Autobiography of a Skyscraper

The magnitude of error in building a skyscraper is staggeringly large. Flaws in engineering take on exponential importance with every level you go up. The cost of mistakes can easily multiply into tens of millions of dollars. If a piece of plywood isn’t secured properly and flies off the deck, someone down below might end up dead. That’s the horror of the business. It’s also the beauty.

Autobiography of a Skyscraper—documenting in both words and pictures the making of 1000M, a 74-story gleaming tower in the heart of Chicago—is the story of the most dynamic workplace one could ever imagine. From the financiers who secure the many hundreds of millions of dollars needed for construction to the installers who jump atop the window frames from nearly a thousand feet up in the air, hundreds of people work together in the miracle of organization that is building a skyscraper. It is an orchestra, where no matter how small the part, everyone must play in tune and together.

The conductor of this particular orchestra is Francis Greenburger, a real estate titan with nearly half a century of investing in and developing properties around the world. However, just as 1000M was built by a wide array of skills, so Autobiography of a Skyscraper weaves the personal accounts of many of those involved into a single narrative of how a tower rises. Unlike traditional books on architecture and construction, it marries instructive and technical elements with the intimacy and pace of a memoir.

Architecture or urban planning buffs will be given a wide lens into understanding the impact of their work. For the casual reader, they will see the extent to which there’s a gripping story behind every building in the sky. Autobiography of a Skyscraper will not only serve as a written record of this significant architectural addition to Chicago, but also as a blueprint for real estate developers, financial institutions, architects, city planners, designers, construction workers, and anybody else interested in what it takes to change a city’s skyline.

A highly original inside look at how vision becomes reality in constructing the modern urban landscape.

Building a skyscraper requires more than steel and concrete—it takes a wide array of people, each with their particular skills. In Autobiography of a Skyscraper, legendary developer Francis Greenburger offers an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the construction of Chicago''s 1000M tower, describing the way almost 1,000 people—from concrete workers to concierges, architects to investors—transformed an empty lot into a 74-story landmark.

“Real estate isn''t about property; it''s about people,” Greenburger reflects in this book that, throughout, underscores his point. This is the story of an Italian immigrant who bet his family''s entire inheritance on a hole in the ground; of window installers dancing on narrow ledges 800 feet above Michigan Avenue; of a chief concierge managing a community of 700 residents across 80,000 square feet of amenities; and of the safety manager who "babysits grown men" to keep them safe hundreds of feet in the air. These and dozens more stories turn the spotlight on the extraordinary people who brought 1000M to life and keep it running today.

The story unfolds with cinematic scope—helicopter shoots for marketing renderings, midnight crane installations, the delicate negotiation of moving a 5,000-pound marble sculpture through a lobby before the revolving doors are installed. Yet it never loses sight of the human scale: the leasing agent explaining why closet space matters more than square footage, the chief engineer worried about scuff marks on hand-applied Venetian plaster, the resident finding inner peace playing Bach on the communal grand piano.

Autobiography of a Skyscraper arrives at a moment when cities worldwide are grappling with questions of growth, community, and what it means to build for the future. Through the lens of one remarkable building, Greenburger and Paley have created both a paean to the collaborative spirit of urban creation and an intimate portrait of how, against all odds, a vision can become reality.