony.

Guys I do use my balcony, those pics I posted were from when I first moved in. I now have a table and chairs, a lounge chair, and a grill out there.

wow!
That balcony can support all that?

A Noguchi Table. In Marina City. Your creds were already top of the line in this forum, IMHO. This is icing.

I wish I could live in an architectural landmark!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...CHICAGO456.jpg

thanks for the props, though I wish I had enough cred to tell you that it's a real deal Noguchi from Herman Miller, but I didn't have $1600 to blow on a coffee table, so I got the $400 Modernica knock-off instead.

Dan since everyone is asking you questions might as well ask one...
or anyone else that can answer it...
you know how they constructed the inner tube thingy first and that tube thingy shows on the top like 5 stories higher than the last floor... was wondering if they were planning to go higher when building it?

the core of the building extends past the visible 'top' of the building because of the equipment housed above the tower. it's called a mechanical penthouse. and i believe there are 3 mechanical floors + one floor for the roof deck... here is one of the original drawings:
http://www.bertrandgoldberg.org/work...s_xl/mar13.jpg

:tup:

no, they were not planning to go higher when building it. as adrian said, the reason the core extends above the main roof line is for the mechanical penthouse which houses all of the elevator machinery and other building systems equipment. the exposed mechanical penthouse is very common feature of residential highrises of that era, and it's still a feature you see on some highrises today.

^ I am seriously jealous. Getting a unit in a cultural icon like that for such a price just blows my mind.

Now if only I can find a job close by. Unfortunately, I'll likely be stuck living an hour outside Chicago... :(

I was actually there when they filmed that. I got up at 6am on a Sunday to go watch that, it was pretty sweet!

Ah....so no lazy boy?

Wow
That must of been really cool.
May i ask what year was it?

The video that adrian posted said that the marina can hold 700 boats.

^That can't be correct. . . I would be surprised if you had enough slips for 50 boats. . .

well, i didn't watch the video, but if that's what the video said, then it's simply wrong. i live here, i've been down to the marina level several times, and i can tell you in no uncertain terms that the marina holds about 2 dozen boats, maybe 3 dozen if they're small.






ewwwwww....... a lazy boy? i would never desecrate the modern magnificence of marina city by bringing within its walls the crass, bloated, awfulness of a lazy boy, quite possibly the ugliest piece of furniture in the world. if i was that hell bent on raw comfort, i'd at least have the good sense to get an Eames chair knock-off ;).




of course, my balcony is 175 sq. ft., it's gigantic by typical highrise balcony standards. i have a table out there that can seat up to 8 people comfortably, along with my lounge chair and grill.

They may not be pretty, but wouldn't it be nice to sit out on the deck in a recliner surfing SSP?

Umm, lets see it was the fall when I was a freshmen in college, so 2006? It was right after I joined this forum. I wanna say October?

dan, you should watch that documentary... it's really cool.
and it does say 700 boats, which is obviously an error, because the area that 700 boats would occupy would be more than ten times the size of that tiny marina. i'd be surprised if dusable harbor held 700 boats... nonetheless... the video is a must watch.

I believe they were including out of water storage. You can see it somewhat here: http://www.bertrandgoldberg.org/work...es_xl/mar7.jpg

oh!
i get it now.

ahhh, there is some out of water boat storage down there, but there's nowhere near enough space for 700 boats out of water, at least not now anyway. maybe when the complex was first envisioned they thought the whole marina level would be used for out of water boat storage, but clearly that idea didn't take off because the space down there has been carved up for lots of other uses. it's been a while since i've been down in the labyrinthine subterranean world beneath the MC complex, i'm gonna poke my head around down there tonight, though the rats can be off-putting.

maybe they meant to say: space for 700 canoes?

There still is a railroad crossbuck down there on lower Carroll Avenue for the old defunct railroad tracks crossing where one would enter the marina area. Its pretty cool. :cool: